Directed By – Roar Uthaug
Starring – Alicia Vikander; Walton Goggins; Dominic West; Kristen Scott Thomas; Daniel Wu; Nick Frost: Jaime Winstone.
It took 17 years’ and one brilliant rebooted game to not only get rid of the Angelina Jolie films to finally get the best video game adaption ever thanks to previous Christopher Nolan movie. Granted it’s not a high bar, but director (and brilliantly named) Roar Uthaug and Alicia Vikander have just raised it.
Tomb Raider follows Lara Croft (Vikander) embarking on a dangerous journey in search of her dad’s last known destination in which she’ll push her body and mind to the limits as she journeys into the unknown.
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| IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS/ METRO GOLDWYN-MAYER |
This is a brilliant showcase of Vikander’s skills as an action hero as we all knew the Oscar winner can act but she can now add being a believable kick-ass! Vikander gave Lara heart, strength and vulnerability. What’s great is because of that she isn’t perfect from the beginning as we see her fail a fair bit and learn from them.
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| IMAGE VIA ILZE KITSHOFF/ WARNER BROS/ MGM |
In a lot of ways, Tomb Raider is similar to Batman Begins as we see Lara grow throughout and tackle each hurdle that comes to her, but also has an Indiana Jones vibe too. As they balance the action adventure with humour.
As first time director in both a studio film and English language film, Uthaug has does a fantastic job bring the character and game to life as there were moments watching the film I could imagine having a control in front of me and actually playing along, but he also bought some realistic humour to one set-piece.
The story, action, puzzles and Lara's journey were great and helped with the smooth pace of the runtime as this was a worry I had going in, but luckily I was glued to screen the whole time.
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| IMAGE VIA ILZE KITSHOFF/ WARNER BROS/ MGM |
Elsewhere, for the gamers out there is film does loosely follow the 2013 game but what’s great is we learn a lot about Lara and as I said above it does sometimes feel like you’re playing a game.
This is down to the brilliant script of Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons with Robertson-Dworet coming up with the story. The reason I’m highlighting this is because you’ll be seeing a lot more from Robertson-Dworet as this script will make her one of the go-to writers in Hollywood.
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| IMAGE VIA GRAHAM BARTHOLOMEW/ WARNER BROS/ MGM |
This will be the part that’ll annoy DCU fans as Junkie XL (who got kicked off Justice League and went to Tomb Raider) has done a superb job with the score and the soundtrack is awesome and you can’t help but wonder what he could’ve done with the DC Films superhero team-up.
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| IMAGE VIA GRAHAM BARTHOLOMEW/ WARNER BROS/ MGM |
The only let down is how little the supporting characters actually do as Walton Goggins is a paint-by-numbers villain, though sometimes there is a scary no-nonsense side that comes out. Meanwhile, Dominic West, Daniel Wu and Kristen Scott Thomas did next to nothing.
Finally, I will be hoping for a sequel as Uthaug, Vikander and Robertson-Dworet have laid a solid base to build on to maybe make this a franchise.
Verdict
The best video game movie ever and a great beginning to a possible franchise as this was every much Tomb Raider: Lara Croft Begins.
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