Not That Kind of Croft
For a character that holds the Guinness World Record for being the “Best-Selling Video Game Heroine”, modern day Lara Croft is almost unrecognizable from her PlayStation origins. Choosing to use the recent reboot of the game series as a template, Tomb Raider strips away the dated sex-appeal and cocky self-assurance of the old Lucozade-guzzling Lara, instead opting for a more vulnerable, less focused version, portrayed in this instance by Alicia Vikander. It’s an approach that worked wonders for the games, but while Vikander’s Croft fits the bill, the rest of the movie is stuck in the past.
Lara’s adventures begin not in some old creaky tomb or an pictureesque locale but in Shoreditch, where she scrapes by working as a courier and spends her wages on combat training. Having difficulty coming to terms with the disappearance of her father (Dominic West) seven years ago, she refuses to sign his life away in favour of a grandiose inheritance, instead insisting on standing on her own two feet. To the film’s credit, this revised origin does a great job in establishing modern Croft as a survivor, long before the real adventure begins.
The discovery of ancient Japanese myth and some hammy flashbacks give Lara all the excuses she needs to set out in search of daddy dearest. Pairing up with drunken sailor Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), she sets sail for a remote Pacific island in her quest for clues. Upon arrival, however, she finds herself up against a location populated with the usual adventure movie tropes and an undeterred yet uninspired villain in Vogal (Walton Goggins). Lara may no longer be invincible, but this is one blockbuster that plays it far too safe.
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The Usual Pitfalls
It’s not hard to see why Norwegian director Roar Uthaugh was chosen to helm Lara’s grand return to the silver screen. Tomb Raider has a staggering amount of set-pieces and with Lara 2.0 yet to graduate from the Dr. Jones School of Archaeology, who better than the man that brought us disaster flick The Wave to put her through the ringer. But while some of the perils showcase some great special effects, we never really feel that Lara is in any sort of danger.
Sure, we see Vikander bloodied, bruised and battered, but she never succumbs to the pressure. Part of what makes the new Tomb Raider games so enjoyable is that Lara often struggles and breaks down, both physically and emotionally, before having a quiet word with herself and adapting to her surroundings. We don’t get that in this interpretation. And while Vikander does her best to live into the role, the script would have benefited from showing Lara’s emotional journey from hipster to bad-ass, rather than simply fling a series of disasters in her path. What could have been a lighter version of The Revenant ends up looking like just another Indiana Jones clone.
Non-Playable Characters
Given the history of the character on screen, expectations may be naturally low heading into Tomb Raider, one might expect Vikander’s performance alone to be the crucial component that sets it apart from its predecessors. The turn-of-the-millennium money spinners that starred Angelina Jolie were summer blockbuster nonsense through-and-through and anyone hoping for a much better video game adaptation will be left sorely disappointed. Too often does the film rely on style over substance, leaving the cast to do nothing more but fill in the blanks and play second fiddle to over-the-top set-pieces.
Walton Goggins does his best with an underwritten baddie, whose given little to do other than repeat his motives and wipe the sweat of his forehead for most of the film. Kristen Scott Thomas and Nick Frost are more memorable in their criminally minor roles, but the biggest concern comes from Dominic West, who in his endevours to play the heroic yet enigmatic Croft Sr. comes across as weird, smothering and even a little creepy.
Game Over?
What should have been a fun blockbuster adventure gets too bogged down in the weight of its own mythology, which it approaches with zero humour or impulsiveness. Scenes which er on the side of supernatural and intrigue are predictable and uninteresting. What’s more is that the film is riddled with so many gaping plot holes, that even Lara herself would find it difficult to swing across them.
I predict that a sequel may already be in the works, but while I’d welcome further outings of Vikander’s Croft any day of the week, there’s a lot of ground to cover if we’re to expect anything more from this series. Lara’s own mantra sums it up perfectly – “There’s jobs to be done.”
For me, the biggest misstep comes from the film’s constant hand-holding, shoving the audience along from one action sequence to the next. Throught the film, Lara solves intricate puzzles boxes, opens long sealed tombs and disarms the occassional booby trap. But at no point does the action stop to bring the audience in on the game, instead solving each mystery in the blink of an eye. Think about the final act of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and how Harrison Ford et al. explain their working out every step of the way. There’s none of that in Tomb Raider. Instead it’s like watching your friend play a computer game and at no point offering to let you have a go.
Verdict
Alicia Vikander gives the popular video game heroine solid footing in this trial-by-fire origin story. However, the treasures of this tomb were raided long ago, leaving us with not much left other than a run-of-the-mill adventure film that borrows too much from those who have done it better.
