Grade: C+
Roar Uthaug’s “Tomb Raider” (based on the popular videogame
series) is a reboot; an origin story for archeologist/ treasure seeker/athlete/badass
Lara Croft. That sounds like a good idea. After all, we like to learn how our
superheroes came to be. Unfortunately, Uthaug’s film is remarkably simple and
breezy--often generic but light on its feet and never flat out wretched. The
action is occasionally gripping. For being just under two hours it goes by very
quickly. Overall, Tomb Raider” plays like a thoroughly mediocre (with splashes
of fun) one off action flick.
That sounds like a mild compliment rather than a criticism
but “Tomb Raider” also has the burden of setting up a new film franchise/
character. In that context, it feels like a hectic, forgettable warm up rather
than a substantial origin story.
“Tomb Raider” moves along at a snappy pace. The action
begins in London with our heroine in the making Lara (Alicia Vikander) as a
young and intelligent but misguided woman, working as a bike riding food
deliverer and practicing Mixed Martial Arts on the side. She holds out hope
that one day she will reconnect with her explorer/billionaire father, (played
by Dominic West) who went missing searching for an ancient Japanese Queen’s
tomb.
That day comes fast. Lara uncovers her father’s research
and races across stormy Pacific waters to an uninhabited island to find him.
There, an expedition, sponsored by a shadowy organization called Trinity and
lead by a deranged archeologist named Mathias (Walton Goggins, effortlessly
menacing) is taking place to recover the contents of the tomb.
And well, that’s pretty much
it. “Tomb Raider” is thin on substance; Mathias is underdeveloped as a villain
while the central mystery involving the Japanese Princess is vague and not all
that compelling or elaborate. The script by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons doesn’t devote much time to archeological
work or clue hunting outside of a few dull montages of Lara furiously digging
through her father’s research. I get that she’s a novice but you’d think that
the first mystery (the mystery that gives her her life’s calling) would be just
a little more intricately wound and fleshed out.
The vagueness of the Japanese Queen mystery is partly
intentional so that the movie can drop a twist on us during the climax, set in
The Queen’s booby-trapped tomb. But this twist is rote and not worth the build
up. Even worse, in its primary goal of setting up a new franchise, the picture
ends with another uninspired twist
and one of those cheap “our-hero-will-return” cliffhangers that made me roll my
eyes.
Of course, the father-daughter relationship is more the
focal point here than the Japanese Queen stuff and that dynamic is gently
touching. (West and Vikander share a few strong moments onscreen). But like the
rest of the film, their relationship is rushed and not all that deep. Too often
it settles for skin deep, saccharine flashbacks featuring Lara as a girl.
Vikander is quite good, playing Lara with an engrossing
combination of toughness and vulnerability. She’s incredibly intelligent and
resourceful but expectedly inexperienced. During the action sequences, (one of
which involves her floating down mighty rapids and hanging on to a rusty
airplane wreck over a massive waterfall) she proves to be strong and feisty but
also reckless and unrefined. She gets hurt and sometimes cries out into pain.
Lara is not the seasoned badass yet.
The film’s combination of comedy and dark drama (Mathias
relies on slave labor for his expedition) doesn’t always cohere tonally. In
fact most of the attempts at humor feel forced; an extended scene featuring
Nick Frost as a cheeky pawnshop owner is tedious from the get go. Meanwhile,
all of the witty banter between Lara and supporting characters falls flat.
In the end, “Tomb Raider” does its job in setting up a new
franchise (that may or many not continue) and does so in lightly pleasing but
mostly mediocre fashion.
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