1231. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Iain Glen, Daniel Craig

Director: Simon West

Running Time: 100 mins

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is an American film about an archaeologist who attempts to recover a mysterious artefact that can take control of time before it is reached by the evil Illuminati.

This is a completely ridiculous film, but that’s the whole part of its appeal. It’s such an insane, action-packed and senseless movie that it’s actually a heap of fun to watch. Whilst it may at times make absolutely no sense whatsoever, and at others feel incredibly dated, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider does what all video game adaptations should do, and make a consistently fun and mad film to watch.

The best thing about this film is that it really does feel like a video game. Rather than going overly in-depth with its story, the main aim of this movie is to provide a fun watch, and that’s exactly what it does, mainly by keeping the exposition to a minimum, and the entertainment factor to a maximum.

This is a really action-packed movie. Seriously, it’s chock-a-block with gunfights, Lara Croft being attacked by random spirit statue things and all sorts. Of course, with such a poor story, there’s no emotional excitement to the action, but the fact that there is just so much of it means you can allow yourself to turn your brain off and watch the madness explode in front of you.

Now, we move onto the performances, which are both good, and bad. Angelina Jolie, despite the accent she puts on, is pretty good, and makes Lara Croft a really likeable presence with her action prowess and flirty performance. The rest of the cast doesn’t really have as much to do. Iain Glen plays the main villain, and he’s just a villain: nothing more, nothing less, but nothing to really care about, whilst Daniel Craig plays the on-off love interest for Croft, with one of the worst American accents I’ve ever heard, and again, doesn’t really do anything particularly worthy of huge praise.

But it’s the story where this gets really stupid. I definitely enjoyed the film, because of its mad action and video game feel, but the plot is so non-sensical that it’s got to get some marks off. Of course, 90s video games were never renowned for their incredible storytelling ability, it was their fun and enjoyability that made them so popular, and it’s the same case here.

This is basically a cross between James Bond and Indiana Jones, and it turns out just as insane as you’d expect. The mix between normal action and fantasy isn’t one bit believable, whilst sometimes, particularly during the manic ending, there were things happening on screen that I couldn’t make head or tail of, because with such little exposition and focus on the plot, it does become very ridiculous very quickly.

Overall, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a fun, harmless action movie. It could have gone down the dull route that some video game adaptations take by over-indulging in its story, but in the end, it takes the approach that makes for a mad, action-packed rollercoaster, and that’s why it gets a 6.6 from me.