Tomb Raider Review
by Ishmael Williams
Okay, let's get right to it. I went to this movie expecting nothing. And
was still disappointed.
As an action-adventure flick, it had all of the basic elements, jumping,
leaping, ingenuity, wise cracks, an almost too smart for their own good
heroine. You know, the stuff legends are made of.
Somehow, none of this really gelled for me. I thought the movie was fun,
but seriously flawed.
To say the pacing was uneven is to imply that San Francisco is level.
Action sequences were good, but often too short, except for the movie's key
scene. Bungee jumping has never been that much fun, but it went a little
too long. And just when you thought it was over, there was more on the
floor action to follow. Really successful films know when to cut the action
sequence and get on with the story.
But the non action scenes, "the story", were too slow. And quiet. And
almost, well, boring. They did nothing that made me care about anyone's
motivation on the side of the good guys, and the bad guy's motivations were
murky at best. This movie also breaks a cardinal rule, which is an attempt
to make someone near and dear to the heroine's heart one of the bad guys.
This dilutes her already weak motivation, and frankly, wasn't necessary.
On the plus side, i did like Ms. Jolie in the title role of Lara Croft,
physical augmentation and all. I thought she did the action scenes well,
and tried to hold her own with the material with which she worked. Then we
go back to minuses. John Voight's cameo was a waste of talent. The bad
guys weren't particularly bad, evil, menacing, smarmy or deadly charming
enough to warrant anyone's attention. either Indiana Jones, Ellen Ripley or
John McClane would have dispatched them in short order like an appetizer and
then gone looking for the main course.
It is good to remember that this movie is based on a video game series. And
a rather successful series at that, I am told. I've never played the game
of Tomb Raider, so as to it's accuracy with the source material I cannot
speak. But to my memory, which admittedly may be faulty, there has only
been one other movie-translated-from-a-video-game. I think, from a dialogue
standpoint, I liked that one better than Tomb Raider. but obviously, big
budget, live action action adventure flicks should never be done from video
games.
As for beakers, well, i give it one-half a beaker, because some of the
action sequences WERE fun. But that's about it.
We have another Tomb Raider Review as well.
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Tomb Raider
One Half
Beaker
(out of five)
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Ishmael I. Williams is a fan of both movies and television, and
doesn't get to see as much as he'd like in any given year. Still, what he
does get to see he enjoys writing about, and hope people will stop by from
time to time to see what he has to say. He also thinks he's going to be a
pretty good foil for Tim Wick, fellow board member and with whom he often
disagrees on a film (ask Tim and Ish about Wild Wild West sometime).
He previously wrote about Bewitched
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