Tomb Raider
Mini Review
[7th of March, 2018]
[PG-13, 1hr 58min, Action, Adventure, Tomb Raiding]
Video game movie curse has been running for so long and had not been successfully broken by the recent Hollywood efforts that even with the capable Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander leading the film and the director Roar Uthaug has directed an effective disaster flick in the Wave, my optimism could only go so far since so many have failede so far. Well, it turns out that my fear was uncalled for in the end since this is one of the rare exceptions to the rule or curse for that matter.
Spending much of the first act letting us see her without any attachment to the Croft legacy, trying to make ends meet while fulfilling her craving for adrenaline, we learn that it is to fill in the void left behind by her father, Richard, and her tireless effort to search for him and learn the truth behind his disappearance. This is a welcome change of pace compared to its previous iteration for the silver screen, focuses on her backstory and fleshing out her motivation as we see her charms and traits as a layered protagonist, played wonderfully by Alicia by the way, seeing her transformation from a child trying to find her own father to a determined warrior of the wronged trying to right the wrong in the world. It goes a little different from the narrative of the 2013's reboot of the game franchise that it is based on, but we essentially get an abridged version of her journey,
! SPOILER ALERT ! seeing her fleeing the mercenary group, enduring a QTE down the mountain, suffering a puncture through her body and getting her first kill out of necessity.
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There are actions galore throughout the film in the city of London, mostly in the mysterious island and finally in the tomb itself. I have to say that since the trailers have to showcase the visuals in a limited time, they have to pick and choose which scenes to highlight and unfortunately the action scenes have a lot of CGIs that were far from finished (since they look a lot better in the finished version), casting the movie in a not-so-flattering light which is a poor representation of how it actually is. The raiding of the tomb is quite fast and compact in the final act and it is a really interesting interpretation of the premise and its gaming conventions, having all these riddles and obstacles in the way of the raiders actually for a reason for once. At the end of the feature, you will find out that
! SPOILER ALERT ! whether or not this possible franchise starter will lean towards mystical or scientific as the throughline of the premise and how well they set up a possible followup as we see the development of Lara Croft and just the beginning of her tomb raiding adventure. If you do not know what the mid-(front?)credit scene tease is about, you definitely haven't played the games before!
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Just to emphasize my point from my Instagram post, I can honestly say that Alicia Vikander's Lara Croft is another positive role model for the children everywhere, following closely on the heels of Gal Gadot's Diana Prince as a much sought after female icons in the male-dominated industry. Since it is released here to coincide with the International Women's Day, it is just fitting especially in the wake of the revolution going through the industry.
- IMDb - wiki -
P.S. I am certainly hoping for her to kickstart a possible franchise ... this is certainly have the best hope yet!
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