TOMB RAIDER

TOMB RAIDER (2018)

Directed by Roar Uthaug

Screenplay by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons

Story by Evan Daugherty and Geneva Robertson-Dworet
Starring Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Kristen Scott Thomas


So, I had a chance to check out the new TOMB RAIDER film. This one is a reboot that goes back to the beginning, showing how Lara Croft picked up her tomb-raiding hobby. It's heavily influenced by the 2013 version of the game, itself a reboot of the game series. In it, we got a younger, inexperienced Lara who had not yet faced the challenges that turned her into the kick-ass character we've known for the past twenty-two years. (Good grief! Twenty-two? Yep, the first game came out back in 1996.)

Both the 2013 game and the 2018 movie take young Lara to the lost island of Yamatai, believed to be the final resting place of the 3rd century Japanese Queen Himiko. Movie and game pit Lara against an assortment of enemies after Himiko, who was believed to have supernatural powers.

The movie also mixes in a bit of the 2015 Rise of the Tomb Raider, replacing the first game's bloodthirsty cultists with the second game's evil organization, Trinity, which hopes to find Himiko's tomb and harness her power for themselves.

Alicia Vikander, the second Academy Award winner to portray Croft, really throws herself into the role. She's maybe a little petite for Lara (she's apparently only 5'5") but she's solid muscle and once she has her 'trial by fire' moment in the film and really goes on the offensive you have to feel a bit sorry for the bad guys. She also nails the emotional side, grounding this Lara as a daughter who has refused to accept the loss of her father when she was a child and now has a chance to find out what happened to him.

Leading said bad guys is the always cool Walton Goggins as Mathias Vogel. Stuck on Yamatai until he and his men find Himiko's tomb Vogel has maybe gone a bit crazy, something Goggins excels at without a bunch of overblown posturing. Just looking in the guy's eyes can give you a chill up your spine.

Daniel Wu tags along as the captain of the ship that gets Lara to Yamatai, and whose father also disappeared on that last fateful journey of Lord Richard Croft, played by Dominic West.

While the more grounded, semi-realistic action is a welcome change from all the over-the-top cartoon stuff out there these days (there is some of that, of course, and some nice nods to action scenes from the game) and surprising in a film based on a video game, I can't help but think it would've benefited from being a bit more like the game in regards to the plot and some of the enemies. I also missed her supporting cast from the game, but this movie was all about Lara and that's okay, too.

Overall I thought it was a pretty good action movie, obviously in the Indiana Jones mold as it has evolved thru the years in both the Tomb Raider and Uncharted games.