Since I had no idea what was going to happen, should happen, shouldn't happen or what it meant if it did happen, I could hardly be expected to care. Is it up there with the Indiana Jones pictures? No, although its art direction and set design are (especially in the tomb with all the dead roots hanging down like tendrils). Lara Croft does not emerge as a person with a personality, and the other actors are also ciphers, but the movie wisely confuses us with a plot so impenetrable that we never think about their personalities at all.ĭid I enjoy the movie? Yes. She looks great, is supple and athletic, doesn't overplay, and takes with great seriousness a plot that would have reduced a lesser woman to giggles. They're like the desert army in "The Mummy Returns" and the insect alien soldiers in " Starship Troopers"-they look fearsome, but they explode on contact, just like (come to think of it) targets in a video game.Īngelina Jolie makes a splendid Lara Croft, although to say she does a good job of playing the heroine of a video game is perhaps not the highest compliment. A giant clockwork model of the universe revolves slowly above a pool of water, and is protected by great stone figures that no doubt have official names, although I think of them as the Crumbly Creatures, because whenever you hit them with anything, they crumble. ![]() The inside of the city is an inspired accomplishment in art direction, set design and special effects. Everyone but Lara, whose light gray designer cape sweeps behind her so that we can admire the tight matching sweater she is wearing, which clings tightly to those parts of her body that can be found a foot below and a little to the front of her great ears. It is cold on the tundra, and everyone wears fur-lined parkas. Machines do not work in the Dead Zone, so Lara and the others have to use dogsleds. We now visit "Venice, Italy," where the Illuminati gather, and then there is an expedition to the frozen northern land where the ancient city awaits in a Dead Zone inside the crater created by the meteor that brought the Key to Time here to Earth-I think. And a good thing, too, since fate hangs in the balance while she plays his parlor games. A letter from her father is discovered sewn into the binding of an old edition of William Blake "I knew you would figure out my clues," it says. Why they want to do this is never explained. This is the Key to whatever it is the Illuminati plan to do with the lost city, etc., in their plan to control time, etc. She hears a faint ticking under the stairs, demolishes the ancient paneling (with her bare hands, as I recall) and finds an old clock which conceals the All-Seeing Eye. Lara Croft is a major babe with a great set of ears. Elaborate research-and-development and manufacturing facilities must be tucked away somewhere, but we don't see them. ![]() When the dust settles, we learn that she is Lady Lara Croft ( Angelina Jolie), daughter of the tomb raider Sir Richard Croft ( Jon Voight), whose memorial stone sadly informs us, "Lost in the Field, 1985." Lady Lara lives in a vast country estate with a faithful butler and a private hacker and weapons system designer. The film opens with Lara Croft doing desperate battle with a deadly robot, in what turns out to be a homage to the openings of the Pink Panther movies where Clouseau took on Kato. Right away you can see that the movie is relatively advanced "The Mummy Returns" had no plot, and one special effects sequence, which was 121 minutes long. The plot of "Lara Croft Tomb Raider" exists as a support system for four special effects sequences. That "Pearl Harbor" is even discussed in those terms is depressing. I have been hearing for weeks from fans of " The Mummy Returns" and " Pearl Harbor," offended that I did not like those movies-no, not even as "popcorn movies." I responded that " The Mummy" was a good popcorn movie but "The Mummy Returns" was a bad popcorn movie.
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