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• The best video game-turned-movie posted on 26 Aug 2009

  Being a nerdy addict of the game, I personally couldn't wait for the film, so I'm glad that I wasn't disappointed. True, Tomb Raider comes from a long line of games that are turned into movies - but I definitely think that this is by far the best.I thought Angelina's acting and accent was brilliant, and I can't think of anyone else who would've been more suited to playing Lara. The chemistry between her and Daniel Craig was so good.The plot line was good too, and stayed loyal to the general idea of the game - in fact, I think the film should have been made into a game in it's own right! Another thing I liked about this movie was the soundtrack - the right music was fitted into the right places, and I think it is one of the best movie soundtracks available.

• Dumb fun... posted on 24 Aug 2009

  Tomb Raider isn't bad for a movie designed for a target audience of adolescent males. Sure, the plot is derivative in the extreme, there are the usual stupid action-movie conventions (why are the bad guys always such butterfingers?) and it would be nice if Simon West - or the faceless executives behind the scenes - would allow a shot to last long enough for us to get our bearings. That said, Tomb Raider has some advantages over similar projects, like the execrable Armageddon. There's no dreary romance to bog things down and 'witty' one liners are few and far between. It doesn't have any stupid army commanders with thick southern accents (another question: why do so many movies think your IQ gets lower the further south you live?) and it has quite a small speaking cast so you're not expected to care about dozens of boring background characters (e.g. Armageddon). Best of all, faced with a wafer-thin character, Angelina Jolie resists the temptation to over-compensate by hamming it up and instead skilfully underplays her lines. Extra points for the flawless accent too; I'm so sick of millionaire actors playing Europeans with a Dixie Chicks twang (e.g. The Man In The Iron Mask, Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves). Yes, Tomb Raider is crap, and I'd never argue with anyone who said they hated it, but at least it's fast moving crap without any dramatic pretensions. I don't know about that padded bra, though.

• a really bad film posted on 20 Aug 2009

  If you are 10-12 yrs. of age you probably will enjoy this film. Accents coming and going, lame action sequences, and terrible direction.I rather enjoy the game and yes, Jolie IS Lara, but this film was a let down. To bad Chris Barrie didn't have a bigger part. If you see this film expecting nothing, you may come away slightly relieved when it is over. Personally if I had the chance to do it over, I'd wait 'til bbc aired it for free.

• Popcorn, Robots and Boobs-A-Plenty! posted on 10 Aug 2009

  Tomb Raider is the kind of movie that would've knocked me on my ass had I been 10. When I was ten, I admired movies like Police Academy and The Little Rascals. When I was 10, I probably enjoyed the Mario Bros. Movie too. So when I went to see Tomb Raider, I wasn't expecting to be knocked on my ass. I expected to be kept woken up for an hour and a half. And it worked. And I liked the movie.The movie drops you in the heat of the action from the beginning. Lara Croft is supposedly raiding a huge tomb when a large robot attacks her. She does the usual stuff you'd expect from a pouty 36D heroine. She shoots it into a wreck, gets into the robot's computer and plays her party mix with it. We then realize that she is only training and she has just shot up her mansion's nerd programmer's (Noah Wyle) robot. She then cools off in a shower (ha-ma-ma-ma-ma!) and then the movie starts for real. On the night of the solar eclipse, Lara can hear a ticking in her mansion. She smashes up a wall and finds a clock. She then smashes up the clock (she does a lot of smashing in this movie) and finds a key inside. She then remembers her father, Lord Croft (Jon Voight) telling her that this key holds the power to use time as they please once it is put in the right place. So Lara gets really excited because now she go back in time and talk to her dead dad. But she's not alone on this. The Illuminati also want a piece of the pie. So begins Lara's adventures, which will take her into Asia and Antartica.Yeah, the plot doesn't make much sense and in fact it makes for much less tomb raiding than you'd expect. In fact, I counted only five action scenes in the movie, and one of them included giant stone monkeys. It's true that these sequences are pretty well made and lots of fun to watch, but I was expecting more action. And somehow, in the midst of all this, there never is a dull moment. The movie is only an hour and a half long (quite long enough, I suppose). The trailer says Angelina Jolie IS Lara Croft, and by golly, it's right. Jolie's role might not be very developed but she milks it for all its worth. She shows an actual talent (and two other talents, if you know what I mean) at playing an empty character. Taking a lame character and crafting an acceptable performance is a talent that not many people possess. The rest of the cast ham it up horribly, especially Iain Glen as another tomb raider. Jon Voight (Jolie's real-life father) shows up in a few scenes as Lord Croft.The special effects of Tomb Raider are well-done, and serve their purpose well. There are also some great locations and some beautiful scenery. Tomb Raider delivers the popcorn goods. It might not be very smart, it might exploit the beautiful Jolie by adding big Barbie doll breasts to her already beautiful figure, but if you go in expecting popcorn, you'll come out having seen popcorn. And pretty great popcorn at that. 6/10

• Angelina is great-with a bit more script-a brilliant film posted on 10 Aug 2009

  I was really looking forward to this film being a fan of action/adventure/mythology and loving The Mummy and its sequel. I have to say that all credit goes to Angelina Jolie who was made for the role and gave the film much more credibility.The plot could have been a bit more detailed and the script would have been better containing more interaction between characters especially Jolie and her tomb raider friend. But apart from a bit of sketchy characterisation, the stunts and set pieces were amazing and it was a thoroughly enjoyable film, even if i have never played the game.

• A nice chance, that turned out to be stupid posted on 10 Aug 2009

  Well, I didn't expect much when I went to see tomb raider. I was expecting a heavy package of action, a lot of cool looking poses of Lara Croft (angelina Jolie) But... it made Mission Impossible look like the most realistic and logic action flick ever. They made the movie look like an computer game. WRONG! When you are playing a computer game, it usually have flaws in the story, when you are playing, you end up fighting and killing hundreds of enemies, magic and unlogical surprises included... but you forgive it, because it's interactive. You are doing, you are killing the enemies by the hundreds, you are running away the falling stones, that NEVER fall in front of you, only behind, and getting closer. But in a movie, the only thing you do it sit down, and watch. It's then when you see the problems of the movie. There a lot of tough female characters in movies. Ripley and Linda Hamilton, as an instance, but they are smart, tough, but not invulnerable. All the characters were undefined, and too plain. Including Lara Croft. And the story line just too many flaws. The action scenes were stupid. Far too cool, to include any resemblance to be real. Matrix made a far better job, both in making cool shots, and make the fights believable. As a resume, don't waste your money.

• Almost a complete waste of time posted on 06 Aug 2009

  I gave this movie 4/10 and did that only for the sake of Miss Jolie's bouncing tits. It actually deserved 1/10.The movie utterly lacked story. The heroine and the villains are all after some magical mambo jumbo throughout the movie. When they find it we see they have no reason to look for that stuff. It's all out of boredom.They have nothing better to do with their time.So there. That's a complete and full summary of the story. The movie had only one scene which has humor in it.Other than that it had no emotions ,jokes whatsoever. In fact there were no dialogs at all.Action scenes were pretty mediocre.We have stone warriors that can be beaten by bare fists for God's sake.All in all it was totally terrible except the bouncing parts of the movie. So if you are not interested in bouncing at all, then this movie is not for you.

• Great for a video game movie, But thats not saying much! posted on 02 Aug 2009

  In the summers latest box office smash hit, we have Angelina Jolie playing the sexy Tomb Raider. She is a super rich archeoligist who resides in England and has nothing better to do with her time than to wallow in grief over her fathers death and explore ancient places looking for artifacts. Well, In this movie she stumbles across a clock that is counting down to the exact time when all of the planets align. When this happens, the person holding a certain triangle thing can manipulate time. Lara visits many places and goes through many stunts and outfits throughout the course of this film.Angelina's portrayal of Lara Croft is very well done and she gives a 3rd dimension to the paper thin star of the popular video game. Actually her performance may very well be oscar worthy. Now for the bad parts of this film, because there are alot. The villain is not scary at all. The other costars of the film are poorly developed and the bad script is to blame. Another thing that got me is a certain location in this film. Its the Illuminati cathedral in Venice. Normally in cathedrals in Venice you would find candles on the walls which are standard for the time that it was built. But in this cathedral for some reason, the candles are electrical. Why is this? who installed these electrical candles in a cathedral? Is it because the makers of this film didnt want to pay fire guards? probably. But if the makers were thinking that these electrical light bulbs on sticks looked like real candles, they were wrong. Now for the good parts of this film. The action is spectacular! The script may be bad but the action rocks! And since about a full hour of this film is action, I must say I enjoyed about an hour of this film. All in all, this was a very sloppily made film with some great action sequences. I would like to see a sequel get made because it is almost bound to be better than this one! 2 and half out of four stars!

• A monumental disappointment... posted on 27 Jul 2009

  Considering that this film had been in production for over three years (if the date for one of the working titles is anything to go by) before it hit my local cinema, to say I was disappointed in the end result would be an understatement. Angelina Jolie is in fine form as the object of every Johnny-Come-Lately-To-Videogames' lust, but there is just nothing at all for her to work with. Not only is she the only recognisable actor in this mess besides Jon Voight, who has hardly done anything worth looking at in the last few years, but the story is so unexciting that my response would be something like "yeah, and...?", or something along those lines.There are two moments in the film where any excitement is generated, these being the first moment when Lara practises her combat skills against an robot that looks like something that George Lucas rejected, and the bad guys' attempt to raid the Croft mansion. Everything else in the film drags on so far past its use-by date that its quite a shock to see that someone is credited with editing the film. Given that it only runs for about 100 minutes, it's quite a shock to see that it could have easily been cut down to about half of its length without losing any real valuable narrative.When The Mummy first came out, people described it as being a poor man's Indiana Jones, in spite of the fact that it was at least the equal of the two sequels in that franchise. Tomb Raider, on the other hand, is a film that fits the poor man's Indiana Jones description so well that it is almost tragic. Tomb Raider struggles to reach so much as a modicum of Temple Of Doom's level, and this is not helped by the fact that there is no score by John Williams or even a vaguely funny moment to elevate the proceedings.This is one film that has "we're only in it to make money out of a popular cultural icon" stamped all over it. Don't waste your money, wait for this one to come out as a rental DVD where you can see the flat and unappealing cinematography in all its monotonous glory, anyway.

• A Waste Of A Huge Potential - Hope The Inevitable Sequal Improves posted on 23 Jul 2009

  This was a very poor film. Angelina Jolie was perfect as Lara Croft in both performance and looks. I did not have a problem with her! What I did have a problem with was the plot which was of more or less the same quality as the computer games. Everyone expected Tomb Raider to be Indiana Jones with breasts and if it had been then it would have been a far superior movie. What we have ended up with is more Street Fighter than Raiders of the Lost Ark. It is to all intents and purposes just a big screen version of the cut-scene sections from the computer game.Everyone knew the potential to make a great film of Tomb Raider. There will inevitably be a sequal. Lets just hope they pick out the best bits from this film (i.e. Angelina Jolie) and give her half decent direction and storyline and make the film this should have been.Oh, and how could they go to venice without recreating the speedboat/ramp scene from the second level of TombRaider II is beyond me.

• Good affects, disappointing plot. posted on 15 Jul 2009

  I was hoping "Tomb Raider" would not fall into the same trap as other movies that were derived from video games like "Street Fighter" did. The special affects for this movie were very good and this is what kept my interest in the film. However, the story line and the plot were poorly presented. This hurt the film tremendously. Your interest is held by the action and affects, which rarely stopped and that is, for the most part, the only thing keeping your interest. This one could have been much better with a better plot and a better presentation of the story.Overall, a rental (6 out of 10).

• Great Lara soso script posted on 15 Jul 2009

  I give this one a vote of 7 but this is mainly for a great Lara Croft. I cant think of a better Lara than Jolie. I played all the games and the way you imagine Lara would look and act in real life, is just right. There are great action scenes (mind you a bit unrealistic to say the least), and technically the movie is okay. It´s only held down by a bad script. But now they have seen it´s possible to make money on these kinds of movies, so my guesh is that "Tomb Raider The Sequel" will have a way better script, and possibly another director.

• Tomb Raider Rocks! posted on 15 Jul 2009

  Don't listen to the whiny reviewers who have bashed this movie. Angelina Jolie IS Lara Croft. She could not have been better. The story revolves around a classic quest, the stuff adventure games like Tomb Raider are made of. Perhaps those who criticize the story were expecting 'War and Peace' ... but hey ... it's a video game, bucko, not a literary work!In short, the action scenes, stunts and locations are excellent -- at least as good as most James Bond flicks. Lara keeps her cool throughout, challenging aggressors with an enticing grin on her drop-dead gorgeous face.
  She's as independent, unstoppable and hard to control in the movie as she is in the game. My only complaint is that the plot is too predictable at times. A bit more suspense here and there would have made it a better film.If you've played the game (as I have), you gotta LOVE it! If not, enjoy the action ... THEN buy one of the games.

• good fun posted on 09 Jul 2009

  This is a well made, enjoyable action movie and so much better than many would have you believe. Come on people, lighten up and have some fun... Great sets, locations and kudos to Angelina for giving her all. The DVD is great with a ton of extras and some fantastic menus. Well, that's it, just thought I should stick up for a movie that so many seem to slag off........ go girl!!!

• It's a video game adaptation for goodness sake! posted on 07 Jul 2009

  Angelina Jolie plays Lady Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, an action film based on a popular video game. That being said, Simon West's challenge was to give Lara Croft a real life character while keeping the action sequence in line with the video game.The film warms up with an action clip showing Lady Croft combating a robot in a tomb setting. After she turns the heavy metal into scrap, the scene quickly changes to Lady Croft resting in her castle in England lamenting the loss of her father, archaeologist genius, Lord Croft (Jon Voight). (Isn't it interesting that Angelina Jolie is playing opposite her real life dad, Jon Voight?)The loss of her father fuels her adventure which begins when the planetary alignment takes place, an event that occurs only once every 5,000 years. The planetary alignment sets the scene for the discovery of a mysterious object, which legend has it serves as the key to controlling time. Not surprisingly, there is a secret society at work to obtain this power. As with any action flick, it is the hero's mission, or heroine in this case, to save the world.If you have played the video game, you will agree that Angelina Jolie is truly the perfect pick for the Lara Croft role. She's sassy, clever, fearless, invincible, and she exudes sexuality in everything that she does. With every victory, she radiates a sensual glow as if she has conquered. Who needs a man when you're a tomb raider!Just as all video games switch to different levels, the film also changes scenes quite often. One moment you're in England and the next you're in Cambodia. Don't be surprised that Lara can speak the native language in every country she visits. She has the amazing ability to dodge bullets as well! And one more thing, don't be alarmed that Lara is clad so scantily throughout the film. Lara Croft is a fantasy adaptation. If you can maintain this perspective then you just might be entertained!

• Indiana Jones - with curves. posted on 29 Jun 2009

  I can summarize this movie by saying it is an amalgamation of James Bond and Indiana Jones - without the same quality results. This movie did not capture my imagination, or my interest from the opening minutes to the alleged climactic ending. I'm still waiting for a story line to develop, and the movie ended about 10 hours ago. Needless to say I did not enjoy this movie much, though I thought Angelina Jolie's English accent was fairly authentic. Aside from the special effects this movie is one that you can wait for in the DVD rental section.

• The first action film without any action posted on 25 Jun 2009

  Fortunately this is a film that could not fail - no matter how bad the reviews, there would be enough people willing to pay to see Angelina Jolie bounce around as Lara Croft, the computer game heroine with the impossible figure and the agility of a panther.Unfortunately, it deserves to fail. While the plot is quite sound and fits in with the history of the character very nicely, the action is missing and when it does arrive, it provides no excitement at all. There is no tension, no adrenaline, nothing. The other major problem is the script. The dialogue in the games is of a higher quality than this dross. Plot development was poorly done, characters flimsily constructed and the major confrontations between the major characters had all the bite of a dead slug.Given the material, Jolie is okay and Iain Glen makes an adequate baddie.
  Jolie's (real) father Jon Voight is wasted and Chris Barrie (a well-known UK TV comedy actor) is given lines with no humour at all as the butler.Below average and a huge disappointment - but we knew it would be, right?

• Mind numbing, emotionally shallow, two-hour fluff... but what else did you expect? posted on 21 Jun 2009

  Tomb Raider has no pretensions about what it is. From a director whose background is television commercials, Simon West delivers yet another slick, colorful, flashy feature with little substance and, subsequently, much more spectacle than story. Much like the video game it's based off of. Even if you see the movie for the same reasons I did-- non-stop action with Angelina Jolie-- rest assured, after a while you'll begin to get the feeling you're watching over the shoulder of someone else playing a video game the rather than having the controller in your own hand. Detached, uninvolved, and, well, bored.

• Great action, but still missing some elements posted on 17 Jun 2009

  This movie has it's moments of great action, but unfortunately has some plot holes large enough to drive a Buick through. Near the end Lara possesses knowledge crucial to the continuance of the story, yet we are left to guess how she acquired such knowledge. There is also a character who appears sporadically, yet whose origin and purpose is never fully revealed. Angelina Jolie brings no small amount of charm to Lara Croft and for once we do feel a game character is giving a life of their own, thanks to her acting. However the other characters are portrayed in a more cardboard fashion without as much dimension, opting instead for comfortable stereotypes. Overall, a worthwhile attempt, but not without obvious faults.

• Horrible posted on 13 Jun 2009

  Oh my God. This movie is one of the worst. It's all about the action, but even the action sucks in this movie. Angeline doesn't even look like she can throw a good punch or a kick. The martial arts was horrible too. This story will drive you crazy. The writers misleads the whole point of the movie and throw you off the chart. You won't be able to understand, but if you do, you won't see any good plot in the movie. The acting was good, but it was still wrong to make this. It wasn't there fault at all, it was the dialogue and the director. Avoid this movie at all costs.