Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – Film Review

English aristocrat Lara Croft is skilled in hand-to-hand combat and in the middle of a battle with a secret society. The shapely archaeologist moonlights as a tomb raider to recover lost antiquities and meets her match in the evil Powell, who’s in search of a powerful relic.

One thing’s for sure – Simon West‘s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is not a traditionally “good” movie. It’s absolutely ridiculous in virtually every scene and the story is laughably bad to say the least. I challenge you to watch this movie the entire way through and not laugh out loud at least a handful of times.

But, at the same time, this movie is an absolute blast from beginning to end. It doesn’t have a single scene that you could call “boring,” even if that sometimes means the scenes that are entertaining are a bit questionable to say the least. Why in the world is there a scene in this movie where Angelina Jolie‘s titular character is basically doing ballet around her house and shooting things? Who knows and who cares? It’s a total blast.

The storyline in this movie isn’t anything special. If you have played any of the Tomb Raider video games, it’s basically the same origin story, but because this movie is so off-the-wall crazy, you can forgive the filmmakers for going down the predictable origin story route.

But chances are you’re not watching this film in the hopes of watching a beautifully intricate story unfold before you. You’re probably watching this movie to see Angelina Jolie shoot guns and be badass for a little over an hour and a half. It’s that’s the kind of film you’re hoping for, then that’s exactly the kind of film you’ll get.

One thing I love about Jolie’s portrayal of the character here is how much fun she seems to be having in nearly every scene. She always has a look of pure fun on her face no matter what it is she’s doing, not to mention the fact that she looks exactly like the character in the games as well.

If there is one person here who was sorely miscast, though, it would have to be Daniel Craig as Alex West. We all know and love him as both James Bond and Benoit Blanc, but as this character, he simply fails miserably. It’s not so much the acting itself but rather his painfully bad American accent. It’s genuinely cringe-worthy to hear him talk in this movie. Even still, it’s fun to see Craig in any movie no matter what it is he’s doing.

This movie is totally ridiculous and it’s nearly impossible to take seriously but that’s okay because the filmmakers knew exactly what kind of movie they were making here. This is a corny, goofy, over-the-top action extravaganza that’s best viewed with a group of friends. Just sit back, relax, and have the time of your life.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a blissfully self-aware over-the-top ridiculous action blockbuster with tons of laughs and entertaining action sequences with an endearing Angelina Jolie performance to boot.