TOMB RAIDER (2018) ✭✭✭✩✩

Alicia Vikander appeals in this enjoyable but generic adaptation of the video game series.

There’s a cultural feedback loop with Roar Uthaug’s Tomb Raider, starring Alicia Vikander as heroine Lara Croft. The original video games were riffing on old movies (mostly the Indiana Jones then-trilogy), and now this movie reboot is riffing on the newly-evolved games.

Tomb Raider was released in 1996 and was essentially Indiana Jones with a buxom babe who favoured twin holstered guns over a whip. Much was made of Lara’s physical attributes at the time, as her looks were made to appeal to randy teenagers obsessed with Pamela Anderson at the time. I remember FHM or Loaded once had a centrefold of Lara wearing a swimsuit, believe it or not. So it made perfect sense when Hollywood bombshell Angelina Jolie played the part in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2000) and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider — The Cradle of Life (2003), as the character was a sexualised role model from an era where James Bond had started surfing tsunamis.

Things changed in 2013, when the games were rebooted with a new version of Tomb Raider; a prequel revealing Lara Croft’s origins, perhaps loosely inspired by Batman Begins (2005) in refreshing a character by showing their backstory with a realistic approach. The game was a success and relaunched the franchise for a new generation of thumb bandits, updating Lara Croft as someone strong and capable, but also vulnerable and much less sexualised.

The post-’13 games have resulted in Uthaug’s 2018 movie reboot, which follows their example by giving us a younger Lara less skilled and superhuman. She’s a competent MMA fighter, but taps out from a choke hold because she’s not the greatest. She’s not even a qualified archaeologist yet, she’s just a motorcycle courier who hasn’t inherited her vast fortune. Our new Lara is a scrappier young woman, her life stalled by the tragic loss of her father Richard Croft (Dominic West), whom everyone believes perished seven years ago except Lara. She’s unable to move on and inherit the Croft fortune by officially declaring her dad is deceased, and is predictably proven right when she discovers he was secretly a globetrotting adventurer…

There are several ideas and scenarios in Tomb Raider that are familiar to audiences, even cliches of the genre.

We have a Batman Begins-style tale revealing how Lara becomes “Lara Croft, Tomb Raider”; an adventure forging Lara’s personality by stranding her on a mysterious island, echoing The CW’s Arrow; callbacks to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) with Lara following her father’s secret diary into danger, and is Walton Goggins’s villain named Vogel after an SS Officer from that same movie?; a subtle nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark (1980) with a finale involving an opened artefact that “melts” faces; a scene almost identical to one in Netflix’s Iron Fist where long-lost millionaire Danny Rand walks into the company HQ he owns and the snooty desk staff treat him like a stranger; and one could argue the way Lara finds her father’s secret underground office evokes Peter Parker doing similar in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014).

Some of this familiarity is down to the fact the genre’s been around decades, and it would be disappointing if we had dingy tombs without booby-traps to get past. I was slightly disappointed there’s no supernatural element to this story, to help give this a vibe like The Mummy (1999). It also speaks to how much Indiana Jones has dominated this type of movie since the ‘80s, and how it’s commonly perceived in pop culture. You just can’t make a movie about adventuresome archaeologists without the ghost of Indy looming over you, so just embrace it. It’s no different than how James Bond hangs over spy movies, although there are perhaps more ways to make an espionage thriller fresh compared to what Tomb Raider sets out to achieve.

Tomb Raider is an entertaining action-adventure, but it’s middle-of-the-road as far as blockbuster cinema goes.

This is primarily because things don’t escalate anywhere very unexpected, certainly by the time we get to the third act’s tomb raiding. The setup to establish Lara is oddly more enjoyable than the overseas island adventure she gets embroiled with, although there are a few action set-pieces that are well executed and manage to feel like video game cut-scenes (in a good way, as those are often more cinematic than a lot of movies these days). You almost expect to see superimposed reminders of what buttons to press onscreen, in order to make Lara walk along the rusted wing of a plane hanging precariously over a waterfall…

The true selling point of the movie is Alicia Vikander, who impresses in the role, but only so much as the script allows.

Lara’s introduced as a very smart and appealing woman; physically tough, emotionally fragile. And the Oscar-winner clearly took her training regime seriously, sculpting her already slim physique so there’s no body fat.

Vikander’s not an imposing person in height or appearance, but her Lara looks like someone it would be difficult to tangle with. She has strength, speed, stamina, and a determination to win that would make her a problem for adversaries twice her size. And she also runs with a pneumatic action unseen since Tom Cruise, so Lara truly comes alive whenever she’s ducking, diving, jumping, and swinging her way out of various perils. In essence, Vikander embodies a modern iteration of Lara Croft very well.

It’s just that her character isn’t allowed to be much fun. Her story is all about loss and tragedy, then growing into herself to step out of her father’s shadow. There’s a feeling the sequel would be more of a globe-trotting adventure to take down a mysterious organisation (shades of SPECTRE), maybe with Nick Frost’s pawnbroker as her “Q”, but Tomb Raider’s unremarkable box office takings ($273M) don’t make a follow-up a no-brainer.

One can only hope we get a Tomb Raider 2, as this provides a strong foundation despite its cliches and missed opportunities. Vikander certainly deserves another crack, hopefully with writers who can inject more personality into Lara Croft, together with a story that’s a touch more fun and crowd-pleasing.

Cast & Crew

director: Roar Uthaug.
writers: Evan Daugherty & Geneva Robertson-Dworet (based on the video game by Crystal Dynamics).
starring: Alicia Vikander, Daniel Wu, Dominic West & Walton Goggins.