In this day and age when every budding young actress must have a franchise of their own it kind of makes perfect sense that Alicia Vikander would go on to star in the re-boot of Tomb Raider as Lara Croft, the highly intelligent, athletic, and beautiful English archaeologist-adventurer who ventures into ancient, hazardous tombs and ruins around the world. As someone who doesn't play video games I never knew what the huge fuss around the games or the character was, but of course, as a fourteen year-old male in 2001 I was compelled to see what that fuss was all about when Angelina Jolie (who was twenty-six at the time!) took on the iconic role in what turned out to be a disappointing Simon West actioner in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. Though it spawned one sequel, 2003's Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, the franchise sputtered out of existence afterwards as neither film seemed to be able to capitalize on whatever the appeal of the video game might have been. If the Tomb Raider video game series is still around and/or relevant at all I have no idea, but apparently movie studios still believe the character is a viable investment and thus, fifteen years after the last Lara Croft film, we are getting a new Tomb Raider movie that looks to have taken the more grounded and gritty route as opposed to the flirting with every kind of CGI they can get their hands on route that every action movie in the early aughts suffered from. It is understandable, in retrospect, why everyone was so anxious to utilize this new technology, but as the dust has settled there has been found this nice balance of practical and computer effects and it seems director Roar Uthaug (The Wave) has found that balance with his take on the character while the film itself looks to be one of those origin stories that may not give us what we actually came for until the last frame of the film. I'm intrigued by the participation of credible talents such as Vikander and Walton Goggins in the role of the antagonist, but can't say much else about this clip excites me. Still, I look forward to seeing what these actors do with the material and if Uthaug can offer an interesting take on the material. Writer Geneva Robertson-Dworet is also something of a question mark as she has a laundry list of potentially big credits to her name including Captain Marvel,Sherlock Holmes 3, Gotham City Sirens, and a Dungeons & Dragons re-boot, but it seems Tomb Raider will be our first taste of what this new voice has to offer the world of cinema. Tomb Raider also stars Hannah John-Kamen, Dominic West, Daniel Wu, Alexandre Willaume, Rowan Polonski, and opens on March 16, 2018.
Synopsis: Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent, and takes college courses, rarely making it to class. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father’s global empire just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he’s truly gone. Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can’t understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death. Going explicitly against his final wishes, she leaves everything she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the stakes couldn’t be higher for Lara, who—against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit—must learn to push herself beyond her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.
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