By: Keaton Marcus

Genre/Action/Fantasy

Age Rating/13+

Lemonradar/70/100 “sweet/sour”

Introduction

Hi, this is Keaton Marcus from Sweet and Sour Movie Reviews and today I will be reviewing the reboot and video game adaption Tomb Raider starring Academy Award Winner Alicia Vikander. Seven years after Richard Croft (Dominic West) goes missing, his daughter, Lara Croft (Vikander) finds that he was searching for a way to find the ‘Death Queen’, located somewhere off the coast of Japan in a tomb called ‘The Mother of Death’, trying to find proof that the supernatural are real. When Lara arrives, she finds that a Militant organization known as Trinity is looking to control the dead, and unleash its uncertain powers on the world. Lara must stop this, and find her dad before this corrupted organization succeeds.

How Was The Cast?

Leading the cast with a committed and witty performance is actress Alicia Vikander, who plays Lara Croft with gusto. Supporting roles include actor Daniel Wu as Lu Ren, Walton Goggins as Mathias Vogel and actor Dominic West plays the role of Richard Croft. As noted, Alicia Vikander, known for The Danish Girl, Ex Machina, Seventh Son, The Light Between Oceans etc. playing the fundamental role of Lara Croft. Vikander already holds an Academy Award under her belt, winning Best Supporting Actress for 2015’s limited pic The Danish Girl; In Tomb Raider, while the actress is not used to action flicks, or adventure for that matter, struggling in a supporting role for lacking Fantasy Seventh Son in 2014, though in this franchise reboot, the 30-year old actress delivers a witty, bold and “committed” performance as Lara Croft, not objectified as Jolie was in the brainless original film couplet. Not only improving on Jolie’s performance, Vikander may have brought the most real, and best, for that matter lead performance in a video-game adaption. With olive skin, and small-boned looks, the actress is shockingly European, which surprisingly makes her that much better for the role. Following his previous role in Star Wars: Rogue One and the adventure TV flick Into the Badlands we looked upon Daniel Wu playing Lu Ren. Wu was just the run-of-the-mill drunken sailor, borrowing at times from Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow, Wu is given some solid scripting more towards the beginning of the film, with some good laughs, but going on through the film, Wu has the spotlight stolen by Vikander’s fantastic performance which director Roar Uthaug has a tendency to focus on, overall, making Wu an ultimately unneeded character that fails to shine. Known for his previous performance in Maze Runner: The Death Cure, actor Walton Goggins plays Mathias Vogel. With a performance that is not at the least boring, but has a tendency to be absurd, and very over-the-top, Goggins plays the stupid, but fun-to-watch villain that shows that the actor is clearly unexperienced, but has some enjoyable moments for the audience which may or may not deride the fact that his scripting remains weak and there is rarely any relevant character development. Lastly, the more supporting role remains actor Dominic West known for his roles in Johnny English Reborn, John Carter, and 300, playing Lara’s father, Richard Croft. Narrarating the opening credits, and having little-to-do with the rest of the film, Dominic West delivers a relatively refreshing, but misused side-character that never quite delivers, though with Vikander’s performance, the film is mostly covered.

Quality

This is really a two-way-offer, truly speaking the film is not really worth your money despite not being as terrible as it could be but technically this should be an entertatining action flick on Saturday night streaming. Directing is Roar Uthaug, his second wide release film after the critically acclaimed disaster film The Wave, Roar Uthaug, this was extremely risky, not just in the genre type that he is into, but again there were too many negatives to the movie for the pros to take over. Saying that, Uthaug was new and added too many unneeded cons to the film such as narrative falters, a lob-sided Indiana Jones type story and plot, and occasionally failed to develop the character's emotional balance to their full potential, meaning that if they had chose better a better script and director the movie might have a chance of being well executed. However despite all the stupidity Roar Uthaug added to the movie for a new filmmaker he still settled for a mildly entertaining, occasionally fun diversion for great adventure films, continuing to surprise taking a very uninspired origin and turning it into something of substance, something to work off of and maybe even starting a new franchise despite failing to fully redeem Croft from the game console to big screen once again in many ways. Something that all action movies treasure as their own, special effects and visuals, this could be something that Tomb Raider could have taken advantage of fully; But instead the fantasy happens to go for mildly entertaining in visual form, but this is both positive and negative, Raider also happens to be one of the first films of it’s genre to have an under 100M budget standing at 94M which is quite creative, however this can mean two things, that the special effects team were laying a bit too or they were just trying to create a one-of-a-kind action adventure movie. The thing is it really ended up both of those things which blended in the film just fine without going to overboard but not reaching the full length of what it could be. Reverting back to the creative standpoint and also to director Roar Uthaug are the mixed feelings of the storyline or even plot. The start of the film begins with Croft getting beat up in a boxing arena by another woman, as you can see this had almost nothing to lead it up to the exciting action/CGI thrill filled middle, this was a big problem for me. Right after that scene you can clearly see that Lara seems to be a poor young woman and is still grieving over her father’s supposed death, talking back about the middle section to the movie this was truly the best section with some key action sequences, solid special effects and a good sense of thrills despite true feeling in the bumbling violent despite fun scenes. Ending with a true disappointing crash Tomb Raider goes in an unexpected direction towards the finishing sequence in the film deciding to actually open the tomb, this was a little stupid and mindless considering the promising middle sequences, (disregarding the uninspired premise) for the genre Tomb Raider manages to stay ahead with a solid, some fun action sequences to keep the muddled plot alive and really it had some true fun within the cinematic experience.

Aging ‘Trinity’

Who is this film really for, that is the real question, age wise this was judged to 13+ meaning the oldest Tweens and up. There was almost countless action sequences which despite the deaths the movie cut most of the blood out of the scene; Like most action films there was lot’s of killing with guns, dynamite and a slavery like concept on the island. Not straying from other adventure movies such as The Mummy, Tomb Raider lays low on extreme violence, but it is something to remember before going to the movie theater. Surprisingly taking all the bad language in the film was almost nothing not thinking about some stray uses of s..t or f..k, this is actually one of the first Action movies going to a safe zone with the profanity which may or may not be much of an endorsement for the kids. The film also avoids all costs on sexuality, staying away from the highly sexualized Angelina Jolie, form-fitting, tight-shorted Lara Croft. Taking it on the big scale the film is the highest on violence which is common in Action/Adventure films such as Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, but summing up on bad language or sex, there is no straying away from PG-13 levels.

Adventure Film Clash

Tomb Raider 62% sweet/sour

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Sex: ☆☆☆☆☆

Language: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Age Rating: 13+

Raiders of the Lost Ark 92% sweet

Violence: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Sex: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

Language: ⭐☆☆☆☆

Age Rating: 11+

Tomb Raider 62% sweet/sour

Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

Raiders of the Lost Ark 92% sweet

Storyline: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cast: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Role Models: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

News Related to Tomb Raider

$plurge, $tream, $kip: Although suffering from some tired scripting, and choppy storytelling, Tomb Raider features a more grounded approach, and a terrific performance by Alicia Vikander which bolster the film’s flaws, making it a fun, if unoriginal franchise reboot…$TREAM IT