Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
The whole basis of the Tomb Raider games is quite simple. Hot chick with guns strapped to her legs, goes into tomb, raids it of treasure, shoots up the baddies and saves the world in the process. All of the games include this story element. The first Tomb Raider movie does a good job of getting the message across. We have the opening training sequence where she is in a (fake) tomb after treasure. In order to get the treasure she's got to beat the hell out of a robot. What a wonderful introduction to the movie. She subsequently raids two more tombs to get pieces of a treasure and ultimately saves the world. I like it. It was a good movie and a good story, not to mention that Angelina Jolie's performance was absolutely perfect in bringing to life the tough and sexy Lara Croft, but there are a few things that bothered me about it. The main bug in my butt was the whole speal about her father. It made her seem weak and sissy like. "I wanna see my father again *sob*" Come on. Get over it. Then there is the asshole boyfriend character that she is all hung up on despite the fact that he is trying to help destroy the world. But the main problem I have is with the character herself and her dwindling morality. At first she's all about stopping the baddies, but then you realize she is only doing it to get the power for her own selfish reasons to see her father again, finally her father tells her to do the right thing and she decides to save the world after all. Does this woman have any morals at all? What kind of hero is she? And besides that, the final tomb has no monsters for her to shoot at in it. What's up with that? I'm gonna end on a good note however. I enjoyed Tomb Raider, it was fun and she got to shoot up a hell of a lot of monsters. Liked the puzzels, like the action, liked the tombs, however the story needs work. Tomb Raider 2 (Cradle of Life), however is on a completely different page. This movie was very obviously written and directed by completely different people. If it weren't called Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, I would see no connection between the two films besides the fact that Lara Croft is once again in love with the asshole villian out to destroy the world. Why does this keep happening? Does Lara Croft always have to have such a poor judge of character? This time, there are no tombs, except the underwater one in the beginning where she promptly gets her ass kicked by amateur tomb raiders. She goes on a quest for revenge and once again ends up saving the world. This film seriously lacked action. Instead of monsters, she's shooting at people, much like in the second video game, but when monsters actually do show up, she doesn't shoot at them. The whole movie consists of her pining after the lead male character who tries to kill her. Why exactly is she in love with this prick??? And then it's over. What exactly is wrong with this story? 1) There are no tombs. 2) There isn't a lot of action. 3) Lara just isn't as tough. 4) She no longer looks like Lara Croft. and 5) She only wears a bikini for 2 minutes of the film. I am going to elaborate a little on number 4. In this film she doesn't wear a braid (Lara Croft's signiture). Not only does she wear her hair in a ponytail instead of braid, but she doesn't wear shorts either. I would have been able to tolerate these minor mistakes if the movie had actually been the least bit good. Tomb Raider 1, get the dvd. Tomb Raider 2, don't get your hopes up, the only card they have to play is that Angelina Jolie returns as her role of Lara Croft .
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