Hot Take: Tomb Raider
Hot Take: A mildly entertaining reboot that establishes Alicia Vikander can basically do anything including kick some serious ass. Outside of some pretty sharp visuals, the latest Tomb Raider doesn’t add much to the genre, though.
I’d talk about the latest Tomb Raider in terms of how good of a video game movie conversion it is but the bar is so ridiculously low for such a thing that it wouldn’t mean much. I’d talk about it in terms of treasure hunter/archaeological adventurer films but now you’re comparing it to the Indiana Jones saga and, since this is an origin story, this is less about Lara Croft’s desire to find artifacts and more about finding her father who has been missing and presumed dead for 7 years. Instead, the best thing to focus on here is Alicia Vikander and her establishment as a potential female action star taking over the role of Croft from Angelina Jolie who originally played Tomb Raider‘s heroine for 2 films in 2001 and 2003. Vikander not only proves that she can look the part (but in a very different way than the sexed up Jolie portrayed Croft back at the turn of the century) and can kick major ass but Vikander was able to add a depth to the character that wasn’t previously present in the Jolie version. It’s Vikander who helps propel this somewhat generic action flick to a slightly above average generic action flick. After seeing this reboot origin story, it would be perfectly acceptable for news of a sequel as long as Vikander is re-signed to portray the role again.Read More →