Film Review: Tomb Raider

If the new big screen incarnation of Lara Croft was intended as an extended advert to tempt you into playing the recently rebooted games on which the film based, then it can be considered mission accomplished. But based on how seriously Tomb Raider appears to take itself, one assumes director Roar Uthaug was keen to craft something that could stand on its own as an experience worthy of breaking the video game-to-movie curse, which has already claimed the likes of Assassin’s Creed, Warcraft and Hitman.

For a series so clearly inspired by the likes of Indiana Jones, and one that has in more recent years drawn favourable comparisons with the adventures of Nathan Drake in PlayStation’s Uncharted games, the tone of this Tomb Raider feels misguided. “We demand to be taken seriously,” is the meme that comes to mind.

Tomb Raider is mostly inspired by the events of the 2013 game of the same name, which sought to reinvent Lara as a more realistic, genuine character, rather than little more than a sex symbol. The film also takes a number of cues from the 2015 sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, which revealed more secrets about the mysterious past of the Croft family and why they’re so obsessed with treasure hunting. In doing so, the story penned by Evan Daugherty and Geneva Robertson-Dworet feels unfocused, and it’s something of a surprise for game scribe Rhianna Pratchett not to have been brought on board to provide the writing with a little more direction.

But the script’s biggest sin is that Lara is cast as a young woman struggling to find meaning. She has banished her status as the heiress to an enormous fortune left by missing father Richard, instead operating as a food delivery cyclist on the streets of Camden. She does not feel obliged to operate outside such mundanity until she comes across a a pre-recorded message from Richard detailing his research into a mysterious Japanese island known as Yamatai. In the blink of an eye, she’s jetted off to Hong Kong, enlisted the help of Daniel Wu’s sailor Lu Ren, and is on a voyage into the unknown.

Anyone who has played the recent games – both developed by Crystal Dynamics to critical acclaim – will already have questions about the characterisation of Lara. Rather than a keen student of archaeology driven by a fascination with history and a desire for adventure, the film strips of her inane curiosity and replaces it with a sense of obligation. She goes to Yamatai because she wants to find her father, and the sequel-staging ending implies that any future tomb raiding will only be done to stop the evil Trinity organisation from finding any dangerous artifacts before she can. It makes her – and by consequence the film – feel far more generic.

It’s a shame because in Alicia Vikander the casting director netted a very fine actor to play the title role. She certainly convinces during the action sequences, with one in which she bids to escape an abandoned plane as it collapses around her – ripped straight from the game – certainly the standout. Another scene heavily inspired by the source material, in which she is forced to commit her first kill after being jumped by a Trinity soldier, is dirty, messy, brutal and extremely effective. Vikander nails the physical side of the performance, and for what it’s worth, her English accent is excellent.

Should there indeed be a second film, Vikander has the chops to take the character in a more interesting direction. One hopes any future effort will also embrace more of a sense of fun, with even the most conceptually ridiculous moments here played completely straight-faced. The traps adorning the tomb we eventually see being raided feel more Tom & Jerry than anything, with far more clever puzzles to be found in the games as they make use of Lara’s smarts rather than just her athleticism. It’s another example of how the biggest changes made here – including ditching Lara’s expedition party and making the villain an excruciatingly bland Walter Goggins – do not pay off.

Indeed, the most impressive moments from Tomb Raider were more intense and enjoyable to play than they were to watch, and what’s newly brought to the table feels at odds with Lara’s character. For those who have played the games, the film will likely just make them wish they were giving them another run-through instead. For everyone else, just dig out the old Indy DVDs.