Tomb Raider (2018) Review. *Spoilers* (Off-Topic)

by Ragashingo , Official DBO Cryptarch, Saturday, March 17, 2018, 09:21 (2226 days ago) @ Cody Miller
edited by Ragashingo, Saturday, March 17, 2018, 09:32

Dude, it’s totally true about her always being saved and her crying:

Ren saves her from the punk kids.
Ren gets her out of the chain gang.
Her Dad saves her from bad guy what’s his name by making an explosion.
Ren digs her out of the tomb.

She kills the dude for the first time and starts crying about it.
She cries when she can’t shoot her dad (understandable)
She cries when bad guy has her beat in the tomb.

I guess we just see things differently. I see a character who is tough and determined and resourceful but who does have emotions when she should have them. If all she did was kick ass and make quips then she wouldn’t have been true to the new, more real version of Lara Croft that was introduced in the 2013 game.

Furthermore, needing help or showing distress at times does not makes a female character less of a powerful character. Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 frequently needed help and suffered a far more serious emotional breakdown than this Lara Croft did by far. And there’s no one that can say Sarah Connor was not a badass.

I also think you choice of words is too general with regards to crying. When Lara is forced to scramble and fight for her life and hold a man’s head down in a puddle until she kills him she does not cry. Tears were part of it, but the emotions there were shock and disbelief and horror at what she’d been forced to do. This is coming from someone who certainly never killed before. From someone who likely never experienced serious violence or hardship before. Her reactions were completely appropriate and in no way did they detract from things like female power of being a badass.

Anyway I’m surprised you didn’t mention the character motivations being totally wack. Like, Laura has no training or real interest in archeology, and is just dicking around at the start of the film. If she’s the type of person who’d be willing to risk it all to find her dad, you certainly don’t get that impression. The movie needed to start with her as a teenager, on expeditions with her father. That way we can see their relationship rather than be told about it in flashbacks. Dad goes off and leaves her. Now we go to present day where she’s found a lead to his wearabouts, and sets off to find him. The lead turns out bad, and it’s a dead end. She spent tons of money to get there and is now broke. NOW the film starts. Wouldn’t you buy that more?

I think you have a fine alternative there, but Lara’s stubbornness in believing her father was still alive worked for me.

Also, the bad guy was bad. Why didn’t he have a connection to them both? Why was he not the father’s prodige who screws him over to get a find? I was wondering why he was so keen on finding this tomb. It would make more sense if he had some kind of established hostility with the father. Maybe he screws the Dad over in the scene I mentioned above to give Laura a reason to hate him too.

The bad guy, Mathias, was something of a casualty of removing the supernatural plot that was in the game. In Tomb Raider (2013) he wasn’t just on the island because he’d taken a job that wouldn’t send the helicopter for him. He’d been shipwrecked there as a teacher and had been forced to survive. And because of the power that Himiko had in the video game there was absolutely zero possibility of escaping. Planes would be struck down by sudden lightning storms. Boats would be smashed against the rocks by impossible waves.

So, in the game, Mathias discovered that Himiko was trying to return to life and dedicated himself to helping her in hopes of being rewarded. He thought if he helped find her a new host body (because Himiko of the game was partially immortal by taking on new, young bodies over and over) she would set him free. His motivation in the game was much stronger... but without a supernatural Himiko, that motivation was not available in the movie.

They did give movie Mathias some slight motivation of wanting to see his children again. But yeah, it wasn’t enough. And also yes, they kinda slipped in this feeling of a protege or rival in there. It almost felt like he was suppose to be a “Belloq” to Richard Croft’s “Indiana”... which actually would have worked... if they’d taken a bit more time to sell it. It did appear they probably met on the island and maybe even got to know each other but they didn’t give enough details to make that work.

Again, Tomb Raider (2018) was not a great movie. I’d recommend people rent it when that’s possible instead of seeing it in theater. But it was far better than the way your portrayed it:

Tomb Raider blew. Not even in a so-bad-it's-good way.

I completely reject that. It had its share of problems, but it also had its share of fun moments and call backs to the game that were done well. And the actress playing Lara Croft was completely solid.

I look at it this way: In terms of live actions adaptations of my favorite non-live-action properties, Tomb Raider was one of the better efforts. I walked out of Avatar: The Last Airbender completely embarrassed for all involved. I walked out of last year’s Ghost in the Shell completely frustrated at how that movie flubbed some of the key characterizations and story beats. I would never recommend anyone waste a penny on either of those movies.

I walked out of Tomb Raider (2018) thinking that it at least maintained the spirit of its source material and did a very good job of translating new video game Lara Croft to the big screen, even if some of the surrounding plotting wasn’t as good as it should have been.