187.
Tomb Raider
7/10
Yet another franchise that will be going through a revamp. This time it's the once popular gaming franchise, turned movie franchise and whilst there have been changes to the game, it's crossing over into the movie side. There was a lot of people who believe that the old Lara Croft was a little too big 'on top', so they were reduced and now, although the games have changed their look of the character, will this also be the only thing to have changed when it comes to the movies. When I first saw the trailer for this movie, it actually had me interested. It seemed a lot more action-packed and covering exotic places compared to what I remember from the Angelina Jolie movies. This time Croft will be played with Alicia Vikander, a smaller framed girl, ready to take on Walton Goggins, who I assume will be the main antagonist, mainly from the movies that I've already seen him in. Will this be worth filling our screens with yet another remake or should the franchise stick to the gaming instead?
The movie begins with a narration from the voice of Dominic West, who is playing Richard Croft, Lara's father. He is discussing the legendary story of a sorceress named Himiko. The graphics look like older Japanese scripture, as we see her hold the power of life and death, meaning one touch from her could kill you. The army overthrew her and buried her on an island called Yamatai, where she could no longer spread her evil. Richard's plan is to go and investigate this old tale but he also fears leaving his daughter behind when he leaves. We jump forward to a grown-up Lara, who is getting the shit beaten out of her at a boxing gym in London. The owner pulls her up on being behind on her payments and I'm already thinking that this isn't the Croft I know, usually she's rich as hell. When she leaves, so goes to her job as a food delivery girl on her bicycle, before finishing her shift and heading to a hangout with her mates. They talk about a fox hunt, where a gang of people on bikes follow a lead cyclist, who is dripping paint from a can and if they catch that person, they win the money pot. If the fox escapes, the fox keeps the lot. Lara, knowing she needs the money, offers to be the fox and we have a chase scene through the streets of London, full of narrow misses and clever thinking, she jumps onto the back of a van and heads off, before being spotted and hitting the chase again. At a quick second, she thinks she spots her dad and this distracts her, leading to her crashing onto a car bonnet, owned by the police. She gets arrested and is bailed out by her former guardian and father's old business partner, Ana Miller. We can instantly see the fractured relationship, as Ana tells Lara that her father's shares in his company are going to be sold off unless she claims them. It doesn't seem as if she is ready to accept that he isn't coming home. 7 years have already passed.
The following morning and Lara heads to her father's offices. At the desk, she is refused entry as no-one recognises her until she mentions her name, which startles them, but surely anyone can say they are Lara if no-one knows what she actually looks like these days? She's there to sign papers and claim the inheritance but first, she is given a puzzle box, like one she had as a child and upon opening it, she finds a message and a key, which leads her to the family tomb. Inside, there are no dead bodies, but instead, a secret office full of her dad's research. On the desk is a video camera containing a video he made outlining his plans to travel and research the legend of Himiko. He has suggested that Lara destroy all evidence inside his office because a group called Trinity is after it and could destroy the world if they find the island. That got deep. Fast. She knows she needs money and fast, she plans on following her father's maps and working out what happened to him. She heads to a local pawn shop run by Nick Frost and he plays a back-chatting bastard, who lowers his offers if people ask for more money. She instantly travels to Hong Kong to track down a boat and it's owner that she noticed in a picture on her father's desk. As she arrives at the docks, her bag gets stolen by three local thieves and we have another chase scene, this time by foot and leaping from boat to boat. She finds the boat she's looking for, mid-chase, where one of the thieves pulls a knife and she screams for help, when a drunken Lu Ren, the owner of the boat, pulls a gun out on the top deck and scares the lads off. He passes out and falls onto the main deck, leading to Lara waking him up, back inside and soon questions him about her own father, finding out that Lu Ren's father also went on the same trip. She offers to pay him to travel with her, just to find out what the hell happened.
We follow the two on the boat, as they sit a storm and the boat doesn't survive. Lara gets washed ashore, alone and is knocked out by a merc. She wakes in a tent, meeting Mathias Vogel, played by Goggins, who is leading Trinity's expedition to find Himiko's tomb. He isn't allowed to return to his family until he has found the tomb and brought back what the company wants. When Croft rebuffs his offer for her to help him, he turns nasty and claims to have killed Richard for not helping him either. Croft is put to hard labor and soon catches up with Lu, who both witness an exhausted worker get executed by Vogel. Lu knows that their best chance is if they let Lara run for it. He gives her a window, as he knocks out one of the mercs. The rest chase her down as she jumps into a river and is almost swept down a waterfall, that's until she grabs onto the wing of an old plane, which is also hanging over the drop. This is one of the bits that gripped me in the trailer. She manages to get inside the plan, just as it begins to fall, finding a parachute inside, she just about deploys before hitting the trees and then the ground, ending up with a branch sticking out of her gut.
This isn't looking good.
But, as in any other film, we know she'll be fine. It'll be pretty stupid to kill her off now. She even manages to fight a kill a merc that had tracked her down and it is pretty obvious that this is the first person that she has killed. She is mortified by her actions but there is no time to stand still. She sees a mysterious figure running off into the distance and she chases them down. Seeing them at the bottom of a cliff, climbing to a cave, she follows on. Walking into the cave, it's revealed to be Richard, her father, who is somehow still alive. I think she is just hallucinating from the blood loss or something but he's the one that thinks he's seeing things after all these years. After a small embrace, she is patched up by her father and he suddenly turns anger when he finds out that she didn't actually destroy his work. Despite his reluctance to fight back against Trinity, she grabs his bow and arrows and heads back out, knowing they are closer than ever.
She suddenly turns into a complete badass, taking on Vogel's men and releasing Lu Ren and the prisoners. Just before she can get to Vogel, Richard has emerged and his being held at gunpoint, just outside the main cave's locked door. Richard begs her to kill Vogel but fearing what would happen to her father, obviously, she offers to open the door in exchange for him. They all finally go down into the tomb and come across a number of trials and booby-traps that remind me of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. When finally making it to the tomb, they open the casket and as the men try to move the body, they quickly get infected and end up going into a frenzy before dying. The Crofts realise something big. There actually aren't any chains holding this woman down here. She seems to have locked herself away for the safety of everyone else because she was actually a plague. Vogel takes a finger for safekeeping and suddenly, shit hits the fan as Richard is grabbed by an infected soldier and although he kills him, he has too, been infected. He knows what must be done and takes some grenades, says his final goodbye and blows up the tomb, causing it to collapse, bit by bit. Lara is on the chase for Vogel and his finger, catching up at a cavern and the ladder they used to cross. The crack on with a fight scene and she ends up grabbing the finger, sticking it down his throat and sending him to his death. The cave collapse has now caught up with her and with a few leaps, a pickaxe and some luck, she reaches the end and is pulled out by Lu Ren. They see a Trinity chopper which has arrived on news of the tomb discovery and force the men to take them both and the workers home. On getting back to London, Lara is once again in the office, looking to sign over for the shares of the company. Whilst looking at the companies that are owned by her dad's company, she can see that Trinity is listed and Ana was linked to it the whole time and to Vogel. She decides to act like nothing is wrong and continues her dad's work in bringing down the bad guys. As the movie finishes, this is the first time we see the words Tomb Raider on the screen, with a follow-up scene of Lara back at Nick Frost's pawn shop, this time buying her two highly recognisable dual guns, maybe leading us into a sequel.
Safe to say this wasn't half bad. It had plenty of action, exotic locations and even some actual tomb raiding. That ticks some boxes surely. Vikander as Lara worked really well. I had only ever seen her in Ex Machina and that she did a very interesting job with a role I had never really seen being acted out before. As for Goggins, that guy can play evil really well and yet again, this came across as a smarmy guy, who wanted to get home to his kids, no matter who he had to step on. The story was a pretty interesting one, especially as it took a turn with the dad still alive but seeing Lara as someone without fear was fine, but I think one little flaw was how fast she turned into a killing machine halfway through the movie considering she was so distraught the first time that she took a life. The scene at that moment was really well done, a very dark moment, bad weather and gruesome surroundings. There was plenty of action sequences and for once it was good to enjoy a movie based on a video game. I haven't played the newer version of the games, only the older ones with the pointy boobs, so comparing both isn't really something I can do. All I know is that it was nice to have an origin story for a character we know that isn't Spiderman!
No comments:
Post a Comment