Written by Jonathan Nicklas  on June 16, 2001

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: Jolie Scores in the box office!

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The initial Tomb Raider title debuted back in 1996, as Eidos Interactive released their contentious action adventure game to the videogame public. What was remarkable about "Tomb Raider" in its era? Part of it included the style and diversity of the game; an effort integrating elements of brains in addition brawn. This made the game stand out from others within its genre simply because of placing its somewhat realistic life like characters (Lara Croft, cough) into fantasy scenarios. And also, it was once in a blue moon that there was a female protagonist in a game.

After five installments with substantial improvements over the predecessor (yeah, right), the franchise subsequently sold more than 20 million units. The developers were obviously doing something right (Lara Croft). However, they wouldn't even dream of making a movie if it didn't have a pretty big fan base. Sadly, it's safe to say that this film has gone the way of many other movies based on video games. Double Dragon, Mario Brothers, Pong, and now the Tomb Raider adaptation is amidst the collections of movie flops. The film lacks any sense of excitement; at least some of the cheaper video game movies could to some extent sustain a roll once they got on one, but "Tomb Raider" wants so badly to show off its globe spanning locations that it often projects all the urgency of a travelogue.

The movie had one thing going for it, Angelina Jolie. She plays the leading lady and sassy English heroine in this film. In the opening sequence, set in the high-tech playroom at Lara Croft's imposing mansion, Jolie seems to derive so much sensual pleasure out of sparring with a combat robot that it makes you actually think the movie might be interesting and will hold your attention for the rest of the ninety minutes of this film.

Well, you come to find out, that as lusty as things get, the movie is about Croft racing villain Manfred Powell (Iain Glen) and his minions through jungles, tundra and, tombs for the pieces of a magical triangle with great powers. Of course the antagonists want it for some nefarious purpose and Croft hopes it will put her in contact with the spirit of her dead explorer father (played by Jolie's real father, Jon Voight).

Additionally, there are also mysterious appearances by some little girl who is maybe Lara's inner child or something along that sort, or perhaps a little child just wandered on to the set on that day of shooting. Anyway, she is not really connected or significant to anything else that's going on. Throughout this whole film, there's no tension or drama in any of this, despite the regular inclusion of the almost-but-not-quite-revealing shower scenes... damn that PG-13 rating, we need a nude raider code for this film.

Nevertheless, Jolie is usually worth watching, and is particularly impressive when fighting on a bungee cord of sorts. Jolie appears to be having a great time in this role, something the rest of the movie fails to impart. You would think a film that had $80 million dollars worth of funding would have at least hired a hell of a lot better writers than the ones they had. I mean, the CG scenes, monsters and everything is beautiful, but the story was the most bland and uninteresting piece of garbage I have seen recently.