'Tomb Raider' REVIEW: Alicia Vikander Plays it 100% committed in 'Indiana Groans' Ad

'Tomb Raider' is a failure in attempting to reboot the Tomb Raider film franchise originating from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) starring Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie is out of the way, for now, we have Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander as the lead character. If you want to know my thoughts on the source material which were the games then I most likely won't give you any new information you don't already know . The games featured pulse-pounding action, interesting adventures and a bad-ass female protagonist. The first movie to its credit did manage to look somewhat like the games, but it was too cheeky and too senseless for my taste. The second film was slightly better, but it was too overlong for its own good. This film contains the bad elements of both films and churns out this overly self-serious take on Tomb Raider.

The plot of this film is that we have Lara Croft (played by Alicia Vikander) who's the daughter of a missing adventurer. It has been seven years since her father went missing and must be pushed beyond her limits in order to find him. She teams up with a Chinese sailor Lu Ren (played by Daniel Wu) to find the island where her father supposedly died trying to find. By the time she reaches the island a man named Vogel (played by Walton Goggins) is also looking for the same tomb Lara's father was trying to find. In theory, this plot is inviting of exciting, jaw-dropping and awesome action sequences, but it falls completely flat by the end.

What is an improvement over the first two films is how the character of Lara Croft is presented. She's no longer seen as a sex symbol, but now a dedicated adventurer more in tune with the newer Tomb Raider game released in 2013. Alicia Vikander surprises me as to what she's willing to do to sell this character. Unlike Jolie's portrayal, she does go through some turmoil which was astonishing to me. When Lara Croft kills someone for the first time and patches her own wound, you do feel what she's going through as this adventure is new territory for her. It does lend itself to an interesting transformation from someone who's down on her luck and reckless to being a responsible bad-ass chick. It's cliché, but it works within the film. Walton Goggins plays the antagonist in this film and he does well with what he's given, but his role does boil down to being like a Marvel villain. His motivation is unclear and so generic that you just don't care by the end.

While the portrayal of Lara Croft has improved over the first two films, this film downgrades itself in many other aspects. The film does rip-off the first movie where a father’s love motivates our main hero to go on this adventure. In fact, a lot of this film comes off like a rip-off from everything else from Indiana Jones to National Treasure. The emotional arc of the film does depend on you caring about the relationship between Lara and her father. The film does show flashbacks of them talking with each other, but it's not enough to establish a relationship that's worth a damn. Some of the action sequences are different and unique from the original, but its overuse of distracting green-screen and excessive CGI makes it look more like a video game than a legitimate movie. I also found this film to be incredibly tedious clocking in at 2 hours and 2 minutes and I thought Cradle of Life was too long.

Overall, this new incarnation of 'Tomb Raider' certainly has intentions of being a new action franchise. Alicia Vikander does make for a worthy successor to Angelina Jolie's portrayal of Lara Croft. But, it’s boring plotting and fake action makes this film feel like such a downer for a film based on what is considered ground-breaking games.

'Tomb Raider' gets a D+