Tomb Raider (7/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 117 minutes.

PG-13

This is Raiders of the lost Ark (1981) on steroids. Instead of Harrison Ford running and chasing and being chased all the time, this time it’s Alicia Vikander. She’s a lot easier to look at for almost two hours than Harrison, at least for men she is.

Based on a video game (2013’s “Tomb Raider”), director Roar Uthaug was a player, as was Vikander (Angelina Jolie became a star playing the character in the early 2000s). The screenplay was written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons from a story by Robertson-Dworet and Evan Daugherty.

Lara Croft (Vikander) is a young woman whose enormously wealthy father, Richard (Dominic West), basically abandons her when she’s a child of 12 to go on some unknown quest in Asia. The film starts with a bang as she is working as a bicycle courier and enters into a dare to make 600 quid by eluding a team of bicyclists until a can of paint dripping from her bike runs out of paint. That just sets the stage for what to expect during the rest of the film.

Back at her father’s mansion, where she is encouraged to sign a paper certifying that her father is dead since he’s been gone for seven years, she finds some papers in a secret basement that give her a clue as to where he went. She sets out on her own quest to find him, leading her into this crusade of nonstop adventure.

The music (Tom Holkenborg) is truly outstanding, carrying the tension of the movie throughout. The cinematography (George Richmond), production design (Gary Freeman), and special effects (Lise-Marie Bothma) are as important to the entertainment value as is Vikander, who spends a lot of her time dangling above huge chasms into which she will fall if she can’t hold on. That scene, with different locations, is presented time and again. Perils of Pauline has nothing on Lara Croft.

While the story has little cohesion, it’s a far, far better film than last year’s silly Wonder Woman. While both are fantasies with female protagonists that have no connection with reality and while they both are loaded with nonsensical occurrences that defy credibility, this one is peripatetic entertainment that doesn’t distort history or use real people’s names, with the added attraction that the protagonist is inordinately beautiful. Basically, it’s another exciting, entertaining film for which you must follow The Beatles’ suggestion and simply “turn off your mind, relax and float downstream…”

The downside for me is that I’ve been a huge Vikander fan since I first saw her in A Royal Affair (2012) and predicted then that she would eventually win an Oscar®, which she did. While she probably got a lot of money for this, I would prefer that she use her exceptional talent in films of greater weight, something akin to All About Eve (1950). Unfortunately for that idea, this concludes with a clear message that a sequel is in the offing. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm all for films that have nothing to offer but entertainment for a couple of hours, and this is a good one. If there's a sequel, I'll be there.