THIS NEW LARA IS THE CREAM OF THE CROFT
Tomb Raider Cert: 12A 1hr 58mins
Amazingly, it is 17 years since Angelina Jolie first took the Lara Croft character out of the games console and on to the big screen. The Hollywood A-lister was only 26 at the time but nevertheless, despite a reasonably successful sequel a couple of years later, she soon seemed to outgrow the character, inevitably making the franchise long overdue a reboot.
And what a reboot Tomb Raider now gets as Lara travels to a remote Japanese island in search of both her father and the ancient and supposedly long-dead sorceress Himiko, encouragingly better known as the ‘mother of death’.
Just about everything works here – with casting, story and pacing combining to impressive, high-end action-movie effect. Holding it all together, however, is Alicia Vikander, who gives us a Lara near perfect for these times.
Her heroine is now girlnext-door pretty rather than film-star glam and, quite rightly, those dated, secondary sex-doll characteristics have gone.
This is a determined but humanly fallible and distinctly less curvaceous Lara, who rides a courier bike for a living, wears her vests two at a time and favours cargo pants over shorts. That may disappoint a few male teenage fans but she feels 100 per cent more real.
The story – based loosely on a 2013 video-game reboot – is a good one but it’s the sure-footed execution by the splendidly named Norwegian director, Roar Uthaug, that really impresses. I’m embarrassed to say I’d never heard of him before but, after this strong Hollywood debut, I’m absolutely certain we’ll all be hearing of him again.
With generally decent visual effects – and good support from Dominic West as Lara’s father, Walton Goggins as a genuinely nasty baddie and Daniel Wu as her Hong Kongbased sidekick – only one or two over-extended chase sequences (betraying the film’s video-game origins) mar the familiar, formulaic fun.