Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life

Angelina Jolie returns as a distaff Indiana Jones in "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life," an action/adventure film (based on a video game character) that is just goofy enough and inane enough to be almost entertaining.

In this follow-up adventure - which is designed to give historians and social studies teachers a severe case of the heebie-jeebies - Lara, the world-famous archaeologist and adventurist, finds evidence that the mythical Pandora's Box is really no myth at all, but rather an actual object loaded with enough plague and pestilence to wipe the entire human race off the face of the planet. It lies buried somewhere, hidden by Alexander the Great in the 4th Century B.C. when he discovered how virulent and deadly the contents of the box really were. Now, twenty-four centuries later, Lara has to try and prevent an evil billionaire capitalist from locating the container, prying open the lid, and bringing an end to civilization as we know it.

Though the storyline is clearly not one to be conjured with, all that really matters in a movie such as this one is that the action move quickly and the stunts be sufficiently enterprising to engage the audience. Credibility is the last prerequisite in a Lara Croft adventure, as evidenced by the fact that if Lara isn't parachuting smack dab onto the deck of a ship or into the passenger seat of a moving jeep, she's hitching a ride on the back of a great white shark and riding it to safety. Ah well, it's all in good fun, I suppose, and Jolie not only looks stunning in all the outfits she's been given to wear, but seems to be having a fine time playing along with the joke.

The ending is inevitably anticlimactic, but viewers can have a pretty good time getting there at least.

An entertaining movie, but some stuff should have been redone or just cut out to keep the pace of the movie going I was prepared to walk out of the theatre when she punched the shark, honestly...that isn't even video game material. While like the first one, the plot is a bit thin and kind of milked out to keep it going...as most people would have guessed, the main area of interest lies within Angelina Jolie herself, she is much sexier in this film than the last.

This film is nothing special, I'd say more matured than the first one, but it's fun to watch while kickin back and eating pizza or something.

3 out of 5 stars

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is a sequel that might be better than the original. It improves upon the strengths but doubles down on some of the issues as well (bland villain, nonsense plot) which is the only thing stopping it from truly claiming that title. Still, it's another fun globetrotting action movie with an unexpectedly bold swing at the end.

Angelina Jolie is still flawless as Lara Croft. Her confidence, elegance and screen presence remain intact and she really shows how Lara genuinely enjoys her adventures, until they go wrong. Gerard Butler is a superior love interest compared to his predecessor, mostly because his dynamic with Jolie gets more focus and he gets to use his real accent.

Jan de Bont directs a better looking sequel, despite the bad day for night scenes. The action is better here with less distracting CGI and a standout practical wingsuit sequence worthy of Tom Cruise. Alan Silvestri's score almost entirely eschews the club anthems of its predecessor for a more generically rousing blockbuster score with a sense of adventure.

The movie centers on Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) who is assigned by the British Intelligence -MI6- to discover the Pandora box that the baddies (Ciaran Hinds and Til Schweiger) want to find with the purpose of ruling the world . She is helped by an imprisoned mercenary (Gerard Butler) that will be freed , and two sympathetic underlings who appeared in the first part (Noah Taylor and Christhopher Barrie) . They'll have to confront amount of dangers , adventures and risks until reach their aims .

Run-of-the-mill action film because from the beginning to the final the frenetic action , thrills and fast movement are continued and unstopped . The picture blends emotion , intrigue , thriller , suspense , rip-roaring scenes and a little bit of violence when the fights happen . It is a film pretty bemusing and entertaining . It's a typical modern action film : continuous struggles in leaps and bounds , running men while are shooting and interminable pursuits . Besides , there are spellbound landscapes of various countries where the starring are traveling around the world to resolve the enigmas . The ending confrontation amongst the protagonists and enemies on the Kilimanjaro's skirts is breathtaking . The picture is similar to previous part with the difference in this latter there is an adventure chum (Gerard Butler) playing a type of ¨buddy movie¨ role. Thus , the storyline is basically a rehash of the former picture . Just as in the first film, there are several scenes in which the live-action Lara mimics are mingled with the computer generator effects . The film attained moderated success at box office , less than the first one , and not as good as the anterior . I don't know if the producers are going to make a third part .

David Tattersall's cinematography is glittering and glimmer as is well reflected on the awesome and impressive outdoors in charge of the production designer Petruccelli . Alan Silvestri's music is atmospheric and marvelous . The motion picture was well directed by Jan De Bont (Speed) . It is very spectacular , it is a film for adrenaline lovers . The yarn will appeal to Angelina Jolie and Lara Croft videogames fans.

When an earthquake in Santorini, Greece uncovers the lost Luna Temple of Alexander the Great, wealthy globetrotting treasure hunter Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) jumps at the chance to unearth the secrets of this lost temple and uncovers a strange glowing orb. However when Lara and her associates are ambushed by the Chinese crime syndicate, Shay Ling, the orb is lost with Lara now only possessing partial images of the orb. Lara is later contacted by MI6 who inform her the orb is of interest to biological research magnate Dr. Jonathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds) who on the surface is a respected doctor whose efforts in medical research have earned him the Nobel Prize, but beneath that façade is the leading creator of biological weapons who sells his weapons to anyone for the right price. MI6 says Reiss is trying to find Pandora's Box in the elusive Cradle of Life, where humanity is said to have originated from, with intent to use the Box as a weapon. Lara agrees to pursue the orb and Reiss and requests Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler), a former soldier turned mercenary who possesses knowledge of the Shay Ling and is an old flame of Lara's. Now Lara and Terry must travel the globe from Mainland China, to Hong Kong, to Africa to prevent devastation to humanity.

Following the smash success of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider in 2001, development began on a sequel with the film financed as an international co-production through tax credits and presales similar to how the first film was done in a manner that profits were generated before the movie hit theaters. The movie underwhelmed in its debut opening in 4th place behind holdovers Pirates of the Caribbean and Bad Boys II in 2nd and 3rd place respectively, while the top spot was seized by Robert Rodriguez' Spy Kids 3D: Game Over. While the film petered out stateside with a final tally of about $65 million, well short of the $130 million produced by its predecessor, international numbers did bring its final tally to $160 million worldwide which while not great was still profitable thanks to the offsetting of financial risk with presales and tax credits. Paramount blamed the underperformance on the failure of Eidos' then latest release in the game series with Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness garnering bad reviews and souring the brand (which would lead to a soft reboot with Tomb Raider: Legend). While Angel of Darkness' poor reception from fans and critics probably didn't help, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life feels like it's somewhat lacking in the energy and drive that was present in the previous film.

In many ways The Cradle of Life does improve on the previous entry with elements like Lara Croft's killer training robot or the dodgy CGI elements seen in the first film dialed back by a considerable degree. The opening action beat where Lara finds the Luna Temple is really good with some nice acrobatic work for Lara in initially obtaining the Orb that starts off the adventure in a nice visual reference to sequences seen in the games and once again Jolie is doing a nice job inhabiting the character. There's also a fun dynamic between Jolie's Lara and Gerard Butler's Terry with the two sporting a fun sexually charged dynamic and the two playing off against each other quite well. Terry feels like an expansion of what was only hinted at with Daniel Craig's Alex West character from the previous film and as a result is given much more presence and purpose in comparison. Unfortunately the same can't be said for the film's primary antagonist, Ciarán Hinds playing Johnathan Reiss who's just boring as a villain and wants to use Pandora's Box because "wouldn't the world be better with fewer people?". At least the last villain from the previous movie wanted world domination, here, our villain wants to destroy the world because "meh, what else am I gonna do?"

Another part that doesn't work as well is with the film's visual identity or creativity of its adventure sequences. While Jan de Bont has given us some entertaining films as a director and cinematographer with his work photographing Basic Instinct and Die Hard showing his eye for such material as well as his entertaining if silly directorial efforts on films like Speed and Twister, De Bont feels a little more restrained here with a lot of scenes not really matching the level of distinction we saw in the last film. The first movie was objectively speaking a sillier film, it also had a stronger sense of visual identity with two major Tomb Raiding sequences set in Cambodia and Siberia with the tombs both having unique designs as "puzzles" and action beats, as well as distinguished environments that were well established. The cradle of life on the other hand only has ONE major Tomb Raiding sequence at the beginning of the movie and for the rest of the film with its heavy emphasis on Chinese crime syndicates and corrupt pharmaceutical magnates doubling as biological weapons dealers, it hit me that the movie is going less for Indiana Jones and instead more for James Bond. The Cradle of Life is for the most part feels like it's more in line with a spy thriller than an adventure film, down to the fact Lara is working with MI6 as well as a former mercenary who's a love interest. The movie also has a predominantly orange color palette which just doesn't feel all that appealing and leaves the film lacking much visual identity. The movie does eventually return to adventure aspects with a third act set on Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, but the sequence substitutes the orange color palette for a dark grey color palette and takes a promising idea of a room with no set direction of up and down and does virtually nothing with it leading to an underwhelming climax.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider-The Cradle of Life feels just so lifeless. While Jolie and Butler are engaging leads, the adventure they go on in the movie is lacking in adventure and feels more like a generic spy movie that occasionally puts in lip service to adventure. It's not a terrible movie as there are occasionally some standout action sequences or moments with the cast that do work, but there's really not much here that wasn't done with more fun and drive in the last movie.