rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States, Germany, Japan, United Kingdom, The Netherlands; 2003
Directed by Jan de Bont; produced by Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin; screenplay by Dean Georgaris
Starring Angelina Jolie, Gerard Butler, Ciarán Hinds, Christopher Barrie, Noah Taylor, Djimon Hounsou
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
The problem I have with the 'Tomb Raider'-films is that they seem a little
too serious. Between the ridiculous action scenes, that is what I mean.
Because things are handled in such a serious way the action sequences,
though fun to look at, seem really stupid in comparison to the serious
scenes we saw right before the action. If there was a little more fun in the
scenes between action sequences I would not mind the goofy action.
May be I should not care about that. May be the good thing is that it seems
this serious and therefore the action can be really funny. But I think 'Tomb
Raider'-films don't want us to find the action sequences funny, may be we
are allowed to chuckle a bit. Still, to be a little positive, this sequel is
better than the original. That I really hated the first movie helps with
that.
The story is a search for Pandora's Box. Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) takes
us from one continent to another. She has the help of Terry Sheridan (Gerard
Butler) with searching a certain ball that can tell where you can find "the
Cradle of Life", the place where Pandora's Box must be hidden. The villain
named Jonathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds) is searching for the same thing. His
motives are not important but I guess they have to do something with world
domination or so.
'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' has the premise for a great
action adventure film like the 'Indiana Jones'-films. There are moments it
comes close but unfortunately they do not last long. The reason I was able
to sit through the movie is the way it looks. The visual effects together
with the production design are pretty good. The director is Jan de Bont who
directed 'The Haunting', another film where the visual effects and
production design were pretty good but the movie itself was not. He also
made the terrific action movie 'Speed' and the highly entertaining 'Twister'
so I was hoping for a sequel that was a lot better instead of a little, but
after his terrible 'Speed 2: Cruise Control' director Jan de Bont seems to
have lost it.