'Tomb Raider' Review: A Fun Video Game B-Movie

The video game industry is still trying to crack the code of success that the superhero movie genre has achieved, with the newest crop of game adaptations being influenced by the developers themselves. Into this transitional era steps Tomb Raider (2018), a reboot of the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider film franchise of the early 2000s, as well as an adaptation of the 2013 Tomb Raider video game reboot. So does Tomb Raider (2018) get right what so many previous video game movies have gotten wrong? Sort of.

The rebooted story opens in London, where we meet Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) living the life of a street kid, trying to work odd jobs to make ends meet. Lara's life of desperation turns out to be a personal choice: the young heiress will inherit a fortune if she just signs the official death certificate of her father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), who went missing seven years prior. Lara insists her dad is still alive and refuses to give in, but just before she caves and signs the papers, she gets the first clue as to where her father vanished. That investigation leads Lara to Asia, and into the company of Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), son of the boat captain that took Lara's father on his final voyage. Together, Lara and Lu sail to a remote island off the coast of Japan, where they uncover a mystery and ancient threat, which forces Lara to become the woman who will one day be known as the legendary "Tomb Raider."

This new Tomb Raider never excels at being a unique action movie experience -- nor does it excel at being a clever video game adaptation. Instead, the film manages to find some middle ground between both objectives, offering viewers a fun enough B-movie action-survival tale as well as incorporating enough visual references to create a competent video game adaptation. All in all, it's a good flick... albeit at matinee price.

Norwegian director Roar Uthaug brings the aesthetic influences of '80s/'90s testosterone-fueled "bro action flicks" to this version of Tomb Raider, essentially giving us a female-led version of that sub-genre. That includes the gritty and grainy visual style of cinematographer George Richmond (Kingsman) and the pounding bass lines of Junkie XL (Mad Max: Fury Road), which are crucial to creating the grimey and hard-edged '90s-era action aesthetic. In terms of direction, Uthaug doesn't do anything especially advanced: his style is, again, mostly a lot of throwback aesthetic choices in framing and angles without a lot of the more modern, shaky-cam, quick-edit approaches to action. It's almost weirdly refreshing in its nostalgic feel, offering a classic mindless popcorn film experience that will be enough for a lot of viewers.

(Daniel Wu and Alicia Vikander star in Tomb Raider)

In terms of video game flourishes, Uthaug chooses to reference the 2013 Tomb Raider reboot game through the usual visual Easter eggs, but also goes a bit deeper than that. 2013's Tomb Raider game was very much a cinematic experience, so this Tomb Raider movie smartly doesn't try to reinvent that wheel. Instead, Uthaug blends things like traditional directorial establishing shots with video game sequencing in order to present Lara's objectives and obstacles like levels in a game. These sequences are typically done in well-planned tracking shots, which start at Lara's position and move across big set pieces to show what the threats are and what goals she must achieve before cutting back to Lara and executing a traditional action movie sequence. These "in-game" moments are, as stated, nice little flourishes that help distinguish the video game genre without distracting from the flow of the movie. They're not visually astounding or groundbreaking, just some added fun for the gaming crowd.

A basic directorial technique gets an equally basic storyline from Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel), Alastair Siddons (Trespass Against Us), and Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman). The story and script for Tomb Raider are largely lifted from the reboot game, including the mysterious island of Yamatai, the threats of Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), and the Trinity organization, with the latter trying to weaponize the ancient evil in the form of a Japanese goddess of death named Himiko. The film wisely trades some of the more convoluted story threads, characters, and mysticism of the game for a much more streamlined script, but it's also a very straightforward and formulaic survival thriller, with "twists" that will spotted from a mile away.

Thankfully, watching Alicia Vikander go through even cliched story beats as Lara Croft is pretty rewarding, and much more so than watching Angelina Jolie tackle the role in the 2000s. Vikander is cute, feisty, vulnerable, and witty in the slower moments, and is even better at action performance, nailing a lot of the film's more elaborate CGI sequences with genuine emotional fire and stunt commitment. Lara takes a hard beating in this film, and Vikander sells the danger and violence of that journey in every moment of panic and pain she conveys, making the PG-13 rating feel R-rated intense.

Superhero movies (even gaming ones) need a great villain, and while Tomb Raider's Mathias Vogel isn't all that memorable of a character on paper, he certainly becomes one in the hands of the always-charismatic Walton Goggins. Goggins is asked to deliver a relatable madman who is at once polite, calm, totally mad, and ruthlessly psychotic -- all in the name of being a good dad to his own estranged daughters. Needless to say, it's a weird blend that only someone like Goggins could make work, which he does with a boozy sway and swagger. Additional roles from Daniel Wu (Into the Badlands), Dominic West (The Wire), and Kristin Scott Thomas (The English Patient) are minor and generic supporting parts that benefit from a seriously talented (read: overqualified) set of performers.

In the end, Tomb Raider is solid enough, and bolstered well enough be a great lead actress to at least buy the franchise a sequel chapter. It may not be the top height of the video game genre, but it's also far from being the bottom of the barrel. And, given the flow of the cultural zeitgeist right now, Tomb Raider couldn't be bringing Lara Croft back at a better time.

Tomb Raider opens in theaters on March 16th. It is 1 hour 58 mins long, and is Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and for some language. Let us know what you thought about the film in the comments!

Review Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️