Tomb Raider is a 2018 action-adventure film directed by Roar Uthaug and based on the 2013 video game of the same name.
The film stars Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft, in which she embarks on a perilous journey to her father’s last-known destination, hoping to solve the mystery of his disappearance.
Tomb raider is a decent movie. Its action packed and fast paced with good performances from Vikander and Walton Goggins as antagonist Mathias Vogel.
Vikander produces a convincing performance as a young Lara Croft who stumbles upon her father’s research and embarks on a journey to find out what happened to him after being presumed dead after 7 years lost. She does a very good job of portraying the innocence of her character before transforming into a tough badass throughout the movie. One scene shows this perfectly as she is forced to kill her attacker. The shock of performing such an act as well as realizing that she has killed her first person was one of the more memorable moments in this performance.
Walton Goggins plays the bad guy in this movie. He is a cold hearted, desperate man who is hell bent on finding the tomb in which a huge secret is kept, a secret in which Laras Father (played by Dominic West) had tried to keep quiet. Goggins gives a good performance as a man desperate to get home to his family, as well as being unhinged after spending 7 years away from home. This is an indication in the change of the role of the antagonist in movies in the last few years. They are not just there to be inherently evil for no reason anymore, it improves the story if they are given human motives for their actions. That is the case in this film and it is done well.
The movie was fairly action packed from the beginning to end. There were a few tense moments filled with suspense. It wasn’t exactly edge of your seat stuff but still exciting. The plane scene in the trailer is one of these moments, even if the ending was very unrealistic. It is obviously a hero movie however so those type of scenes are expected.
The movie is a bit rushed in the middle however, and Laras transition from semi-innocent adventurer to all out killing machine badass was not very believable. In the space of about 15 minutes she goes from helpless young woman who screams as she runs away from danger, to mercilessly murdering bad guys with her bow and arrow. There were a few attempts at humour as well that missed the mark.
All in all, this movie is a decent watch but nothing special. I don’t know if I would spend money going to the cinema to see it again but it is good for an action movie. It is more a movie to watch when you are bored or staying in on a Friday night to keep you entertained.
6/10