LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER
US, 2001, 100 minutes, Colour.
Angelina Jolie, John Voight, Iain Glenn, Noah Taylor, Daniel Craig, Richard Johnson, Chris Barrie, Julian Rhind- Tutt, Leslie Phillips.
Directed by Simon West.
An action show that is based on an interactive computer game. And, that's the way it starts. Our super-heroine, guns blazing, eludes, evades, smashes, bashes and crashes technological monsters programmed to test her skills. This is a game for brains, brawn and beauty. Which means that, although the only interaction on the part of the audience is to share the thrills and spills, we are forced to identify with her to win the game.
And then it all changes.
I had expected this review to be about computer game movies. There have been some very violent versions of say, Mortal Kombat or Streetfighter, which give one pause about the time, energy and ingenuity used by youngsters (and adults) in playing these deadly games. That must be one of the key media issues of our time.
But then Lara Croft turns into this month's variation on Indiana Jones or The Mummy - and is all the more welcome for that. In fact, it turns into an old-fashioned adventure with old-fashioned ideas: a kind of masonic secret society in Venice, The Illuminati (some years before the Da Vinci Code), want to get hold of a key that will give them world power when pieces of a mysterious triangle (which our ancestors wisely separated to the ends of the earth) fit together at the moment of the alignment of the planets. (And people say the Biblical tradition is too hard to believe!!). It is Lara Croft, Lady Croft, to the rescue. She lives in a stately home outside London where her butler is trying to make her act and dress like a lady and her Australian sidekick is a technology nerd devoted to thinking up wilder and harder challenges for her.
The dastardly lawyer who represents the Illuminati steals a mysterious clock left to Lara by Lord Croft, her father, whom Lara misses intensely. Promise her that time will reverse and she can see her father again and she has motivation that takes her to Cambodia in 15 hours where she solves the mystery of the triangle piece in 15 minutes. Next stop, Iceland, standing in for Russia where the pieces will fit together and...
The film is colourful, more than a touch exotic in its decor and settings. But it does not take itself too seriously. More often than not it is sending itself up, parodying itself with smart lines and derring-do. This makes it quite engaging in a way that the Mummy movies did: over the top with tongue in cheek.
Lara Croft is the talented but, in her films as well as offscreen, oddball Angelina Jolie, an Oscar-winner for Girl, Interrupted. Gossip said she clashed with her father in real life. But, here he is on screen with her as her beloved father, Jon Voight. Their facial resemblances are striking. Noah Taylor looks dishevilled as the nerd while Iain Glen makes a splendidly nasty villain.
It won't stay in the memory, but, while it's there, it's more entertaining (for action devotees only) than expected.
1. The popularity of Lara Croft? Computer games? A female Indiana Jones? The two films?
2. The English setting, the elaborate mansion, the set up for her training, memories of her father, visions in the night, Cambodia, on the site, Venice and the Illuminati?
3. The effect of the stunts, action sequences, special effects? Musical score?
4. The introduction to Lara, the giant robot, her ingenuity and the battles, conquering the robot, the disc and her music? A reliance on Bryce for inventions and control? Hillary as her butler? Their care for her? Her training sequences, bungeejumping…? And the attack of the thugs?
5. The introduction to the Illuminati, the group, in Venice, the assembly, the alignment of the planets, every 5000 years, the need for the triangle, power, moving through time zones? Powell and his assistant, the reassurances to the assembly? The distinguished leader and his questions? The irony that Powell did not have the answers?
6. Lara, her devotion to her father, his loss, seeing him in the dream, his explanation of the alignment, warning about the triangle? The clock, examining it, Lara smashing it, the emergence of the triangle?
7. Her going to see Mr Wilson, his advice, a member of the Illuminati, her going to see Powell, her suspicions? His stealing the clock?
8. The past with Alex West, tomb Raider, the mutual taunts? Going on the adventure, to Cambodia, the action adventure, seizing the triangle? The later plane ride to Siberia?
9. The origins of the triangle, The Triangle of Light, its mysterious powers?
10. The giant statue, Lara’s escape, through the waterfall, the advice from the monk and his knowing her father?
11. Bryce, going with her on the adventures? His advice?
12. The partnership, going to Venice, Powell saying her father was a member of the Illuminati?
13. The confrontation between Lara and Powell, Bryce present, in the tomb, the solar model?
14. The threat to Alex West, the fight, Lara winning?
15. Meeting her father in cross-time? The triangle and its destruction? Time going backwards? Powell and the knife in West? The destruction of the triangle, West alive, Lara fighting Powell, this confession that he had murdered her father, the knife in him? Her getting back the picture of her mother?
16. The end, back at home, Lara Croft as a Lady, attended by Bryce and Hillary?
