By contrast, Goggins' performance feels strangely dialed down. Of the bunch, West fares the best, if only because he's fully committed to being in an action movie that's an adaptation of a video game, i.e. The rest of the cast is rounded out by Dominic West (sporting an impressive collection of wigs) as Lara's father Walton Goggins as Mathias Vogel, the de facto villain and Kristin Scott Thomas as Ana, partner at Croft Holdings and the closest thing Lara has to a guardian. But that, I suppose, will be what we get should this Tomb Raider get cleared for a sequel. Unfortunately, the film's treatment of non-white characters is overall a little dicey, as Lara's first overseas excursion starts off with her getting testy that nobody speaks English, and leads swiftly into her getting mugged.) The point being, it'd be fun seeing them raid tombs together and starting them off as friends, rather than having to work through hang-ups that feel shoehorned in. (He's also notably the only person of color with any real dialogue. He's got charisma in spades (if you need any further proof, check out AMC's Into the Badlands), which only makes it more disappointing when he essentially disappears halfway through the film. One of the great pleasures of any action movie is seeing how the team of misfit heroes comes together, and though Lara is, by rights, center stage, Wu's Lu Ren makes a good partner. Vikander doesn't have the same comic chops (then again, who does), but she's still got enough charm and enough strength to carry an action-adventure film, particularly with Daniel Wu at her side. He doesn't really have a sob story, but Brendan Fraser's charm and talent for swashbuckling make him a compelling hero nonetheless. Take Rick O'Connell, from the 1999 The Mummy. On a more extreme level, I'd be perfectly happy to shed the franchise trappings altogether, and watch Alicia Vikander play an original tomb raider, free from comparisons to Angelina Jolie and from the conception that some kind of childhood trauma is necessary to make a character interesting. I'd be perfectly happy to catch up to Lara Croft after she's come to terms with her past, and is raiding tombs of her own accord. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the movie chugs along just fine, but it does make the exposition and backstory a little more tedious to get through. Tomb raiding enters the picture when she discovers a puzzle that he left behind, and follows the clues to an island called Yamatai.įor the most part, the story doesn't go anywhere unexpected (save for a very brief suggestion of the supernatural). She's still from a wealthy family, though she's refused to take her inheritance as an extension of refusing to believe that her father, who disappeared some time ago, is dead, instead working as a bike messenger in order to pay her way. This iteration of Lara Croft hews closest to the most recent games. The only pity is that she's stuck in a movie (directed by Roar Uthaug) that's about as precarious as some of the traps she has to navigate when she's finally thrust into a tomb.
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