Video game movies have gotten a bad rap ever since “Super Mario Bros.”
From their middling to terrible quality, they’ve hardly improved in recent years. Even with the A-list talents of actors, such as Michael Fassbender, Mark Wahlberg and Angelina Jolie, the video game genre can’t seem to do any good. Somehow, Hollywood seems bent on producing them after over 20 years of continual failure — and 2018’s first offering for the genre continues this trend with “Tomb Raider,” a dumpster fire of a movie without the redeeming residual warmth one could provide.
“Tomb Raider” is loosely based on the 2013 videogame reboot of the franchise and follows Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander), a brilliant young woman living recklessly on London’s streets after the mysterious disappearance of her father. When she agrees to sign off on her massive inheritance, Lara discovers a hidden message from Lord Croft detailing his final investigation into Himiko, the legendary queen of the lost city of Yamatai. Fueled by her curiosity to find out what happened to her father, Lara ventures deep into the Devil’s Sea to find Yamatai and to continue her father’s legacy.
You know what kind of movie you’re in for right out of the gate as Lara spars against a boxer in an overly edited fight sequence followed by a bike chase (?!?) set to the pumping electronic beat of Junkie XL’s score. Incredibly cheesy, these scenes feel like they come straight out of the 90s and not in a good way. It’s unclear if this throwback to 90s pulp style is intentional or not, but it seems like the kind of thing only a 12-year-old boy could appreciate.
This dated action style bleeds later into the movie during the action on Yamatai, but not for a solid hour of boring exposition in London and Hong Kong before that.
“Tomb Raider” tries to have its cake and eat it too, attempting to blend the dumb fun of the two Angelina Jolie films — which I can honestly enjoy, on occasion — with the serious grit of the 2013 video game reboot. There’s a noticeable shift in tone for the darker once Lara reaches the island but it’s hard to take seriously with the movie’s cheap-looking sets and costumes that look only as good as a low-budget student film.
By far the worst quality of “Tomb Raider” is its terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad acting.
Walton Goggins’ villain isn’t intimidating, just pathetically creepy. Goggins’ delivery is also questionably lazy and uncaring, making every scene he’s in a slog despite whatever despicable actions he may commit. Daniel Wu’s minimal role as Lara’s ship captain is even worse with atrocious delivery that wouldn’t seem out of place in Tommy Wiseau’s “The Room.”
Apart from its egregious supporting cast, the movie’s worst offender is probably its lead.
In this, Lara is at once overly capable and incapable in her survival situations, effectively making the stakes never feel real or fun. It’s mostly a script problem, but Vikander also lacks the cheeky roguish charm of Jolie’s take on the character as well as the empowering character growth of the 2013 reboot’s Lara. Vikander’s a good actress, but a plank of wood with a smile drawn on it could have done her job just as well.
“Tomb Raider” houses the worst performances and general craftsmanship I’ve seen in a feature film since 2016’s “Suicide Squad,” so that’s an achievement, I guess. There’s nothing redeeming or remarkable about this movie in any shape or form, and how the studio got Oscar-winning Alicia Vikander to sign on is beyond me. Maybe that’s where most of the budget went to.
Grade: F
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Hector Valverde is a freelance reporter at the Daily Lobo. He primarily writes movie reviews. He can be contacted at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @hpvalverde.
