True, there’s nothing quite so outrageous here as there was in the Angelina Jolie-starring efforts, but that only makes it easier to pick apart this film. The problem, though, is that Tomb Raider is very much the kind of big-budget action film that falls apart as soon as you think about it. What Lara goes through gives her the requisite experience to make her more of a badass. It is to the film’s advantage that the script builds up her origins, because it allows us to accept her more fully as the gritty heroine by the end. Vikander does her best job as Lara Croft, and the film slides into the notion early on that she might not seem tough enough to pull off the part. Even more, Lara learns that her father’s company owns that evil group, which seems like one of those things Richard might have wanted to tell Lara before he died. At the end of the film, after Richard sacrifices himself to save Lara, she returns home, signs a document that gives her a long-held inheritance, but also makes her realize that her father’s longtime associate (Kristin Scott Thomas) may be running the nefarious organization that Richard was fighting against. Both Lara and her father have an annoying inability to communicate directly with each other when Richard leaves behind instructions for Lara to burn all of his research regarding a Japanese myth, she instead follows that research to the island he was looking for. And the dramatic side of the story, in which Lara reunites with her long-missing father Richard (Dominic West), suffers in spite of the two performers’ talent. Such moments, which are meant to highlight how tough Lara becomes throughout this story, come at the expense of Vikander attempting to make the heroine feel as realistic as possible. By the end of Tomb Raider, this Lara Croft, no matter how much she might say otherwise, is a bit like the Croft of old, but Vikander makes her feel grounded. The Lara Croft of this movie, when faced with a wide gap over which to jump lest she get killed, takes her time (maybe a bit too much time) before making the leap. The Lara Croft of the Angelina Jolie era - you know, the one who punches a shark-was essentially a cartoonish superhero. Vikander is able to pull off a believable arc throughout, even if the film around her refuses to be more lighthearted despite being utterly goofy. By the end, it’s clear that the writers are interested in making sure fans know how she got some of her trademark weapons (as well as her long-braided hair). While the new Tomb Raider doesn’t work very well, the one area of that needs no improvement is in casting Vikander. (Thankfully, Lara Croft isn’t treated like a sex object in the new film, but that’s a large part of what she used to be.) Moreover, the two films featuring Jolie as Lara Croft placed audiences in the middle of her life, whereas we’re now getting an origin story that blends the dourness of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins with the adventurous setup of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. When Jolie took on the role, there were criticisms from diehard fans of the video game series that her being American and not … proportioned to the physical design of the character were setbacks. It’s an odd coincidence that both Jolie and Vikander took the part of Lara Croft when they were fresh off a best supporting actress Oscar win - Jolie for for 1999’s Girl, Interrupted, Vikander for 2015’s The Danish Girl.
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