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LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER:
THE CRADLE OF LIFE
by Peter Sobczynski

July 25, 2003

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Dean Georgaris. Directed by Jan De Bont. Starring Angelina Jolie, Gerard Butler, Noah Taylor and Ciaran Hinds. Rated PG-13. A Paramount Pictures release

The producers of "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" (which may well be the most lugubrious title of the summer) must have realized that potential viewers of their film have but one question (besides "Why are they making a sequel to a film that no one particularly like the first time around?", of course): "How long does it take for Angelina Jolie to get into that tiny black bikini?" Well, at least in that regard, you can’t say that director Jan De Bont doesn’t have the interests of the audience at heart: the film has barely begun before she bound onto the screen in all of her glory, displaying the physique and attitude that both Michaelangelo and Russ Meyer would have willingly sacrificed limbs in order to work with. In fact, the lush physicality that she displays at that moment, as well as in the follow-up scene in which she dons a tighter-than-skintight gray wetsuit, is so startling to behold in what has otherwise been a relatively sexless movie summer that if the projector were to have broken down at that moment, at least half of the audience that I saw it with would have felt that they had gotten their money’s worth.

Apparently, all involved shot their creative loads during the wardrobe design phase because those first few seconds are followed by another 110 minutes of limp, dreadfully unexciting action masquerading as a plot. This time, Lara Croft, everyone’s favorite pixelized archaeologist/adventurer/megababe, is on a worldwide pursuit (including China, Greece and Kilimanjaro) of Pandora’s Box, which is in danger of falling into the hands of an evil billionaire bioterrorist (Ciaran Hinds) who plans on using it to destroy most of humanity for fairly unfathomable reasons. Teaming up with her this time around is Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler), a former boyfriend who once betrayed both her and the British government and is now rotting in a Siberian prison. However, only he can help get Lara on the right trail and so she springs. him. Her big question is whether she can trust him: the big question of the audience is what Lara, who could presumably have any person of any gender that she desired, could have possibly seen in such a dull, smirky, personality-free dope in the first place.

Such questions are never approached because the film is to busy going from one botched action setpiece to the next. Although De Bont has made enough expensive action movies over the years (the two "Speed" films, "Twister" and the remake of "The Haunting"-notice I didn’t say "good" action movies), he makes the kind of rookie mistakes that can sink such a film. For example, he never takes the time to give viewers a lay of the land when setting up a big fight scene or gun battle and as a result, it is impossible to ever get a grip on where people are in relation to one another. Another flaw is De Bont’s weird insistence on inserting slow-motion images into many of his scenes, apparently because he saw that other people have done such things in the past and decided that it looked cool. What he doesn’t realize is that when someone like Brian De Palma or John Woo tries something like that, it is usually done for a reason-in De Bont’s hands, however, it simply comes off as a distracting and empty stylistic touch.

"The Cradle of Life" is probably a slight improvement over the original-mostly thanks to the last reel, in which all logic goes out the window and the film seemingly turns into an homage to "Congo"-but it still isn’t very good. It is almost totally devoid of humor (except for a weird little moment in the prison scene that seems like a tribute to one of the less savory bits in "The Silence of the Lambs") and, like the original, it has, in Angelina Jolie, an actress with enough wit, grace, spirit and sex appeal to fuel a truly inspired action movie. However, by saddling her with an uncomfortable accent and a storytelling style almost as clunky as the gameplay on the videogame it was based on, the film ironically does the opposite of what an archaeologist is supposed to do-it takes a rare and beautiful treasure and buries it under a ton of junk.

-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2003 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.