Tomb Raider Cradle Of Life

What's the Plot?

Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), world renowned tomb raider, explorer and adventurer, beats the rest of the interested parties to the final resting place of The Luna Temple off the coast of Greece. What she doesn't expect to find is a map to something more coveted than all the jewels stored in The Temple: Pandora's Box. Said to contain the most unspeakable evil ever known, Pandora's Box lies hidden in The Cradle Of Life, away from the foolishness and greed of man. However, before Lara can leave with her prize, her aides are killed and she only just manages to escape with her life. The missing map is traced by MI6 to the maniacal Nobel Prize-winning scientist, Dr. Jonathan Reiss (Ciaran Hinds), who intends to buy it from Chen Lo (Simon Yam), the man who stole it from Lara. Hired by the MI6 to stop the transaction, Lara demands the help of the last person on earth that the government wants let loose again: rouge agent Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler). A colleuge of Lo, Sheridan is the only hope of tracking him down before Reiss gets his hands on the Box and completes his plan for world domination. It's up to them to save the world, but can Lara really trust the only man who ever got close to her to do the right thing and help save the world?

The Review

So, in a summer of sequels and franchise-making wannabe's, the second Tomb Raider has a lot riding on it. It's disappointing then that the only computer game that should have made the trancession from console to big screen successfully, fails to do just that, and only succeeds in making a bigger hash of it than the first one did. The first one suffered from over-complicatedness, with a storyline that seemed to be straining to prove that it had one and was above "mindless blockbusters." The Cradle Of Life has addressed that point, but in doing so, it seems to have lost all effort and the only straining to be found is from the audience as they sit through this summer's biggest disappointment.

Jolie, who, no question about it, physically, IS Lara Croft, looks the part in the various outfits that will cause male teens to thank God for the likes of lycra - the silver figure-hugging swimsuit that adornes the poster - but the actress is given nothing to work with. Action sequences; posing with the best attributes nicely framed in shot; confident and cocky looks towards any man foolish to think that they can take her on; Jolie gets to do all these, but you can't help but get the impression that she, along with you, wants to do so much more. Director Jan De Bont still remains in search of a hit the size of Speed which took him out of the role of Director Of Photography, and put him on the Hollywood fast track of "to watch" Directors. His turn here behind the lens does little to repair the damage that Speed 2 and The Haunting caused.

Everything seems to be about the sets and the action that takes place in and around them. The Luna Temple is admittedly breath-taking, but it's only partially glimpsed amongst disjointed fast edits, slow-speed tracking shots and unnecessary close-up's of Jolie to allow anything else to register. At least the first one had a standout piece - the mansion attack - whereas this sorry sequel only feels like a labour of profit rather than love. This Lara Croft fan will only look back at the games fondly and ruin his wrists that way.

STEVE'S SCORE