Now playing at Village Centre Cinemas
Directed by:
Roar Uthaug
Starring:
Alicia Vikander
Dominic West
Walton Goggins
Daniel Wu
Kristin Scott Thomas
Last week I said “Pacific Rim: Uprising” should have been left in the ocean. Lara Croft should stick to video games.
Video game adaptations have been an ongoing issue in film. We’ve had the displeasure of watching “Assassin’s Creed,” “Resident Evil” and “Warcraft” just to name a few, along with “hit” classics like “Mortal Kombat” and the infamous “Super Mario Bros.”
Yet somehow the greatest success has been “The Angry Birds Movie.” That should be concerning to everyone.
So, what consistently goes wrong? The most glaring mistake seems to be misevaluating what makes the source material great.
In the case of “Tomb Raider,” the film takes all of the over-the-top action sequences from the game, but forgets to carry over any of the story.
Alicia Vikander plays Lara Croft, a bike courier distraught over her father Richard Croft’s disappearance.
After learning she must claim her inheritance or their estate will be sold off, she finds a message from her father in his office.
Here she learns of Himiko, queen of ancient Japanese country Yamatai. Himiko apparently holds power over life and death, so of course the only reasonable thing for Lara to do is chase this myth.
Lara hires the captain of the ship ‘Endurance,’ and travels to the Devil’s Sea. What follows are a slew of special effects and the introduction of Trinity, a shady organization also searching for Himiko. Unfortunately, once again the trailers reveal the rest.
Some of the material here is genuinely good, but it just so happens to be the same material from the game. The rest is over-the-top filler and effects gone wrong, with the stakes being raised far too high.
Crystal Dynamics’ 2013 “Tomb Raider” game is Lara Croft done right. The premise is the same — Lara embarks on a journey to discover Yamatai.
But instead of Lara trying to save the world, she is trying to save herself and her friends. In an origin story such as this one, the plot should be simplistic and down to earth.
The focus should be on Lara herself, as she struggles with survival and her conscience. And the game nails this. There will always be supernatural elements present in “Tomb Raider,” but they should take a backseat to character development.
It is obvious that Director Roar Uthaug at least played through the game, since so many elements are the same. But I’m questioning whether or not he played with the volume on to actually catch any of the dialogue.
Perhaps he used his name for inspiration instead, and blared music during each cutscene.
None of this character development is present in the film. Lara quickly becomes a gung-ho action hero with no regard for the rules, and in the two-hour runtime makes at least four absurdly long leaps of faith across various objects, including but not limited to a crashed plane and a capsizing boat.
I want videogame adaptations to succeed. Even in the case of “Tomb Raider,” it’s an enjoyable film if you have time to kill. At times it almost achieves great things, but ultimately it seems too simplistic, and feels like a slap in the face to those familiar with the source material.
For all we know, Dwayne Johnson will buck this trend of poor adaptations with the April 13 release of “Rampage,” based loosely on a video game where humans turn into monsters and destroy cities around the world. I wouldn’t even be surprised.
Max Rothenberg can be reached at [email protected]