** (out of ****)
Starring Angelina Jolie, Jon Voight, and Iain Glen.
Directed by Simon West.
2001, PG-13
Reviewing a film like “Tomb Raider” is tricky. This is a movie that sets out to accomplish only four things, and at those four things it is more or less a success. Those four things are as follows: to have good art direction, good special effects, good action sequences, and to display Angelina Jolie in as much revealing clothing as humanly possible. Unfortunately, developing characters or telling a compelling or even comprehensible story is not on the agendum for “Tomb Raider.” In fact, the characters in this film have trouble talking to each other without throwing knives around.
The back-story of “Tomb Raider” could have been interesting. Lady Lara Croft is an unimaginably wealthy member of the English aristocracy. Out of boredom and loneliness she has taken up archaeology. So far this could be the setup for a four-hour “Masterpiece Theatre,” involving frumpy Lara Croft out amidst sand dunes and shovels, wearing a pith helmet and trying to find the meaning of life after you never have to worry about material troubles again. Instead, “Tomb Raider” is content to use this back-story the same way the “Tomb Raider” video games do: as an excuse for providing Lara with an infinite amount of equipment, guns, and ammunition.
It is important to notice the distinction between “archaeology,” which is what Indiana Jones does—which looks downright and utterly plausible compared to exploits of Lara Croft—and “tomb raiding,” which is what Lara does and is somewhere between genuine archaeology and grave robbing. No, I take that back, it’s not important to know the difference, because “Tomb Raider” doesn’t demand its audience to know much of anything, except that bullets go forward and not backward. The “plot” involves Lara running from one exotic locale to another, trying to get to some magical weird triangle thing before some evil European guys in suits with an infinite amount of armed bad guys do. The triangle thing might be able to destroy or control the world. The movie isn’t very specific, and doesn’t need to be, because, until the last ten minutes, the triangle is only an excuse for elaborate fight scenes. As silly as the plot is, and as clumsily as the pieces are assembled, everything is made even less comprehensible by the fact that the plot is conveyed in only about two scenes, one of which features Jon Voight going on and on with details that a normal movie might spread out over half-an-hour or forty-five minutes.
The fight scenes are elaborate, thrilling, and coherent, as opposed to the plot. Simon West (who also directed “Con Air,” one of the few Jerry Bruckheimer productions I enjoyed) is a born action director, and during each of the five action sequences we know exactly where Lara is, we know where the bad guys are, and we know how many boulders or pieces of furniture separate them. Featured players in these brawls are a giant robot, statues that come to life, a nail-gun, a fully-mobile model of the solar system that’s about the size of the White House, and ten thousand rounds of ammunition. What’s lacking, however, is any emotional investment in the characters, which is why the closing gunfight from, say, “L.A. Confidential” is infinitely more memorable at a fraction of the cost. Still, I enjoyed the movement and energy of “Tomb Raider’s” stunt sequences.
I have the same hollow appreciation for “Tomb Raider’s” art direction and special effects. The art direction is phony, but phony in a good way, in the way that Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” doesn’t look “real” but is still a great painting. The buried tombs of a lost civilization look more like a Disneyworld ride that’s been abandoned for a couple weeks, but that didn’t stop me from admiring their color and their intricacy, their heavy, rope-like vines and foreboding statues, their grim grey walls and unnaturally orange details. Lara’s cavernous mansion looks like it’s on loan from a better movie, and the statues that come to life and the robot that chases her are equally fun and artificial.
As for Jolie and the other members of the cast, well, she looks great in a guns-and-boobs kind of way, but I’m sure I would have been more attached to her if the writers had bothered putting any ideas in her head. Despite the complexity and deadliness of the action sequences she never gets all that worried or riled. Her utter calm while reloading in the face of a giant six-armed statue on the warpath made me think back fondly to “Die Hard 2” in which Bruce Willis, when faced with the “mundanity” of two men armed with submachine guns, was so frantic about reloading that he found himself talking to his gun and urging it to reload faster. The supporting cast is developed about as much as Lara, that is to say as many stereotypes are included as possible in the place of real characters. Many of the smaller roles are filled by genuinely good actors that have been featured on such British programs as “Masterpiece Theatre” and “Mystery!” Here they are getting paid much more to do much less and probably have a lot of fun in the process, while showing their faces and a fraction of their skills to American casting agents.
“Lara Croft Tomb Raider” is an empty-headed diversion with good stunt sequences; if it were on television while I were washing the dishes I would watch her beat the crap out of faceless bad guys until the dishes were done or the reception on the television fizzled out, and I would be happy with what I saw. But as far as empty-headed diversions go, there just isn’t enough emotion, and there isn’t enough story for me to recommend investing six dollars and ninety minutes into it. “Tomb Raider” is just as silly as Stephen Sommers’ “The Mummy” from 1997, but that film at least had a comprehensible, albeit ridiculous story, and cartoon-like characters that were closer in charisma to Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck than to video game characters.
P.S. Academy-award winner Jon Voight, star of the classics “Deliverance” and “Midnight Cowboy,” appears in four scenes in “Tomb Raider:” two scenes are of him in a tent with Lara, one scene is of him alone in that same tent, one scene is of him in front of a blue screen, and all four have him wearing the same clothes. He is required to visit no exotic locations. He does no stunts accept to fall over. It is a statement of his clout and respect in the film industry that he gets second billing for these less-than-strenuous efforts.