'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' review by Captain Raptor

'Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life' review by Captain Raptor

The problem with reviewing this film (other than the long title which is a bloody inconvenience to repeatedly type out) is that virtually any criticism can be stomped out by the phrase 'It's not supposed to'. The dialogue has no originality: 'It's not supposed to'. The plot is moronic and doesn't intrigue me at all: 'It's not supposed to'. The film provides little else than flash and spectacle: 'It's not supposed to'. There's setting the bar low and then there's digging a ninety-foot trench to lower the bar into. Still, a film with low aspirations can hardly be expected to receive anything better than damning with fake praise and other weak defences.

As you may have guessed from the above paragraph, Cradle of Life is not a good film by any definition. It's not the same as something like Transformers of The Expendables where no matter how bad everything else is, the action is done with perfect competence as a flipside. Somewhere in the editing process things got a bit out of hand, and Cradle of Life contains enough slow-motion to convince you that your TV must be broken. Even fairly mundane actions such as rolling or lying down are given the slow-mo treatment, but in terms of the action it stops looking cool around twenty minutes in after we've already seen close-up/slowed-down footage of sharks, jet-skis, avalanches and submarines. Surprisingly, the special effects aren't good either, which tends to be the main thing that action films have going for them. The budget seems to be have been entirely invested in locations, from Kenya to Hong Kong, as Angelina Jolie and Gerard Butler swan about all over the world and encounter oversized guns, conveniently inaccurate henchman and surprisingly co-operative locals. 

The irritating thing is, despite being an action film with mostly terrible action, Cradle of Life does contain a few enjoyable saving graces, mostly in the performance department. I've never been a fan of Angelina Jolie (she's the worst thing in both Beowulf and Alexander, which is saying something) but she's never been more likeable than as Lara Croft, combining her own natural charisma with a script catered to her specific strengths. Both her and Gerard Butler give charming and sometimes even engaging performances here individually, but the two have very little chemistry together and a lot of the conversation between them feels awkward and forced. The villain is so spectacularly overdone and knowingly (hopefully) exaggerated that it's hard not to smile, and Inglourious Basterd's Til Schweiger does a fantastic job in the thankless task of Chief Henchman. Unfortunately, the film is not in any way focused on any of the characters, who would be the icing on the cake in a fully-functioning action adventure with better stunts, effects and set-pieces, none of which this film possesses. 

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life is the sort of film that should only be watched at about 2AM on a Saturday. Even in a genre where dialogue and plot going by the wayside is the industry standard, those elements are particularly appalling here. The action itself is too low budget, and while the scenery and locales the film is set in certainly are impressive, it might have been wiser to spend the money on better effects. The occasional flashes of brilliance from Jolie, Butler and Schweiger in no way compensate for a shoddy film that is almost as bad as Angelina's English accent.