Tomb Raider 2018

     Lara Croft’s father Lord Richard Croft vanished from the face of the earth when she was 14 years old.  He was a very wealthy and eccentric adventurer.  Now Lara is a woman of 21 years old and she doesn’t have any focus or purpose.  Company officer Ana Miller is in charge of her father’s businesses and affairs.  She wants Lara to sign the papers legally declaring that Richard is dead and Lara can take over the global empire.  Lara does not want to concede that her father is dead even though it has been 7 years!!  Lara works as a  bicycle delivery woman and she is barely making ends meet.  Lara decides to go against her father’s wishes and travel to his last-known destination.  This is a fabled tomb on a mythical island possibly off the coast of Japan. 

     There is a LOT of action and if I did acting for a living, I would not want to wear the same clothes and be intensely dirty during most of the production!!  It is probably a new outfit every day but smeared with makeup instead of dirt??  This film is a Lara Croft origin story going back to how Lara became a tomb raider.  I especially liked the scenes with an ancient airplane spanning between two mountains and over a raging river!!  3 ½* (I liked this movie)       

118 min, Action directed by Roar Uthaug with Alicia Vikander, Cominic West, Walton Groggins, Daniel Wu, Kristin Scott Thomas, Derek Jacobi, Alexandre Willaume, Tamer Burjaq, Adrian Collins, Keenan Arrison, Andrian Mazive, Milton Schorr, Hannah John-Kamen, Peter Waison, Samuel Mak.

Note:  Imdb 6.4 out of 10, 51% critic 57% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, Roger Ebert 3*, Amazon 4.3* out of 5* with 1167 reviews, Metacritic 48 out of 100 with 53 critics 6.4 out of 10 with 473 reviews, Common Sense Media, age 14+, 2* out of 5*, positive 2*, role models 2*, violence 4*, sex 1*, language 3*, consumerism 1*, drinking, drugs, smoking 2*.

Special Note:  Filmed in Western Cape and Cape Town, South Africa; Wiltshire, London, Hertfordshire, England, UK.  The plot of this film is loosely based on the 2013 reboot of the video game series, Tomb Raider of 2013.  There are some minor elements of Crystal Dynamics’ rebooted video game sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider of 2015.  In March 2018, Tomb Raider became the highest rated video game adaptation ever on the website Rotten Tomatoes.  One month later it was surpassed by Rampage of 2018.  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer acquired the rights to the Tomb Raider film franchise from Paramount Pictures.  MGM let their film rights expire after Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life of 2003 failed at the box office.  Alicia Vikander was a fan of the video game series growing up.  She put a LOT of time, effort and training into preparing to play Lara.  She gained 12 pounds of muscle over four months prior to filming.  She wanted the character to be as realistic as possible, she did some of her own stunts and also the retakes.  Daisy Ridley, Emilia Clarke, Saoirse Ronan and Cara Delevingne were also in the running for the role of Lara.