The movie starts out fairly well and decent, with good direction.
Vikander seems like a fairly likeable and above all believable (albeit different) Lara Croft... but it quickly goes downhill when Lara gets to the island.
She is immediately captured and held captive among a large grouping of people and as such, the movie skips any feeling of isolation on the deserted supposed-to-be-mysterious island. The island doesn't become a "character in itself" unlike it does in the (also fairly recently rebooted) Tomb Raider game that the movie takes influence from.
She does escape and the movie then hits a few notes directly from the game in question, but somehow those scenes feel tacked on.. Especially Lara's shock and remorse on her first kill is handled even worse than in the videogame, as the next day, she's already taking lives with zero hesitation and not even being shocked when an enemy soldier literally explodes to bits in front of her.
The plot regarding the crypt of Himiko was ok and I think it was handled well... a part of me would've been curious to seeing some supernatural elements in the movie aswell, but they kept it more anchored to real life and it was fine - but a few scenes in particular were so bad that I couldn't help but get genuinely annoyed...
First one was when Lara's father had ran in front of the crypt's entrance during the fight when Lara is freeing up the people from their captives.... The father just stood there with his mouth open, touching the entrance stones etc. until he was held at gunpoint by the baddie and Lara had to intervene etc. It's as if they didn't have any clever way of moving the plot forward to that point, so they just made the father go there and wait among all their enemies for the inevitable capture.
The second absolutely idiotic scene was near the end, when Lara leaves her father, grabs the climbing pick and runs towards the main badguy...
When she arrives at the chasm the baddie is about to cross it, balancing on the ladder between it... Instead of attacking him when his back is turned, with the pick, she THROWS THE PICK AWAY on the ground, jumps PAST the bad guy to hang on the ladder, pulls herself up, forces him back to the platform she just came from (and left the pick on), only for him to obviously pick up the pickaxe and overpower her with it.
She only gets up from under him because of an explosion and then, she could easily run across the chasm and drop the ladder, trapping the badguy behind, but nope, she kicks the ladder down trapping herself AND him there.
Sure, it did serve a purpose to give us a last fight or whatever, but when the movie is supposed to portray a smart, capable character like Lara Croft, seeing something like that just makes you frown...
Either way, it wasn't an entirely bad movie and is worth a watch on a boring day, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're in the mood for a genuinely good watch.
She is immediately captured and held captive among a large grouping of people and as such, the movie skips any feeling of isolation on the deserted supposed-to-be-mysterious island. The island doesn't become a "character in itself" unlike it does in the (also fairly recently rebooted) Tomb Raider game that the movie takes influence from.
She does escape and the movie then hits a few notes directly from the game in question, but somehow those scenes feel tacked on.. Especially Lara's shock and remorse on her first kill is handled even worse than in the videogame, as the next day, she's already taking lives with zero hesitation and not even being shocked when an enemy soldier literally explodes to bits in front of her.
The plot regarding the crypt of Himiko was ok and I think it was handled well... a part of me would've been curious to seeing some supernatural elements in the movie aswell, but they kept it more anchored to real life and it was fine - but a few scenes in particular were so bad that I couldn't help but get genuinely annoyed...
First one was when Lara's father had ran in front of the crypt's entrance during the fight when Lara is freeing up the people from their captives.... The father just stood there with his mouth open, touching the entrance stones etc. until he was held at gunpoint by the baddie and Lara had to intervene etc. It's as if they didn't have any clever way of moving the plot forward to that point, so they just made the father go there and wait among all their enemies for the inevitable capture.
The second absolutely idiotic scene was near the end, when Lara leaves her father, grabs the climbing pick and runs towards the main badguy...
When she arrives at the chasm the baddie is about to cross it, balancing on the ladder between it... Instead of attacking him when his back is turned, with the pick, she THROWS THE PICK AWAY on the ground, jumps PAST the bad guy to hang on the ladder, pulls herself up, forces him back to the platform she just came from (and left the pick on), only for him to obviously pick up the pickaxe and overpower her with it.
She only gets up from under him because of an explosion and then, she could easily run across the chasm and drop the ladder, trapping the badguy behind, but nope, she kicks the ladder down trapping herself AND him there.
Sure, it did serve a purpose to give us a last fight or whatever, but when the movie is supposed to portray a smart, capable character like Lara Croft, seeing something like that just makes you frown...
Either way, it wasn't an entirely bad movie and is worth a watch on a boring day, but I wouldn't recommend it if you're in the mood for a genuinely good watch.