Hollywood has had a rough go of getting video game properties onto the big screen.
Although the Resident Evil franchise raked in millions of fans and dollars, movies like Hitman, Doom, Street Fighter, Warcraft, and Assassin’s Creed were critical and commercial fumbles.
Filmmakers have tried and failed to replicate the video game experience for the theatre.
Tomb Raider proves Tinseltown is still a ways off from creating that first great video game movie.
The latest adaptation of the ultra-popular franchise sees twenty-something Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander) struggling to get by in middle-class London.
Literally and figuratively beaten down, Croft cannot seem to hold down a job, stay out of jail or avoid representatives from her father’s multi-trillion dollar corporation.
Refusing to accept her father Richard(Dominic West)’s disappearance seven years prior, she prevents herself from signing over the company and recouping her family’s fortune.
Of course, information about her dad’s disappearance leads her on a globe-trotting adventure.
Following the success of Steven Spielberg’s original Indiana Jones movies, the action-adventure genre is now chock-a-block with underwhelming copycats.
The Mummy remakes/reimaginings and the National Treasure flicks take puzzle-like adventure stories and fail to capitalise.
Worse still, the Angelina Jolie-led Tomb Raider flicks have aged horribly overtime.
Granted, the new Tomb Raider is more substantial than any of those (Tom Cruise’s Mummy, in particular).
Director Roar Uthaug takes many elements from the 2013 grounded reboot of the video games.
By taking, I really mean stealing. The movie delivers the same action sequences, colour grading, and character types but fails to deliver the exhilarating game-play feel.
If anything, the movie feels like watching someone else play a video game for two hours straight.
The movie’s ‘dark-and-gritty’ aura fits the first-two thirds, but wares out during the climax.
The final third cranks up the goofiness as Lara crawls, runs, fights and thinks her way to the closing credits.
Tomb Raider’s biggest crime cannot be denied – it’s just not a fun experience.
Dominic West and Walton Goggins – known to be wild and wacky in other projects – are in full sleepwalk mode here.
Lacking his usual bug-eyed kookiness, Goggins provides a flat, lifeless antagonist.
Daniel Wu is given nothing but cliched dialogue and flat one-liners.
His drunk-larrikin-turned-sober-savior arc is given little development, while his backstory is only mentioned in passing.
The movie is salvaged somewhat by its young, vibrant, Oscar-winning leading lady. Vikander overcomes terrible dialogue and flat story-telling with aplomb.
The actress is a glorious presence, fit with a startling physicality and smooth accent.
Beyond her muscular figure and screen presence, the character actually has an arc.
We first meet an uninspired Lara prone to getting her face smashed in and put in her place.
Despite her intellect and cat-like physicality, she avoids living up to her true potential.
The island brings out her survival instincts, forcing her to go to some dark psychological places.
Vikander is great, but it’s too bad she’s in this movie.
The problem with Tomb Raider is simple: It’s not bad, but also nothing special.
What could have been exhilarating instead feels pedestrian and lifeless.
And so, Hollywood continues its search for the first great video game adaptation. Bring it, Rampage.