Tomb Raider- A Movie Review

I was a teenager when my brother told me something that has stuck with me for all these years. Late one night, from bunk bed to bunk bed, he looked at me over the zombie slaughter that was Resident Evil: Apocalypse and said "There's nothing hotter than a girl who can kick your ass." It was a strange thing to hear as I was probably fourteen at the time (he, fifteen), and the closest I'd ever gotten to eternal love, or something of that sexualized ilk, had been smiling at a cashier at Barnes Noble. I know I'd only been twelve at the time, but I'm pretty sure she thought I was cute. 

I had a stronger hairline back then.

Now it's 2018 and we have a new Tomb Raider movie. Angelina Jolie (one of my brother's first Hollywood wives) has been supplanted by Alicia Vikander and special effects of decades gone by have been replaced by some that are often quite a bit better but also a little bit worse. It's the Uncanny Valley, after all, or at least it is as it relates to my own perception. I would never have caught a flagrant failure of tech as a child but now, as a person who sees movies weekly, a green screen not sufficiently greened or screened is painfully noticeable. Growing old is like that. Things are always better when we're younger and there are indeed a few scenes where you find yourself thinking "Well now. That doesn't look like she's really jumping across a rusting plane on top of a waterfall." What can I say- they don't make stunt people like they used to.

That quirk aside, there's a significant amount of credit that's due to a movie that can only be described as "A thoroughly good time." There's action aplenty, familiar plot points, and exotic danger, all for those who've loved the tales of one person against a corporation, one person trying to save their dad, or one person trying to stop a dreadful curse from falling over humanity like a black cloud of terror, but that's not to say they're tired tropes. I'm pretty sure that last part, that terror, could be found in the Olaf short film, but I can't really be sure. When it comes to action films like this, there's a disbelief that simply must be embraced by the time you sit down in a theater with a bucket of popcorn and a soft drink or two to tide you over, and that's never a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with drawing a line between a popcorn movie and a highly italicized FILM. 

Please read that last word in a foppish accent. It really sells my movie reviewing panache.

The simple fact of the matter is this: people don't go to Tomb Raider films to see Oscar bait. They just don't. So there are expectations that need to be checked at the door and if you manage that, then you'll find yourself having a relatively good time. Yes, you'll see some sub-par actors surrounded by good ones; yes, you'll see green screen that doesn't blend at all with the reality of the world; and yes, you'll sometimes roll your eyes at dialogue that, while perfectly fitting for its genre, doesn't jive with your cinefiliac love of Paul Thomas Anderson. Fortunately for me, that doesn't mean the movie is bad. It's actually quite fun and I sat in the darkness sucking down a Sobe with a trusty hot dog by my side (not a euphemism) with a childish joy that might as well have been a brother a year senior professing his love of ass-kicking heroines, because yes: Alicia Vikander is that good.

Look. For all the love of Angelina Jolie (and much of it is well earned), at some point I think we all have to have that uncomfortable conversation among ourselves that she might be one of those Hollywood types that is better behind the camera than in front of it, a la Ben "The Duck" Affleck. Vikander, however, is not. Radiating personality, charm, and more than enough grit and determination to spare, she's the Lara Croft we deserve. Where Jolie often seemed to be relying on the special effects around her, Vikander throws herself headfirst into the physicality of a role that could easily have been sleepwalked through, at times forcing us to believe that she's in a much better movie than she is. Her commitment to the role is noticeable (apparently she put on fifteen pounds of muscle in an effort to embrace the globetrotting heroism of the title character, something I once did in my everyday life and people just said "Wow, Luke. You're fat.") and she never once phones in a scene, simultaneously making us fear for and care about a woman who was once little more than a pixelated heroine of Playstations gone by. 

She's just...fun. She's reminiscent of Brendan Frasier in The Mummy in that she's an actor who fully embraces the world around her and the intermittent schlock that comes with it, all for the sake of the viewer. Never once do we question who she is or why she's doing what she's doing. Even as the story trucks along at an enjoyable clip, we are along for the ride at the behest of an actress so talented that we believe every moment that she is exactly who she says she is. The villains might not be the best, this is true, but Walton Goggins does what he can with what he has and sells motivations with very little script and the story, though outlandish in an Indiana Jones kind of way, never once spirals out of control and stays more in the "Last Crusade" territory than it does any sort of Crystal Skullified nonsense. In short, it's a good time.

That's what movies like this should be, right? If I'm not sitting in a theater watching globetrotters race around the world in an effort to stop a corporation from unleashing hell on earth for fun, then why exactly am I there? Tomb Raider takes care of that. It takes me back to the days when I could check out and enjoy a simple story about fantastical things and the hero that belongs in all of it, and it does it well enough that I never once felt like I was anywhere other than that distant island with a capable hero racing through the brush to right some tremendous wrongs. 

Angelina Jolie once portrayed Lara Croft and she even had the turn-of-the-century special effects to help her meander through collapsing tunnels with just enough slow motion to trick a child. But Alicia Vikander is a step above and where Jolie portrayed this modern day Indiana Jones, Vikander just is. She is Kroft, she could undoubtedly kick my ass, and we're all a fair bit luckier for it.