Tomb Raider Trailer Review

I am a pretty big fan of the Tomb Raider franchise. A few years ago I played through some of the older entries in the franchise (Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld) and really enjoyed the characters, story, and silliness of it all. Most of all, I liked Lara Croft. She is pretty much a badass cross between Indiana Jones and Bruce Wayne. But, as I played through Underworld, I began to feel like the franchise was repeating itself. The next entry, titled Tomb Raider, rebooted the series and presented a refreshing new take on Lara Croft and her origin story. So, I was interested when Warner Brothers announced a new movie based on the rebooted game.

I don’t think this looks bad by any means, but I am very skeptical. If you are unaware, video game movies have a “curse.” There has literally not been a high-quality video game adaption out of the 41 attempts. I have been let down too many times to let myself look forward to this.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

The plot seems to have been Hollywoodized. The movie added the whole “save the world from an evil organization because you are special” thing. The game had more focus on Lara’s transformation from a rich girl to a survivor and had a horror/thriller vibe to it. If you are going to adapt the game, at least GO for it. Don’t try to make it too many different things.

 

A simple story of survival would have been better.

 

I really dislike the final scene of the trailer. Where does it even fit into the movie? I think it would have to be the end because she seems to be trapped on the island throughout the movie. Is it possible that they just showed us the ending? It just seems like blatant pandering to older fans (Lara used two pistols in the old games). Honestly, it looks like a scene from the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movies…

 

Those were only fun to laugh at.

 

 

Here’s what I liked:

Alicia Vikander is definitely a good actress and fits the look of the character pretty well (although there are probably better actresses for the part). Hopefully, she will give a good performance. The visuals are actually pretty good. In fact, some of the shots look like they were taken straight out of the game.

I really hope this will break the curse, but this trailer didn’t give me much to make me think it will be different from the failed attempts. What do you think? Do you have hope for it? Are there any video game movies that you enjoyed? Let me know in the comments.