There are few qualities more dispiriting in a major motion picture than no sense of fun, but to describe the new Tomb Raider in a word: it’s joyless. Bereft of personality or identity, this movie doesn’t even distinguish itself enough to be a straight ahead bad movie. Stiff, chilly, unimaginative, it’s hard to grasp just how this milled out to something so aggressively average. But as yet another disastrous video game film shuffles across the national cinema stage I can’t help but continue to wonder, who is this for?
Tomb Raider seemingly had lots of good things going for it. With a widely recognized gaming franchise to lend some cache and a cast of bonafides like Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins, and McNulty, how did this end up as such colorless gruel? Even gruel feels too hearty and nourishing to use as a descriptor. Cellulose maybe? Anyway, the fate of this film is sealed for a few pretty inescapable reasons.
The story beats are so perfunctory, the characters so gossamer thin, it is damn near impossible to coax energy, much less excitement, out of any film element. The twists are like slight veers, the climax is hollow, and even the set pieces—the bread and butter of this kind of picture—are downright languid. From a talent standpoint, it’s hard to imagine, but this film manages to cast a pallor over Vikander’s endless, irrepressible charm. McNulty is practically in absentia. I mean, how are you not gonna at least give Goggins some scenery to gnaw on? Isn’t that what you’re paying for?
From the comfort of my armchair, it seems as though handing in a likeable romp would have been a breeze, but somehow Tomb Raider is just tired. The sets, the extras, the score, all lumbering across 122 uninspired minutes. Not brave enough to be pulpy, not smart enough to be taken seriously, this movie has no sense of self. It’s all so vacuous, I’m not even mad. I’m weirdly in awe. Did no one want to fight for this movie? Was there simply an insurmountable lousy script at the core? Is it mired in thousands of references to the game I just don’t get? I’ll never know, but the final product is fit to be rolled out on a gurney. And these no goodniks even have the audacity to setup a sequel! Lord, grant me the hubris.
Who are these movies for? Bruh, for true, I do not know. The first game installment came out in 1996 and birthed two films with Angelina Jolie released in 2001 and 2003. Where these did yield some financial success, I don’t recall anyone just loving them, lost on both critics and fans. Over the ensuing years, the Jolie helmed Tomb Raiderfilm never took on cult status, nor cracked the regular orbit of Sunday afternoon cable television filler. So, again, who is this for? I know you can roll out the nostalgia trough and people will choke down even the paltriest fare, but who was clamoring for this film? I have to know!
If there was anything this film accomplished, it made me appreciate Wrinkle in Time more? So, I was supposed to write a review for Wrinkle last week (downcast eye emoji). In the end, it turned out to be a 759-word screed against white supremacy. Nobody wants that, so it was relegated to the robust personal archive. Where Wrinkle in Time was a deeply (deeeeeeeeply) flawed vessel for its message, it swung big—a burden Tomb Raider wouldn't dare take on.
Wrinkle put its big, stupid heart out there, and Tomb Raider is almost catatonic. But as of right now, that damnable Tomatoery has Tomb Raider scored higher. I won’t ascend the soapbox with tinfoil hat askance to explain the real reasons for this disparity, but my goodness... Our expectations and perceptions are utterly fuckered when a crappy, yet well-meaning film (with occasional transcendent moments) gets dogged for daring to try, while Tomb Raider gets a wider berth for its relentless pursuit of mediocrity.
So, in the spirit of the film I’m really going to phone in this concluding paragraph. Tomb Raider opens today and runs two hours and two minutes. I hope Alicia Vikander can skirt the wreckage and at least land a Marvel franchise. The end.
—Monte Monreal
Tomb Raider seemingly had lots of good things going for it. With a widely recognized gaming franchise to lend some cache and a cast of bonafides like Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins, and McNulty, how did this end up as such colorless gruel? Even gruel feels too hearty and nourishing to use as a descriptor. Cellulose maybe? Anyway, the fate of this film is sealed for a few pretty inescapable reasons.
The story beats are so perfunctory, the characters so gossamer thin, it is damn near impossible to coax energy, much less excitement, out of any film element. The twists are like slight veers, the climax is hollow, and even the set pieces—the bread and butter of this kind of picture—are downright languid. From a talent standpoint, it’s hard to imagine, but this film manages to cast a pallor over Vikander’s endless, irrepressible charm. McNulty is practically in absentia. I mean, how are you not gonna at least give Goggins some scenery to gnaw on? Isn’t that what you’re paying for?
From the comfort of my armchair, it seems as though handing in a likeable romp would have been a breeze, but somehow Tomb Raider is just tired. The sets, the extras, the score, all lumbering across 122 uninspired minutes. Not brave enough to be pulpy, not smart enough to be taken seriously, this movie has no sense of self. It’s all so vacuous, I’m not even mad. I’m weirdly in awe. Did no one want to fight for this movie? Was there simply an insurmountable lousy script at the core? Is it mired in thousands of references to the game I just don’t get? I’ll never know, but the final product is fit to be rolled out on a gurney. And these no goodniks even have the audacity to setup a sequel! Lord, grant me the hubris.
Who are these movies for? Bruh, for true, I do not know. The first game installment came out in 1996 and birthed two films with Angelina Jolie released in 2001 and 2003. Where these did yield some financial success, I don’t recall anyone just loving them, lost on both critics and fans. Over the ensuing years, the Jolie helmed Tomb Raiderfilm never took on cult status, nor cracked the regular orbit of Sunday afternoon cable television filler. So, again, who is this for? I know you can roll out the nostalgia trough and people will choke down even the paltriest fare, but who was clamoring for this film? I have to know!
If there was anything this film accomplished, it made me appreciate Wrinkle in Time more? So, I was supposed to write a review for Wrinkle last week (downcast eye emoji). In the end, it turned out to be a 759-word screed against white supremacy. Nobody wants that, so it was relegated to the robust personal archive. Where Wrinkle in Time was a deeply (deeeeeeeeply) flawed vessel for its message, it swung big—a burden Tomb Raider wouldn't dare take on.
Wrinkle put its big, stupid heart out there, and Tomb Raider is almost catatonic. But as of right now, that damnable Tomatoery has Tomb Raider scored higher. I won’t ascend the soapbox with tinfoil hat askance to explain the real reasons for this disparity, but my goodness... Our expectations and perceptions are utterly fuckered when a crappy, yet well-meaning film (with occasional transcendent moments) gets dogged for daring to try, while Tomb Raider gets a wider berth for its relentless pursuit of mediocrity.
So, in the spirit of the film I’m really going to phone in this concluding paragraph. Tomb Raider opens today and runs two hours and two minutes. I hope Alicia Vikander can skirt the wreckage and at least land a Marvel franchise. The end.
—Monte Monreal
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