Game to Movie Code Feels Almost Cracked with ‘Tomb Raider’ (FILM REVIEW)

[rating=6.00]

“Good, for a video game movie,” feels like the most backhanded compliment that you could give. The bar for the genre is so low that, at this point, mere competence is almost enough to catapult a movie into new heights. It’s like bragging that your Ford Pinto hasn’t exploded yet or that you’ve never overdosed despite your years long addiction to heroin. It all may be true, but what are we really talking about here?

While gaming has emerged as an exciting platform for narrative development over the last couple of decades, the formula for translating that to the big screen has yet to be cracked. Oh, they’re trying. They certainly are. Each year seems to give us at least one new video game adaptation that Hollywood hopes will spark a new trend, another avenue that will open up more roads to billion dollar pay outs and take over movie screens the world over in much the same way that comic books movies have.

Can’t say I blame them. After all, comic book movies languished throughout the 80s and 90s (a few standouts aside) and were looked upon as niche market movies with no crossover appeal. Now, studios are scrambling to catch up and keep up with Marvel, who makes well over a billion dollars every year after cracking the comic book code. Why shouldn’t it be possible with video games?

Tomb Raider arguably comes closer than anything before it to cracking its own code. While it might not be a great movie—or even an exceedingly good one—it does manage to remember that gamers enjoy gaming because it’s fun. Tomb Raider is certainly that, even if it does require a willful shut down of your higher cognitive abilities. It is, at it’s heart, a high quality low grade b-movie, and the film is totally aware of it. That awareness of itself allows it to better play around in its own sandbox, and I’d be lying if I said that the fun it was having wasn’t at least a little bit contagious.

At the very least, it’s worlds better than the vapid Angelina Jolie vehicles from 2001 and 2003. That’s saying something. Not much, certainly, but something. Director Roar Uthaug manages to capture the heart of the Tomb Raider games and has crafted a film that, above all else, is unafraid to be unashamedly itself.

Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) takes on the role of Lara Croft and follows her growth from reluctant heiress to raider of tombs. Seven years after the disappearance of her father Richard (Dominic West), young Lara begins piecing the clues of his final trip together, leading her to a mysterious uncharted island where myth holds that the Death Queen was entombed, and whose curse could once again damn mankind if she is unburied. This pits her against the shadowy group, Trinity, who is already hot on the trail of the Death Queen, and whose agent, Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins) Lara must race if she hopes to find her dad and solve the mystery.

It’s a setup that might fuel the plot to a Tomb Raider video game, which takes many of its cues from both the Indiana Jones series and the adventure serials that inspired it. Enjoying those does require a bit of suspension of disbelief to work in any meaningful way, no more than is required to enjoy Tomb Raider. I mean sure, it’s silly, more than a little bit ridiculous, and we could scoff. I certainly wouldn’t blame you for that. But doing that might mean you miss the fun of Tomb Raider.

This is all excuse to show off a few larger than life action set pieces—one of which inexplicably takes place on a bike in the streets of London, because why not?—and Tomb Raider never pretends to be anything else. Its action sequences all seem like something that would be pulled directly from the video game, and finds Lara jumping unfathomable distances with questionably relevant tools while pulling off amazing and inhuman feats of physical endurance. Vikander, for her part, handles this all beautifully.

Her Lara is a character full of uncertainty, making her more vulnerable and accessible than Jolie’s performance a decade and a half ago. At this point in her life, she is not yet the titular tomb raider, and often feels in over her head with only a gritty determination to guide her way. The vulnerability she brings to the role makes those inhuman feats feel much more meaningful and accomplished, in largely the same way it feels when you’ve finally made that fucking jump you’ve been trying to make for hours in a video game.

Tomb Raider largely feels like a film that, for the first time, has all of the pieces it needs to create a genuinely good and worthwhile video game movie. I wouldn’t go so far as to say all the pieces are in the correct position yet, but with a better screenplay this could turn into a franchise that some real legs. Whether or not they get a second shot is up in the air, but new chapters in Lara’s saga are certainly teased, and with the right combination of writer and director, we might just have something here.

As it stands now, it’s still just dumb, mindless fun. There’s something to be said for that, of course. There’s something to be said for mindless escapism, which Tomb Raider provides in droves if you let it. If you go in looking for negatives, you’ll certainly find them. The CGI is often ridiculous and the dialogue is often contrived. But the inherent fun value of the movie often makes up for that. It might not be a great film, but in the end it does end up being kind of good.

Good, at least, for a video game movie.

Tomb Raider is now playing in theaters everywhere.