Yesterday a brand new movie which would not even play in the US until next week was already premiering in Indonesian cinemas. There was no convincing needed for me to see this one on its first day. As it happened, my wife and I had some personal matter to attend to at Lotte Avenue, so we saw the movie there. It was playing in 2 theaters but we chose to see it at Studio 1 with the Auro 11.1 sound system. OK let us move on to the movie now.
Brief Story Line
Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander - The Danish Girl, Jason Bourne etc) was a young woman working as a bike courier in London. But she was in fact the heir to a large business from her father Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West - Money Monster, The Affair TV series etc) who had been gone missing for years and presumed dead. The business was being handled by an associate of Richard named Ana (Kristin Scott Thomas - The English Patient, Four Weddings and a Funeral etc) who was trying her best to get Lara to take over the business.
When Lara found out that her father might have gone to a mysterious place in Asia, she decided to search for him. With the help from a Hong Kong drunk sailor named Lu Ren (Daniel Wu - New Police Story, One Night in Mongkok etc), they embarked on a dangerous journey to a very remote island. The journey would bring them to a major finding and led them to a very murderous & vicious archaeologist named Vogel (Walter Goggins - Maze Runner: The Death Cure, The Hateful Eight etc) who would stop at nothing to find what he was looking for.
So could Lara find what she was looking for? Could she escape from Vogel? Find them all in this exciting action adventure movie.
End of Brief Story Line
At first when I found out about the reboot of this iconic video game character movie, I admit that I had my doubts when they cast Alicia Vikander to play Lara Croft. My doubt was due to the her prior experience of mostly having dramatic roles rather than action role. Yes she did play in The Man from U.N.C.L.E but there was not a lot of action sequence involving her there. It would really require a great physical attributes in order to play this heroine who was famous for her agility and ability to run and jump through a whole lot of dangerous places like in the video game. But it turned out my doubt was completely unwarranted. Alicia Vikander truly deserves the praise for being a new action star and she was really great in playing this role. There were soo many action sequences that required her to do all those stuff and what surprised and amazed me was the fact that she did all of her stunts. That took serious commitment to do them.
This movie's main attraction was definitely all those wonderful action sequence. The plot/story line might not have been appealing to the movie critics as I also found it a bit weak. But that was not the point anyway. When we go to see Tomb Raider, the first thing that comes to people's mind would be lots of actions. The final third of the movie did not disappoint at all. Though I personally felt that the first half was not full of those. But whenever there were actions involved, they were always suspenseful and intense (my most favorite part would be when Lara was going through the jungle and waterfall until finally went to the ground).
I mentioned above that this was a reboot of the two movies which were previously played by Angelina Jolie. Those movies started off with Lara Croft already being the tomb raider, but in here the movie focused on her early days. Which means the movie was more of an origin story of Lara Croft. This was a nice different approach by the film makers. It was also rather a surprise that the movie was not directed by Hollywood's more well known action director. The director was Roar Uthaug, a Norwegian film maker whose prior experience were directing Norwegian films. But I personally think he did wonderful job on the action sequences.
As for other aspects like the sound effects, it was definitely great. The musical effect though not too good to my opinion (sometimes there was too much volume in certain scene which I think was to give more dramatic effect but felt unnecessary to my opinion). The special effects were good, and the CGI was done neatly & nicely. There were also few dramatic moments where my wife was also affected a bit. Oh there was also a brief fun appearance from Nick Frost (famous for his comedic roles such as in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz). The other supporting characters in the movie that stood out was obviously Walter Goggins (as usual truly nailed it as a villain). The rest were OK, but sadly Daniel Wu's character was not really that great in here (not clear on whether he was supposed to be Lara's sidekick or what). The movie did not have middle or post end-credit scene, so you can relief yourself to the restroom if you have been holding off during the almost 2 hours duration of the movie.
Overall, this movie was a nice reboot of Lara Croft. Do not overthink the plot or the sometimes not really logical part like how Lara was so strong & very good in doing all those stunts despite not having the proper training. Go to this movie to be entertained by the amazing action sequence (even if Lara seemed to be always very lucky like what my wife said). If you enjoy this kind of movie or if you are a fan of Tomb Raider games, then I think it would be satisfying. But if you want to see a lot of the tomb raiding scenes like in the previous Tomb Raiders movies, or if you are looking for the Indiana Jones quality, then this might not be too fulfilling. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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