Member review

Tomb Raider is an action movie with a strong female protagonist breaking the mould set by most other action movies.However does this mean its good?Debatable...Considering the track record of video game to movie adaptations the movie isn’t appalling,these kind of movies have been doing better in recent years,generally speaking video game adaptations don’t do well with critics and most their money comes from either marketing if its good but if all else fails die hard fans will buy tickets.The Assassins Creed(2017)movie is a perfect example of this critics HATED it with a burning passion for its odd action scenes and very confusing to follow plot as it made the mistake of assuming people knew the plot but fans loved it.I watched Assassins Creed in the odd position of never playing the games but it having caught my eye when the trailer came out,my mum however had other ideas than letting a 12 year old go and see a movie with ‘assassins’ in the title, so I wasn’t allowed to see it so out of spite I brought the book for the movie and read that first and watched the film when it came to dvd I watched it and didn’t have the problems most people had as i had the accompanying book.Anyway I’m suddenly realising I went off on a tangent about Assassins Creed,we’re here to talk about Tomb Raider...

Tomb raider is a movie following Lara Croft a young female character living in London,her dad,Richard Croft,went missing 7 years before the events of the majority in this movie.When Lara is urged to sign the documents handing control of her fathers company and inheritance to her,in the midst of this Lara finds a riddle left by her father and finds out that his fathers life was not all business.After Lara’s mothers death her father became obsessed with finding how to get her back,in researching this he found out about Himiko an evil queen buried on an island almost impossible to get to and in his study Lara finds his fathers final papers are paying a boatsman to take him there and that’s where he went missing.Lara goes and finds the ship and gets the owner Lu Ren to take her there but all does not go to plan as they get shipwrecked there and find some not so friendly faces namely the main antagonist Mathias Vogel.

Throughout the story you follow Lara a girl who I believe (don’t quote me on this)is around 21.Lara is under the care of Ana after her fathers disappearance and supposed death left her orphaned.Lara wrestles but is broke as she refuses to sign the documents that say her father is officially dead so she can claim the inheritance.Lara’s character is very determined and resourceful;solving many puzzles throughout the movie she is also very strong and wins every fight,in some ways this is like your typical protagonist in female form except she visibly struggles in numerous fights especially in her first kill.She very visibly shows remorse shocked at her actions and i like this as it pushes her forward as a character making her realise she must make sacrifices to what she thinks is right and her morals if she is to survive.The other central character is the antagonist Vogel who in my opinion makes a good villain but is a little stereotypical of the action genre.Its established very early on that he’s evil because he’s evil without having many motivations other than wanting to get home but everyone on the island shares this ambition at one point or another so I would’ve preferred something more unique.Other than that Vogel is quite a good character he’s got a little charisma and appears to laugh at the old myths he is focused on his task of getting home and is brutal and doesn’t care who he hurts executing his that.I liked Lu Ren but he was almost the comic relief character making him pushed to the side a little and I wish they’d expanded on his character more as he had some funny scenes and seemed to have a few layers and i hope they’ll expand o him in the sequel but its understandable that he movie is trying to focus on Lara.

One good thing about this movie is the mysterious setting,the secluded island makes for a great central point and I like how contrasted it is from the bustling,urban streets in London at the beginning of the film.The colours used are good as they fit in with the environment though large chunks are built up of greys especially in the climax.I liked how in the more tender scenes especially in the scene right before the ‘final fight’ used warm colours soft colours in a contrast to the dark caverns surrounding.I rewatched this small section and you notice behind Lara before she goes is a cavern that’s blue reflecting her sadness and the tunnels she runs through seem to have more of a blue tone.The greys work well as well as they add mystery as for me grey denotes fog.The sound in the film was quite good and the use of no sound and silence right before a particular intense scene was quite effective and I liked that.However I think the most effective use of sound wasn’t in the film but in the trailer with the song ‘Survivor’ by 2WEI sums up Lara’s character perfectly she IS a survivor when I saw the trailer for this film back before it was even in cinemas I was humming this song all day as its also quite catchy and whenever I thought of it I thought oh Tomb Raider making me want to go and see it.A lot of the camera angles were very good too using a large variety of them and some very interesting including underwater ones which I liked a lot as it allowed you to see Lara struggle.

A few things I loved about the film were the call backs I liked them both when they were used when Lara was trying to figure something out or just for comedy with her and Lu Ren.I loved that it was a female protagonist though it does still need some work(you’ll see my problems in the next paragraph) and I LOVED that there was NO LOVE INTEREST!!!Thank God for that I love how this is one way the movie really breaks the mould and I’m glad they didn’t go in that direction otherwise the film would’ve been unbearably long and I think it would take away from both Lara and the subliminal message about Women being just as strong as men that I think movie was trying to convey.I also really liked the plot twist but I’m a massive sucker for a good plot twist.

Despite all this though I do have one or two problems with the film one was that Lara’s luck was quitoxic!She made far more jumps than humanely possible,she found Lu Ren’s ship by accident in the docks which the chances had to be next to nothing and as the movie runs further through you notice this more and more.One of my other problems is the green screening that you can often tell its green screened,this is most noticeable on the parachuting scene.My biggest issue however is the noises Lara makes!This was infuriating,this movie is meant to be breaking the mould and opening action movies to have female protagonists treated the same as males but when was the last time you saw James Bond or Ethan Hunt squeaking,squealing or other noises of that variation in an action scene I REALLY WOULD LIKE TO KNOW!?This is my main issue with this film the idea that they’re trying to break the mould but Lara squeals so much in this film,not only is it irritating and off putting from the action it happens in every single fight scene,this little squeals that sounds like a 10 year old girl seeing something like a spider!I really hate this about the film this is the only thing I utterly despise and is probably the main reason I gave it 3 stars.

Overall the film isn’t bad and is worth a watch seeing as it is on the world’s biggest streaming service as of the time of writing,is it something I go out of my way to see again,probably not.I think quite a lot of my issues with this movie are personal so I don’t think others will have as hard of a time enjoying it; this isn’t to say I hate the movie but I have seen better that I have far less issues with.