Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
This one’s been surprisingly quiet so far. I talked to Lloyd Levin, one of the film’s producers, very recently, and he’s still in London, hard at work to get it finished. Sounds like he’s a lot happier this time around, and I’ll admit... I think this one looks better from the trailers I’ve seen. I thought Beaks did a nice job with Jan De Bont the other day, and it certainly gave me hope that, at the very least, this is going to be a good action film.
Let’s see what this guy thought:
Hey, Harry.
I finally have something you may be interested in.
I was in New York this week for a digital video convention, and was lucky enough to get into a sneak preview of Tomb Raider 2 at the Lowe’s 24-plex. Most of the theatre was reserved for reviewers (and I think some Paramount execs too), but the bottom non-stadium-seating section was open to the street-trash like me.
Anyway, my thoughts on the film... it’s pretty ok. Not great, just pretty ok. There were some pretty good actions sequences, as you might have guessed, and a plot that didn’t make me roll my eyes as much as I thought it would. The whole “cradle of life” thing, which I thought would be dumb, was actually pretty dumb, but I found myself drawn into the movie enough that it didn’t matter too much. The action was good, and so I didn’t mind some of the weakness in the plot. I guess my main gripe with this film is the hollywood-ization of Lara Croft. When I think of the character (to be fair I’ve never played a Tomb Raider video game), I think of a Tomb RAIDER, i.e. someone who is not necessarily the good guy all the time. This Lara Croft is more of a traditional hero rather than the rogue you cheer for-despite her amoral tendencies. That’s the kind of movie I wanted to see. This movie does have it’s fun moments, but I think the first Tomb Raider did it better.
I have to admit, however, that I did jump out of my seat pretty good at least once – [Spoiler] during a shark-attack scene, which looks and plays very good. It’s easily my favorite part of the whole film. The ending is also not too shabby either.
Spoiler space, baby...
No, seriously... it's a doozy...
Okay... I warned you...
[Major Spoiler] I was concerned that Lara would end up happily walking into the sunset with her man-partner at the end of this film… but NO! She kills him! Ha! Not because she’s a heartless tomb RAIDER, but because she’s so darn concerned about the lives of billions of people. Boo-hoo.
Oh well, I was still pretty jazzed to see an ending the left me not-so-sure-about-what-would-happen in the last ten minutes. So, overall, I give it about 2.8 stars.
Call me,
Atomike
Hmmmm... that was more a tease than a full-fledged review. I hope Paramount gives us a chance to see this soon, or I’ll have to wait ‘till I get back from Montreal, after the film’s been out for a while.
"Moriarty" out.
