"Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" review

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)

Directed by Jan de Bont
Writing credits Steven E. de Souza James V. Hart

Angelina Jolie .... Lara Croft
Gerard Butler .... Terry Sheridan
Ciarán Hinds .... Jonathan Reiss
Chris Barrie .... Hillary (as Christopher Barrie)
Noah Taylor .... Bryce
Djimon Hounsou .... Kosa
Til Schweiger .... Sean

The Tomb Raider is back and she's raiding tombs. This time Lady Croft has to find Pandora's Box before the bad guy does. This leads her on an adventure around the world to prevent the box from falling into the wrong hands. Action, adventure, excitement etc.

This is a classic 2 out of 4 movie. When it's over, you'll feel pretty ambivalent about what you've just watched. Croft is invulnerable so there's no point in working up a sweat over her many dangerous predicaments. Is there anything worth working up a sweat over? Not really. The only thing the Tomb Raider movies have gotten right is Angelina Jolie. She is perfect as Lara Croft. Hot, feisty and looks great in a black bikini. Perfect Tomb Raiding attire. Unfortunately the filmmakers can't dream up any truly thrilling action set pieces to put their Tomb Raider through. "Cradle of Life" snatches pages out of the Indiana Jones and James Bond playbooks but doesn't know how to execute them. She travels to this or that exotic locale but they all becomes meaningless background when the filmmakers just let her become involved in another generic shootout. It's one of those flicks that is begging you to have a good time but it's hard to get too worked up over it when the same action scene is repeated over and over.

Angelina Jolie is great. "Cradle of Life" is so-so.

SCORE: 2 out of 4 tomb raiding Angelinas