Excellent, Without a doubt!!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

The first must-see film of the year.

Movie Review: "Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" (2003)Losing 50 percent of its domestic box office attendance in Summer 2003, the succession to a highly, yet expensive 115-Million-Dollar videogame adaptation from 2001 "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" starring Angelina Jolie as martial arts as trained with two-gun-firing heroine directed by Simon West, comes here the cinematographer-turned-director directed sequel by Jan De Bont, known for a fulminate lucky strike debut in directing high-concept action-movie "Speed" (1994) starring Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, which former well-paced as organic action ingredients can hardly be translated in overly-down sequences of action with a capable supporting cast surrounding Gerard Butler as double-vision Terry Sheridan, Ciarán Hinds as "Pandora's Box" seeking nemesis character and actor Djimon Hounsou utterly exploited as Native African tribe-member Kosa, when "The Cradle of Life" just denies itself a decent showdown scenario, where cheaply-animated guardian-monsters attack under constant unnaturally flashing light-strikes of thunder initiated by unless competent cinematographer David Tattersall in all-too fake because on an obvious sound-stage-designed fountain of underwater gold-shimmerings with the seemingly hidden spot of the supplementary title-given treasure to let the first "Lara Croft" movie of successful Summer 2001 surprisingly shine in comparison.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Adventurer Lara Croft goes on a quest to save the mythical Pandora's Box, before an evil scientist finds it, and recruits a former Marine turned mercenary to assist her. Angelina Jolie is brilliant casted as Tomb Raider and owns every single scene she is in from punching a shark to riding a motorcycle. Gerard Butler, Til Schweiger and Ciarán Hinds are also great in their parts. The action is dazzling and it does feel like being inside a videogame at times, the effects are alright for their time and even tho it's not as great as the first film it's still a good videogame film in a Franchise that gets alot of hate for nothing and i hope that the Remake is at least decent or even as good as this film or the one before it. (9/10)

Adaptation is one of the hardest things to do, regardless of the mediums that you are dealing with. Trying to make a book into a movie is hard, trying to make a remake of a movie already done (especially when done well) is terribly difficult, and so far making a video game into a movie has been nearly impossible.When I saw the first TOMB RAIDER movie, I enjoyed the popcorn, but fell off the train, so to speak, once we reached the scene involving the stone statues. Because up until that point, all we had was very entertaining action fare. Angelina was amusing, her comrades were entertaining, the threat against her was legitimate (as long as we're talking about the actual gunmen. If we're talking about the heavy, Manfred Powell, rotten soup noodles are more intimidating). But once you start throwing living statues that have no reason to be alive, you know you've crossed over into video game territory, and getting back from there is a shaky prospect indeed.So I didn't love the original TOMB RAIDER. Fun popcorn, good soundtrack. Terribly weak bad-guy. Meh.I've heard that those that loved the video games were quite pleased with it, said that the movie followed the games well. Can't speak to it, myself, because I haven't played any Tomb Raider game. Not yet, anyway.All that aside, I LOVED this movie. Angelina's portrayal of Lara got boosted several notches, in performance, accent, charm, and character. Gerard Butler adds to the plot as Terry Sheridan, giving Jolie something to play with as she goes about her business. Ciaran Hinds plays Jonathan Reiss, a cold and cruel disease-wielder who happily dispatches as he pleases with his nasty little bugs, complete with a superiority complex to match. The butler and computer expert are back (sadly not in as much of the scenery as before, but nobody's perfect).We've got top-notch action, we have lethality in the combat this time, we have the strange side-game of cat-and-mouse between Terry and Lara, and we have a heavy that Lara deserves. The cheesiness is left for the final act, with hulking black creatures made of not terribly bad CGI trying to guard the treasure they seek. Not bad, all in all.It's amazing to me that certain movies can have deal-breakers so large that it crashes the entire movie for a general audience, and in other cases terribly impossible action can pass without anyone caring. In FAST AND THE FURIOUS movies, no action is impossible. Anything goes. Nothing is a deal-breaker.In this movie, everybody flipped out because Lara punches a shark. Silly, yes. Over-the-top, perhaps. A deal-breaker? NO. I've seen worse. Living statues that come to life to kill everyone in the chamber AFTER you've already lifted the final treasure comes to mind. I mean seriously, after the battle, are they supposed to REPLACE the fragment somehow? Or does it just sit on the floor in the middle of the room as their partially damaged bodies go back to sitting in the corners, waiting for the next sucker to come on in and pick up a broken triangle? Seriously, guys, LET THE SHARK THING GO. Swallow it, and move on.But finally, the thing that really gets me surrounding all of the hate of this movie is something that has stuck with me for years. The first Tomb Raider movie was a success. Enough of one for Hollywood to make this film. The first movie was passable as a theatrical experience. It felt like the reenactment of a video game, which is, I guess, what it was supposed to do.THIS movie, however, felt like a movie. An Indiana Jones-type deal, complete with heroic protagonist, silly setup, great villain, awesome music, and overall fun ride. No video game-related material ANYWHERE.And that, apparently, was the problem for everyone that didn't like it.So the first movie is a pass, where it's essentially medium-rate popcorn that felt like a video game. The second is an actual solid movie that felt nothing like a video game. What the public wants, apparently, is to watch a movie about a video game they've already played. They do not want original stories involving the characters of those video games. They want to go from an interactive experience where they feel like they are shooting the guns, killing the bad-guys, and finding the treasure to… Watching somebody re-do it all on a giant screen.I think this is why we may never, ever see a successful hit movie based on a video game that actually satisfies on every level. People want things that aren't real. It's like criticizing THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy because it didn't cover enough of the book.Jesus, guys. What the hell do you really want, anyway?

To be blunt, I didn't really think much of the first TOMB RAIDER. Sure, I enjoyed it for the visuals, the sets, and some mega impressive special effects (particularly the scene with the statue coming to life), but it was very much a 'blah' kind of movie. I rated it kindly, but now two years later and the sequel is out, I can't help but to be blunt: this film stinks. A dull, clichéd bomb without an ounce of common sense or originality in it, this rips off half a dozen James Bond movies by having Jolie globe-trotting in search of Pandora's Box and fighting an evil mega-villain and his henchmen in the process.Nearly everything is wrong with this movie. Plot holes are apparent throughout, nobody really bothered writing any decent dialogue – just embarrassing cliché after embarrassing cliché – there are no surprises and almost no suspense. The film goes over-the-top in its attitudes to stunts and action. Okay, it is based on a computer game, but is it really necessary to see the pointless water ski stunts and the ridiculous pole-vault onto a helicopter scene? These should have been cut out for being plain stupid, but no, they make up most of the movie. To be fair this is a tougher film than the first – more on-screen death, a lot of violence (really hard punches, a little blood here and there, it pushes the boundaries the same as TERMINATOR 3) but it just feels like everyone is going through the motions and making this film purely for the money. Nobody seems to have their heart in it.Director Jan De Bont hammers another nail into his own coffin after the diabolical THE HAUNTING remake, a film which is, somewhat incredibly, much worse than this. I really enjoyed his SPEED 2, which everyone else hated, so I was hoping THE CRADLE OF LIFE would be a similar surprise. Unfortunately not. The film is well shot, yes, but the action is predictable, there aren't enough battles or fight sequences to sustain interest. Some of the fights – the saluting rifle scene for instance – are just dumb. A parade of familiar scenes are played out with tons of moments ripped off from other, better films. There's a shoot-out in a glass laboratory, a shoot-out on the rooftops of Hong Kong, a fight in a cavern, a battle between heroine and villain come the end. Wow. Big deal. From the first moment when we see Jolie punching a CGI shark we know this film is in deep trouble, and unfortunately the material never gets any better. The air dive scene is the most impressive in the film, but you can tell straight away that stuntmen are involved so it kind of lessens the effect. A scene at the end of the film with monsters attacking the bad guys just feels out of place, the monsters ("shadow beasts") seem to have been closely modelled on the excellent troll fight in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING. It just feels stupid here, it actually had me laughing out loud.Angelina Jolie is an attractive actress and seeing her show off in a number of increasingly tight or skimpy costumes is almost worth the admission fee. Notice I said 'almost'. Unfortunately she seems to have forgotten how to act, putting in an embarrassing performance with over-emoting all the while. I used to think Jolie was a good actress on the strength of her turn in THE BONE COLLECTOR but she needs to get out of this dreck if she wants to win back some credibility. As for Gerard Butler, he's a wooden bore, and his character is so unbelievable that you just have to laugh come the final twist, which makes a mockery of everything. The only decent performance comes from a nicely hammy Ciaran Hinds as the villain; at least he's enjoying himself, and some of that enjoyment wears off. Chris Barrie provides comic support once more, but is hugely underused. Hong Kong cinema fans may be pleased to see action hero Simon Yam in a rather small role as a Chinese villain, good to see him in a Hollywood film nonetheless.So, at the end of the day, this is a film you can easily skip, unless you like big and stupid stunt sequences which push credibility to breaking point (nothing on Jackie Chan), some pretty locations, and some cardboard cut-out characters parading around. There are only two things I enjoyed in this film. The first was the realisation that one of the Chinese guys from the MY LUCKY STARS series was cameoing in the scene with the villain on the plane, at the beginning. The second was the really nasty bit where a guy dissolves in a pit of acid. Gruesome stuff.