MOVIE REVIEW

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

Starring: Angelina Jolie, Gerard Butler, Chris Barrie
Director: Jan De Bont

Rating: PG-13

Studio: Paramount

Release Date: 7.25.03

Review Posted: 7.25.03

Spoilers: Minor

By Sara Michelle Fetters

Lara Croft Returns in Lifeless "Cradle"

It is pretty common for critics to think that the level of quality and commitment in Hollywood right now is at an all-time low. With too many multinational companies unwilling to take risks and too much time spent on improving the bottom line, the ideas of originality and innovation are left at the bedside to be replaced by mindless consumerist pabulum that’s easy to sell and even easier to make a profit from.

That’s why there are so many sequels, comic book adaptations, remakes of popular television shows and gaudy interpretations of much-adored video games. Not only are they easy to make, but with a built-in audience willing to fork over the money just too see how their heroes are interpreted, even a marginally disappointing gross still equals profit over the long term. Whereas, the obtuse observations of an anarchic, originally minded director don’t exactly mesh kindly with in-the-now corporate consumerist thinking.

It is precisely that thinking that has brought “Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life” to the big screen. The sequel to a gawd-awful 2001 original that almost no one who’s seen it has admitted to liking, the fact that it made over three-hundred million dollars worldwide has led to this inevitable second chapter. So even though none of us has actually asked for the adventures of Lara Croft to continue, here Angelina Jolie is strutting a sexy collagen-inspired pout and pulling her six guns at the slightest hint of danger.

Too be perfectly fair, I’ve always thought Jolie is the perfect actress to bring the über-popular video game heroine to life. She knows how to command the screen and hold the attention, filling the mind-bending proportions of male fantasies to perfection. I’ve also liked how she registers so keenly the supposed intelligence of the character, a noted archaeologist and treasure hunter notorious for her ability to use her brain just as much as she’s apt to resort to her vaunted trigger finger.

It was the absence of anything even remotely like a brain that so thoroughly sunk the original. While the game series features some of the most mind-bending puzzles ever devised for a Playstation, the movie was just an excuse for a loud, crashing cacophony of violence and mayhem. Everything that can be considered wrong with today’s American Hollywood filmmaking was on display, nary a trace of subtlety or complexity of character to be found.

This time, under the direction of Jan De Bont (“Speed”) and a story and screenplay from action veterans Steven E. de Souza (“Die Hard”), James V. Hart (“Contact”) and newcomer Dean Georgaris (John Woo’s forthcoming “Paycheck”), the movie actually does show that it has  intelligence. And, while it is far superior to the inaugural Lara Croft adventure, if the film even remotely showcased anything close to resembling a pulse I might be able to get excited about that fact.  Instead, “The Cradle of Life” is about as a flat as a pancake, going through the motions so routinely that I’m sure the filmmakers must have had the action film cliché manual open to page one right from the get-go.

The plot, what there is of one, delves right into Greek mythology and details the search for Pandora’s Box by an evil micro-biologist and designer disease manufacturer Jonathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds, “The Road to Perdition”). Urged on by British MI6 to stop the villain and with wily butler Hillary (Christopher Barrie of “Red Dwarf” fame) and genius computer programmer Bryce (Noah Taylor, “Max,” “Vanilla Sky”) at her side, she enlists the help of imprisoned former MI6 agent (and once lover) Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler, “Reign of Fire”) to stop Reiss and his evil machinations. Globe trotting from Greece, to the Ukraine, to China and to Africa, can the team stop the madman before he finds the fabled box and unleashes the plague to end all plagues upon mankind?

If surviving means I have to continue being put to sleep by misguided hokum like this then I’m all for that plague. “The Cradle of Life” is a colossal bore of a movie. De Bont shows none of the flair for action scenes that made him an overnight sensation with “Speed” and “Twister.” Instead, the movie is just a wee bit more exciting than the director’s massive misfire “Speed 2: Cruise Control.” It moves from sequence to sequence with all the flair of a four-year-old attempting a paint-by-numbers watercolor for the first time, De Bont doing his best to make sure his audience gets a good two-hour sleep.

Jolie does own the character of Lara Croft at this point, however. She’s so comfortable under the heroine’s skin I can’t for the life of me think of anyone else who could play her with the same bit of fire and determination than the Oscar-winning actress does. If only the script gave her more to do and play. While de Souza and Hart’s story shows promise (and actually makes Croft a woman just as prone to using her brain as she does her firearms), it’s more than difficult to find it amongst Georgaris’ cluttered and banal screenplay. Continuity is more than an afterthought, it’s actually somewhere off in its own dimension, as entire characters and massive pieces of military hardware disappear time and time again – especially during the film’s frantic climax – never to be replaced or talked about. It’s like they never existed, never mind the fact that people just flew into the picture on them or were standing right there next to their friends only seconds earlier.

Still, there are things worth applauding. I liked the opening sequence inside an underwater Grecian ruin, especially the fact that Croft has to use her noggin and show some intelligence before getting inside. I also loved a Wagnerian forest of burnt and desolate wasteland, filled with mangled and twisted trees that look as if they’ve been lifted straight out of Tim Burton’s most feverish nightmare. Then there are the little touches; the way Lara rides her horse sidesaddle or her compunction for punching sharks for example; many of them bringing a much more satisfying smile than the obviously “Raiders of the Lost Ark” inspired storyline could ever hope to.

Also, Hinds makes for a wonderfully understated villain, never playing up his evil motivations or becoming a hyperactive cartoon of a character. He’s the best thing the movie has to offer, and if his eventual comeuppance is far less than satisfactory, at least he makes “The Cradle of Life” far more entertainingly amusing than it has any right to be.

That’s more than can be said for Butler. A fine actor under normal circumstances, his rugged handsomeness is wasted here. It doesn’t help that he’s completely undone by a denouement that’s particularly unsatisfying, leaving far too bitter a taste on the lips. Also wasted are the great character actors Djimon Hounsou (“Amistad,” “The Four Feathers”) – who completely disappears from existence at one critical point in the film – and Til Schweiger (“Driven,” “Maybe, Maybe Not”), both of whom deserve far better than the thinly veiled clichés they’re forced to play.

My only worry after seeing “The Cradle of Life” is that it is just superior enough to the first film that it is likely audiences are going to get suckered into thinking it is actually fairly good. It isn’t, not slightly, but if it makes as much or more money than the 2001 original that means a third Lara Croft adventure can’t be too far away. The fact that the thought of part three is even a possibility is probably the greatest mystery of all; one not even the famously chiseled title character herself could figure out.

Rating: ê1/2  (out of 4)

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