Director: Simon West
Starring:Angelina Jolie, Daniel Craig, Leslie Phillips, Mark Collie, Jon Voight, Noah Taylor, Chris Barrie, Iain Glen

- Reviewed by Tom

OK, being one of the Moviepie computer-gaming geek reviewers, I had to to check out the movie adaptation of the well-known computer game. Once again this movie proves that games should never become movies, and movies should never become games—I haven't seen it work well yet! 

Angelina Jolie plays Lara Croft—an ass kicking, two-fisted pistol-shooting archeologist. Croft is in search of the two halves of a triangle-shaped key (I think that is what it was?) that was supposed to prevent some nasty event from happening when all the planets lined up and only had hours to find it. Hmmm....didn't I just see this in The Mummy II?

Croft lives in a huge mansion-type place where she bungies around the living room ceiling before bed. And there is her techno-geek sidekick, Bryce (Noah Taylor), that lives outside in a trailer full of computer stuff and satellite dishes on the roof. Why he lives outside, I don't know. Kind of reminded me of the Kato Calin / OJ Simpson situation! 

The plot of the movie is really screwed up and they don't really explain very well why they are searching for this evil thing, and don't go into much detail what happens when the planets line up (something about changing time, meeting with dad [Jon Voight] who is missing in action and probably dead). The character development is really shallow and you never really see any personality in any of the other characters other than Croft. 

Good: 

• Jolie's appearance seemed to fit the character in the game quite well. I'm not a big fan of Angelina Jolie at all, she kind of freaks me out for some reason. I think it has something to do with her lips, and I think I have heard too much about her strange personal life with Billy Bob. Ewww! 

• The fight scenes were ok, but very similar to The Mummy. Lots of action, but still kind of boring for some reason. 

• Those copies of Tomb Raider in the bargain bin at the computer stores might have some value on Ebay for a while again!

• I saw a matinee, so I only lost $5.00. 

Bad: 

• Jolie's lips (see above).

• The plot was really poorly done. There was just too much of the story missing to make much sense. 

• When they were close to the evil "dead zone" it was odd to see geek sidekick beating on his laptop computer when it was acting strange. That's not going to fix a computer! 

• I'm kind of nit-picking on this, but when they showed the planets lined up, they all appeared to be really close together. They would just appear as points of light in reality, not a full sphere. 

• Once again, this is a movie where they use the overused scene of helicopters rising in the background above the heroes. (See my comments in my review of The Mummy II). 

• I lost $5.00 and 100 minutes of my life that I'll never get back! 

In summary, the stunts and the fight scenes were OK, but I've seen better. The plot sucked. Unless you are a big fan of Angelina Jolie, and have all the Tomb Raider games including the infamous but popular "nude patch," save your money and wait for the video.

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