Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Updated June 26, 2020 | Infoplease Staff

There's no doubt about it: Angelina Jolie makes a perfect Lara Croft, the well-endowed archeologist-adventurer featured in one of the world's most popular computer games. Jolie's sexy, tough, and glows with the bizarrely-lit star power of a true Hollywood eccentric. She's as cheeky and daring in her public life as she is rushing around exotic set pieces in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, although there is considerable more risk involved in tying the knot with Billy Bob Thornton (together they have been through eight marriages) or smooching your brother on the lips at the Oscars than jet-setting along the Indiana Jones/Agent 007 route.

Action begins early on, as Lara practices bungee jumping in the middle of her enormous British mansion. A band of Illuminati thugs storms in. They're after an ancient talisman that has the ability to control time. Jolie's real-life father Jon Voight (dead in this movie) has entrusted the talisman to daughter Lara, who must trounce across the world, raiding tombs and dispatching goons with her wildly popular tank top, cropped shorts, and serious handgun action.

Tomb Raider should be awesome but it isn't. Jolie's pansexual appeal and rebel chutzpah are almost enough to carry weight between predictable, by-the-numbers action sequences. Director Simon West was the man behind Con Air, yet even that movie had more personal flair. In the end, Tomb Raider showcases the worst of a virtual world—action without consequence, movement without travel, persons without character traits. To its credit, the game is more entertaining.