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Maybe they should have just called it Tomb Raider: Reloaded. For all the pre-release claims that the latest Lara Croft movie has a better script, a more accomplished director (Jan De Bont, of Speed and Twister fame), and more room for Angelina Jolie to display her acting chops and not just her curves, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is pretty much the same movie as its 2001 predecessor. Again, Jolie’s archæologist/aristocrat/swimwear model must jet around the world to keep a cosmic MacGuffin from falling into the hands of baddies bent on world domination; again, she dispatches disposable bad guys by the dozens the way she does in the video games; again, she looks spectacular in spandex. The preposterous plot line does give De Bont an excuse to send Jolie flying in a handful of heartstopping stunt sequences. But she’s her own special effect, as protean, mercurial, and dangerous as any piece of wirework or CGI. She’s saddled with a love interest, a shady old flame played by Gerard Butler (shorn of the locks and barbarian bad attitude he displayed starring in TV’s Attila), but he’s just as much a prop as all the guns and gadgets she wields with aplomb. She has deepened her characterization of Lady Croft, though depth is a relative term for a video-game heroine who on rare occasions displays such human attributes as doubt, indecision, or frailty. The franchise hasn’t found it yet, but Jolie may yet prove that her digital heroine has a soul. (118 minutes)
BY GARY SUSMAN
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