Thursday 22 March 2018

Tomb Raider - The scoop and digest

In game and film, this is the fourth time franchise has been rebooted and the fifth to bear title of just Tomb Raider.

Unexpected 4P lightgun arcade was released to coincide with feature presentation.

While I can't confirm inch of monitor screen, it surely must exceed 100.

Interesting, right?

Roar Uthaug thaws intrepid adventuress from cinematic ice and while based on, is not an adaptation of critically acclaimed 2013 video game.

Alicia Vikander - Lara Croft
Walton Goggins - Mathias Vogel
Daniel Wu - Lu Ren
Dominic West - Lord Richard Croft

Skint bicycle courier Lara Croft is forced to swallow stubborn pride and claim her missing father's inheritance.

After finding a key hidden inside a Japanese puzzle box, she bottles putting pen to paper.

Inside Richard's office, pre-recorded message tells Lara to destroy all research into Queen Himiko -  mother of the dead.

Daddy's amulet is sold to fund a trip to Hong Kong, where drunken sailor Lu Ren is paid to take her to Yamatai.

Lara survives troubled waters and knocked unconscious.  She awakes in the presence of baddie Mathias Vogel, who's out to locate Himiko's tomb.

Expedition is funded by shady organisation Trinity, who plan to use Queenie's power of being able to command life and death as a weapon.

Lara manages to escape, but passes out after surviving a series of death-defying stunts.

During nightfall, she's forced into killing a Trinity guard lurking nearby and then follows a mysterious geezer up cliff face.

Why the fuck would Vogel only send one man to kill Lara?

(Sigh).

Anyway, hobo turns out to be Richard.

Armed and dangerous, Lara sets off to retrieve Vogel's research from camp.

Lu Ren and fishermen buddies stage distractions and at tomb's entrance where Vogel is holding Richard at gunpoint, Lara agrees to open the door.

Vogel's mercenaries attempt to remove Himiko's corpse from sarcophagus, and soon discover that she is the carrier and immune to unknown disease.

Hmmm, I've seen that somewhere before.

More later...

Lady pants sacrificed herself to protect the world from global infection.

When attacked, Vogel guns down zombified goon.

Vogel takes Himiko's finger as a souvenir and while peeps exchange gunfire, Vogel escapes and Richard becomes infected.

To permanently contain the virus, he sets a bomb with resulting explosion sealing tomb.

Lara and Vogel scuffle, and before booted into a deep chasm, he's force-fed finger.

Tomb inevitably begins to collapse and she's rescued by Lu Ren.

They hijack Vogel's pre-arranged rescue helicopter and escape island.

Back in London, legal documentation is finally signed and she notices Trinity is one of many companies Croft Holdings owns.

At Croft Manor, she begins to plot organisation's downfall.

'Extra' scene begins almost immediately, as Lara re-visits the pawn shop and buys dual pistols, making a cute reference to early PS1 games.

Flawed fun

Generic story is littered with clichés, stock henchmen and by the numbers action sequences, but one of the best video game movies is enjoyable in its own right.

Due to the cop out of 12A cert, swears and violence are extremely mild.

If only they had bigger balls...

Vikander portrays heroine brilliantly, Goggins makes a good villain, but West is dull.

And yeah, apart from adopting the look of Camilla Luddington's CG model, primary equipment of bow and arrow and climbing axe aren't forgotten.

Running time can be very dumb, as normal bullets take down supernatural monsters and considering Lara is thrown about like a rag doll, frame remaining intact is totally realistic.

Ha ha ha!

Endurance, setting, baddie's name, Himiko, river sequence, aircraft husk and all that jazz?

Yeah...

To a certain extent, I admire faithfulness of 2013 game - but there's no need to take the piss.

Wood splinter injury occurs right near start of game, but here, it's sustained after parachute descent.

Strange.

I'd suggest campfire inside Richard's cave could be reffing Base Camp.

As they robbed so much, I'm genuinely surprised the Oni and body transference ritual (dubbed Ascension) didn't feature.

Just WHAT?

Plot plagiarises Uncharted: Drake's Fortune.

In Nate's first outing, El Dorado is a huge cursed golden idol, with corpse inside carrying a deadly airborne virus, instantly turning whoever (in this case Gabriel Roman), into a zombified monster.

HOLY... SHIT.

Okay, transformation is 'touched' rather than inhaled, but come on - set up is identical.

Why didn't Naughty Dog sue?

Who knows?

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