Film review: Tomb Raider (2018)

Here we are with a rather short review of the new Tomb Raider adaptation, basically because there isn’t that much to say about it.


Warning! Danger, Will Robinson!
Here be SPOILERS for Tomb Raider (2018)

If you’re wondering if you should bother going to the pictures to see this, let me sum it up for you: Lara Croft does Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , complete with missing dad possibly because he knew too much about his one field of devoted research, a secret underground resting place of a holy artefact, clues to get them through the booby traps and tests in the secret underground resting place that only her dad knew due to said research, finding out the artefact is not what you thought it would be, stopping the bad guys by inadvertently destroying the secret underground resting place, and a secret organisation bent on either saving or destroying the artefact.

That said, it’s constant action and has some very good set pieces. However, I didn’t feel wee Alicia Vikander was Lara enough to be Lara (but then I’m not a fan of Angelina Jolie, either), and the obvious plot ‘twists’ (let’s call them ‘bends’) were jaded. Also: sick of Daddy Issues as a plot device. Seriously, people, come up with something else. There were a few gaping plot points too, and a few moments where I literally giggled because I had a mental image of Stephen Spielberg hulking out and turning into George Lucas at the prospect of suing someone for plagiarism.

The one thing I did like, and latched onto because it was more interesting, was Daniel Wu (you may know him from such American films as Geostorm and the AMC series Into the Badlands). Let’s ignore the obvious gaff in giving him a Mandarin name ('Lu Ren') when he’s supposed to be a Hong Kong fisherman, son of another Hong Kong fisherman; in fact the name he was given in Chinese characters on the overseas poster clearly say his Chinese name is 陸仁, or ‘Luk Yan’. What’s interesting is the first character is often used to talk about China being ‘the mainland’, and the second character means merciful or benevolent. If you did this in a foreign language film guest starring Captain America he’d literally be called ‘America the Merciful’. But hey, no propaganda to see here - move along. Apart from being yet another example of the mainland trying to pretend that Cantonese doesn’t exist when in fact it’s thousands of years older than Mandarin, it’s just rude to keep telling everyone his name is Lu Ren when in fact it’s Luk Yan. The only saving grace is that the people running around Hong Kong after Lara were still allowed to speak the local language - Cantonese. I wonder how many more times that’ll be allowed before the Beijing Film Board get in there and start spreading lies to Westerners, portraying Mandarin as Hong Kong’s mother tongue.

Ahem.

Anyway, save yourself a ticket and have more fun rewatching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Verdict: 6.5/10. Been there, done that, bored of the ‘back story’ and Daddy Issues. And if I have to sit through one more tearful and overly-fixated-on-Daddy daughter listening to her oh-so-precious Dad tell her how she’s so “independent” (spot the irony) and “beautiful” (because obviously that’s more important than being capable) I’ll fucking vomit.

There. That’s all the news that’s fit to print. I may cheer myself up with something like 2000 A.D., starring a younger Daniel Wu and a cheeky Aaron Kwok.

Soopytwist.