Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life (2003) Movie Review

Following on the success of “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” star Angelina Jolie is back in the new adventure “Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life”. Jolie plays the title character who is a wealthy English heiress who travels the globe in search of treasure and adventure. Following an earthquake in Greece, Lara uncovers a long lost tomb of treasure and is attacked by members of a crime syndicate who take the mysterious globe she has uncovered leaving her companions dead in the process.

It is learned that the globe is the key to the mysterious Cradle of Life where the legendary Pandora’s Box is set to reside. Legend tells of civilizations being destroyed should the box be opened and with an evil arms dealer Reiss (Ciaran Hinds), who specializes in selling genetic weapons to the highest bidder and will think noting of selling the box to the highest bidder.

Needing to locate the gang who stole the globe, Lara enlists the help of and old flame named Gerrard (Terry Butler), who has been imprisoned after taking to a life of crime despite his training in the intelligence community. What follows is a series of action sequences that take the duo to locales such as Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Africa as they attempt to recover the globe and unlocking it’s secrets.

The first half of the film has some nice moments and Jolie is perfectly cast as the polished yet deadly Croft. She speaks with an upper class tongue but is just as deadly with her quips as she is with all manner of weapons. What does the film in is the final part of the film. The finale was not all that interesting as plot points was resolved in a very perfunctory manner. I allow a lot of logic gapes in action films but a shark in very warm Mediterranean waters who growls and can be stopped with a single punch came across as very laughable for all the wrong reasons.

Some of the action is good, but it suffers from a weak setup. Director Jan De Bont is no stranger to action having “Speed”, “Lethal Weapon 3” and “Twister” as just a few of the films he has been involved with, but the script does not allow the characters to grow and does not setup the action scenes to the point where the audience is gripped. While better than the first film, “Tomb Raider” The Cradle of Life” is badly in need of a pulse.