I don't even want to develop it, it's so bad and miles away from the original support. Not a bad movie, but could’ve been better.ģ minutes and it's already scrap, frankly, it's worse than disappointing. The actress who played Lara is pretty good, but the rest of the cast is forgettable. It doesn’t follow the story of the game exactly, but there are some very cool callbacks to the game. A little underwhelming considering how good the video game is, but certainly worth the watch for fans and even people who never played the game. Sometimes the best way to adapt a video game is to do just that: adapt.It's okay if you like the Tomb Raider franchise, but doesn't add much. These are simple statements that build a complex character - one that rewrites cinema’s understanding of Croft and creates a faithful representation of the rebooted game’s heroine - all without saying a word. This is a Lara who will always be running, biking or climbing while always thinking of the next move. It uses this constant motion to characterize this onscreen Lara as someone who is always pushing forward, always the underdog, and always fighting back. The bike race isn’t just the first taste of action outside of an opening-moments sparring match. Croft doesn’t quite get away with the “fox hunt” thanks to a few careless motorists, but the scene completely gets away with its divergence from the game’s plot. The tongue-in-cheek endlessness of the peril makes the audience tired right alongside our heroine, so that her victories feel even more earned once they finally arrive.

This relentless action refuses to let Vikander catch her breath, always asking her to exude a hustle reminiscent of Daniel Craig’s exhausting-looking parkour in Casino Royale or Charlize Theron’s ass-whooping in Atomic Blonde. She leaps back off, ready to win, when she’s again in danger of being caught and must flee. She hops on the back of a car, gaining both distance and cover from the bike-bourne hounds. This becomes a tutorial-like exposition of skills that we’ll see put to use later in the adventure, as she quickly finds herself feeling the pressure and turning to stealth. That’s the kind of fallible, Indiana Jones coolness that forms when a protagonist’s toughness is shown through superhuman perseverance rather than superhuman feats.Ĭroft takes off and away from the hunters - in a men-chasing-woman dynamic that becomes increasingly important as the film goes on - at first outmaneuvering them through speed and finesse. Here, Uthaug takes the opportunity to show the character’s clever turn away from overt badassery (like Lara shooting someone with two big guns and a smirk) to a more humanizing, put-upon kind of badassery (Lara overcomes incredible odds through inner strength). She’s sure that she can outrace and outsmart a gaggle of cyclist bros. She enters because she’s a broke bike courier who’s rejected her inheritance (she doesn’t believe her father, played by Dominic West, is dead). This is a scene that assures us that this Croft is savvy, tough and nothing like the expectations of male internet trolls.

The scene is expertly directed by Roar Uthaug, who manages to incorporate plenty of story beats and character moments into the action while still giving the chase adrenaline-pumping logic and tempo. If she gets away, she takes the whole pot. If they snag the foxtail attached to the back of her bicycle, she loses and the catcher takes a share of the prize. Lara enters as the “fox” and is chased on a “hunt” by a horde of (seemingly all-male) pursuers who paid an entry fee. It centers on an illegal bike race, conjured up by screenwriters Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons and based on real races of their type in New York and London. 'Bosch' Franchise Expanding With Two More Shows for Amazon

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