Rating: 4.5/10
Review date: August 28, 2003
Lara Croft is back in her second adventure for the big screen with more exotic locales to visit and of course a new artifact to pursue. This time, she�s looking for an orb that is supposed to reveal the location of Pandora�s Box (the one in Greek mythology). As always, a villain is trying to obtain the box and unleash it to bring destruction upon the world. It�s up to the lovely Ms. Croft to save the day again�
I was very disappointed with this second installment because I was hoping so badly that the filmmakers would get �it� right after the failure of its predecessor. The new director, Jan de Bont, does put some hope into me after the departure of Simon West who directed the earlier movie but it turns out that he fails pretty badly as well.
The sequel is arguably better (slightly) than the first one and one has to admit that the script is better (not by much though). The directing however still sucks and I was under the impression that the various locations featured in the movie were included just for the sake of it. It feels rather forced and dull at the same time.
The action is also not exciting at all and doesn�t give the audience any tension at all (somehow reminds me of the first movie).
The cast are boring as hell but at least they tried to be different by introducing a companion for Lara in the form of Terry Sheridan (played by Gerard Butler) although his character ultimately falls flat like every other aspect of the movie and fail to impress me in anyway whatsoever.
The main baddie himself, Jonathan Reiss (played by Ciaran Hinds) also suffers from the same shortcomings which plague Sheridan�s character. I guess I don�t have to mention other characters in the movie which I don�t think I remember or even care about since their role are either too minimal or unnecessary in the first place anyway.
The main drive behind this movie is Angelina Jolie herself who played Lara Croft with absolute perfection; I truly can�t imagine any other actress who is suitable enough for this role. Now if only they would provide her with a good screenplay and a director�
Enough said. When Tomb Raider 3 comes out in the future (if it ever gets made), I really do hope that they learned their lesson after two failures so the Tomb Raider franchise will at least be revived (even though it�s kind of late). What they need to do is get a director who knows what he is doing and replace the scriptwriters with people who actually know how to write a decent story.
What I find hard to believe is Paramount Pictures actually has the guts to blame the movie�s poor box-office performance on the latest Tomb Raider game that was released at about the same date. It�s true that Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (the game�s title) was a disappointment but then I guess you can draw your own conclusion from here without needing me to elaborate any further.
Memorable quote: �Everything lost is meant to be found.�
-Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft-
(c) Martin Taidy 2003