Review of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003) by Filipeneto — 22 Jan 2020

A waste of time, this film was made to make money.

Although not entirely bad, I reasonably swallowed the first film. This was a lot more difficult. The story is much more imaginative and, therefore, it was even more difficult to have logic for me. The script is essentially based on the search for the mythical Pandora's Box. Lara has the support of the British Secret Service and must reach the box before a dangerous villain.

If the first film was based entirely on the action scenes and the script was designed to support them, in this film this is even more evident, with the added fact that the action is much more boring and cliché than in the first film and the script is more than secondary. Even if those who watch these films are not looking for any revolutionary masterpiece, it would have been nice to see that some attention was paid to the script and there was a concern to make a decent story. But not. When trying to repeat the formula used in the first film without adding anything new or different or even better, the film resented and shows signs of wear, like a car that has not been seen by a mechanic in ten years. The film continues to be fast and the fighting action scenes follow each other without causing more than a few yawns to the audience. Bad boys, monsters, supernatural situations, we have it all. Only aliens and Indians from the West are missing. The ending is uninteresting, uses a lot of obvious and unrealistic CGI and never surprises or surprises us.

Angelina Jolie managed, with the previous film, to reach stardom and a sex symbol status that would open doors for more mature works. She also made a lot of money from these two films. However, after a good performance in the first film, in this one she does not do more than she needs to do to justify her salary. The support cast remains practically reduced to existence, so it is easy for Jolie to stand out, especially with those clothes making her breasts and legs stand out.

If the first film was still worth seeing, this film was made only to profit from the success of the first. Bored, cliché, sometimes confusing, it is not worth the time wasted watching.