BEFORE: I had a really good run there, for the first two weeks of 2016 I watched a (relatively) recent film - everything so far has been from 2013-2015. Well, that ends today, because I've got to start linking back to earlier films - after watching films like "The Exorcist", "Eraserhead" and "Harold and Maude" last year, I don't think there's much left on my list that other people might be shocked to learn that I haven't already seen, but this one might qualify. Of course, Angelina Jolie carries over from "Maleficent".
THE PLOT: Video game adventuress Lara Croft comes to life in a movie where she races against time and villains to recover powerful ancient artifacts.
AFTER: I did mention this was the clean-up year, right? Because so far this year I've watched films about a NYC club I never went to ("CBGB"), based on the life of a singer I never saw perform ("Get on Up"), based on comic books that I never read ("Big Hero 6" and "Sin City") and tonight's film is based on a video-game that I've never played. Is it any wonder I'm feeling more and more disconnected from the movies I'm watching? Maybe it truly is time to wrap this blog up at the end of 2016, because it's really starting to feel like I've covered just about everything I needed to, and now I'm just killing time.
To me, "Tomb Raider" is just the equivalent of pop-culture nonsense, something akin to cotton candy, with no nutritional value at all. It might taste good at first, but eat too much of it and you'll start to feel sick - like I am with candy canes, I'm good for about 1/2 of one each December, any more than that and peppermint starts to taste repulsive. I don't know what's worse here, Angelina Jolie's horrible attempt at speaking with a British accent, or people consistently entering caves and monuments while holding glowsticks, yet the rooms in question all appear to be perfectly lit. Huh?
The "story", and I'm using the term very loosely, involves finding some clock thingy, and a group of Illuminati somehow knowing exactly which two ruins to bring it to in order to activate some mechanical devices (which were supposedly constructed eons ago, before man had invented even steam power) in order to obtain two pieces of a triangle. (Ooh, scary triangle! Much scarier than a square, because it's all pointy!) Meanwhile, the planets are lining up, like they do only once every 5,000 years, and something's bound to happen if we can get both pieces of the triangle when they align!
Give me a freakin' break. First off, the planets don't line up like that, ever. Some aren't even on the same plane as the others, so bottom line, it just doesn't happen. Plus those of us who were around in 1987, when the planets were all on the same side of the sun, it was called the "Harmonic Convergence", and rumors spread that it was going to signify a new era of peace and understanding, ushering in the Age of Aquarius, and anyone meditating that day would be able to unlock the secrets of the universe. Guess what, nothing happened, nothing at all. So go hug a rainbow, you hippies.
How many of these events have to happen - Y2K, the end of the Mayan calendar, Mars entering retrograde, for everyone to admit that it's all bullshit? None of it means anything. Even when it was 12:34 and 56 seconds on July 8, 2009, that didn't mean jack. It's just a math trick. But every year, people think you can balance an egg on the equinox, it's always in the news - guess what, you can balance an egg any day of the year (especially if you shake it first - watch those hands closely...)
Oh, and statues tend to come to life in these temples, did I forget to mention that? There's no explanation, they never say whether those statues are robots, or somehow animated magically, or contain the souls of deceased sorcerers, it's just taken for granted when stuff starts to go down, the statues are going to start to move. Ugh, let's add junk science to junk astrology to junk archaeology.
And then the worst was a giant version of the solar system that started spinning and turned into something from that ABC game show, "Wipeout". I just couldn't take this one seriously, from start to finish. I couldn't take it non-seriously either, I couldn't take it on any level. I think my original instincts in avoiding this film for so long were correct, it's ridiculous from start to finish.
NITPICK POINT: The two pieces of the triangle were supposedly hidden "on opposite ends of the earth". Yet they're found in temples in Cambodia and Siberia, which are both in Asia. They may be far away from each other, but that certainly doesn't qualify as opposite ends.
Also starring Jon Voight (last seen in "The Rainmaker"), Iain Glen (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Daniel Craig (last heard in "The Adventures of TinTin"), Noah Taylor (last seen in "Lawless"), Chris Barrie, Richard Johnson (last seen in "Scoop"), Julian Rhind-Tutt (last seen in "Notting Hill"), Leslie Phillips.
RATING: 3 out of 10 randomly appearing children
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