Lara Croft-Tomb Raider (Special Collector's Edition) (2001)

New York Times
"...Ms. Jolie is having the time of her life....She may be the first woman to get to deliver an action hero's smirk..." 06/15/2001 p.E16

ReelViews 8 of 10
It's not Casablanca, or even Die Hard, for that matter. But then no one expected it to be. What Tomb Raider can claim is that it's the best computer game-turned-motion picture to date. A backhanded compliment? To be sure, but at least the experience of sitting in a theater watching this movie doesn't create a longing for the interactivity of actually playing the game. Unlike nearly every other Hollywood product based on a computer/video game, Tomb Raider seems more like the summer blockbuster that it strives to be than a 90-minute big-screen commercial...Even though Tomb Raider owes a debt to Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lara is more like James Bond than Indiana Jones. She's cool and unflappable, has all sort of neat gadgets, faces danger head-on, and even owns an Aston Martin...The film's director is Simon West, who initially balked when offered the project because he was leery of the whole computer game concept. But the screenplay, coupled with his own vision, convinced him that Tomb Raider could break free of the confines of its humble beginnings. West's history behind the camera isn't sterling (previous credits include the made-for-Bruckheimer Con Air, followed by The General's Daughter), but he seems to be the right man for the job. Tomb Raider fans will be salivating over what he has accomplished here. They alone almost guarantee that the movie will be a success. If the film catches on with the general public - and it's loud, wild, and free-wheeling enough that it has the potential to do so - it could be a huge hit. Regardless of its performance at the box office, Tomb Raider is a great way to cure the summer blahs, provided, as always with this kind of film, you short-circuit the thinking parts of your brain. - James Berardinelli
 
Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
"Lara Croft Tomb Raider" elevates goofiness to an art form. Here is a movie so monumentally silly, yet so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault...And please don't tell me it makes no sense. The last thing I want to see is a sensible movie about how the Illuminati will reunite the halves of the severed triangle in order to control time in the ruins of the ancient city that once rose in the meteor crater--if, and it's a big "if," the clue of the All-Seeing Eye inside the hidden clock can be used at the moment of planetary alignment that comes every 5,000 years, and if the Tomb Raiders are not destroyed by the many-armed Vishnu figure and the stone monkeys. The logic is exhausting enough even when it doesn't make sense...Angelina Jolie makes a splendid Lara Croft, although to say she does a good job of playing the heroine of a video game is perhaps not the highest compliment. She looks great, is supple and athletic, doesn't overplay, and takes with great seriousness a plot that would have reduced a lesser woman to giggles. In real life she is a good actress. Lara Croft does not emerge as a person with a personality, and the other actors are also ciphers, but the movie wisely confuses us with a plot so impenetrable that we never think about their personalities at all...Did I enjoy the movie? Yes. Is it up there with the Indiana Jones pictures? No, although its art direction and set design are (especially in the tomb with all the dead roots hanging down like tendrils). Was I filled with suspense? No. Since I had no idea what was going to happen, should happen, shouldn't happen or what it meant if it did happen, I could hardly be expected to care. But did I grin with delight at the absurdity it all? You betcha. - Roger Ebert