So much average

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I don't know why the ratings for Jolies Tomb Raider movies are so low. The story may be a bit cheesy but so were the games. Angelina's performance as Lara is perfect. Love rewatching this from time to time. Fun movie. I think after the new adaption 2018 tomb raider movie maybe gamers and fans of Lara will appreciate Jolies Tomb Raider a lot more.

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is one of those movies that is very difficult to go back and re-watch. It's not just because the special effects are more than dated or that the story feels very generic, it's because the Hollywood we knew in 2001 is very different from the Hollywood we know now. This movie would be absolutely ripped to shreds if it came out now, and to a certain extent it was back then as well. I'm sorry, but you can't just get away with having a mind-blowingly pointless shower scene and that other thing they shamelessly did to enhance Lara. Yeah, that doesn't fly.It's also interesting just to look at this film as a product of its age because of how much it feels like it's trying to be something that it's not. Tomb Raider is supposed to be an adventure first and action second type of franchise. Or at least that's always the way I viewed it. But this film rips so many pages out from the playbook of The Matrix and other 90's classic action movies and tries to weave a halfway decent adventure story into the film as well. Having the Illuminati as the 'big bad' of the film is one thing, but silly CGI flooded sequences with zero weight behind them is a whole other problem the film faces.But I think the thing that this film does most poorly is flush out Lara Croft as her own character. If you look at her in the first scene and the last scene, there really isn't much growth or difference as to how she does about her life. In order for there to be a point to making the film, there needs to be some sort of growth or arc, or else what was really accomplished in the end?4.2/10

Good performances from a number of very talented supporting actors, and an excellent portrayal of Lara Croft by Angelina Jolie cannot save this movie from incompetent filmmaking.Maybe there was once logically and tonally coherent vision for what this film was to be, but what ended up in theaters was a total mess.The ridiculous plot is not the problem, in fact the story is good precisely because it is so over the top and just "out there". It provides a lot of interesting locations and original scenes.Which don't, you know, actually add up to anything fun or memorable because the editing is so terrible.It's telling that the only scene where the stakes feel high is the opening action sequence which is revealed to just be Lara's elaborate training room. The "fake" training room feels more dangerous (and cool! and memorable!) than anything in the rest of the movie which is supposed to be "real". Yeah.The editing is bad. As in "worst I've ever seen" terrible. At a storyboarding level, key establishing shots, connecting shots, reaction shots etc. are missing. The dramatic pacing is completely off, narrative foreshadowing/callbacks are MIA, otherwise good fight scenes mishandled. Characters do inexplicable things. Events happen for no reason. There are a few great visual scenes, and some good framing and composition, and some nice stunt work, but it never joins up into sometime worth your time.

Video game adventuress Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) comes to life in a movie where she races against time and villains to recover powerful ancient artifacts.Angelina Jolie has had a strange career. She started out as the daughter of Jon Voight (who plays her father here). Whether that helped her or not, I do not know. But she landed some roles in "Hackers" and "Lara Croft". She married Brad Pitt, the king of Hollywood. She is seen as a humanitarian and is now (2015) establishing herself as a director. What a career! This film is a little bit silly. The adventure and action is not realistic, but being based on a video game, it probably shouldn't be. Fun? Yes. And apparently quite successful, since it spawned at least one sequel.