Tomb Raider 2018; no-spoiler review except this spoiler: I loved it

I'd planned to take my little sister out to see Love, Simon tonight but it was nearly a sold out show, which rarely happens at our theater. So, rather than wait for a later show, we went to see Tomb Raider instead. I wasn't sure what to expect, I've seem some pretty cynical reviews and some really shitty ones from manbabies that care more about the size of Lara's chest than anything else in the movie. Taking everything I've heard with a huge grain of salt, I thought we'd check it out. I was never a fan of the early Tomb Raider games, they felt unnecessarily difficult and way too focused on Lara's appearance (they were).

In recent years with the reboot of the video game series, I decided to check them out again. And I fell in love with Lara, the story, the game play. They're fantastic games. A little bit open-world, a little bit puzzle-platformer, a little rpg. They've got good story, good puzzles and a great protagonist. I've never really gotten into the multiplayer aspects, but I've loved the single player content of both games and am eagerly awaiting the third.



I'm really pleased to be able to say that I loved this movie. It's everything the rebooted games are but in live action. They follow a similar story path, we see the same younger, scrappier Lara the games have gifted us and plenty of room to expand. I do have a soft spot for the cheesier Angelina Jolie movies, but this movie is a world apart. The action scenes are really great, none of it felt like too much CGI for me and several of them gave me really great flashback moments to the 2013 Tomb Raider game.



There's a lot of new stuff coming out soon (YES, I DID WATCH THE INFINITY WAR TRAILER AND GET SUPER EXCITED WHY DO YOU ASK?) but I'd love to go see this again if I get the chance. It's not perfect -- I wish there were more women for one -- but it's a really good place to start for a new series and I hope that we get the chance to see where they take it. Alicia Vikander is a great Lara Croft, playing up the athleticism and the feisty sarcasm as her video game counterpart. I think she could make something great out of this series. 




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