Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
In a sequel to the disappointing original, Angelina Jolie is back as Lara Croft to save the world. Somewhere in Africa is Pandora's Box, a weapon more powerful than anyone has imagined. What does it do? I'm not entirely sure; they never do mention it, I don't think, or I missed it. Rest assured, it's evil and will kill millions, or did they say billions? As you can see, I didn't pay too much attention to this flimsy movie. It all started with a hidden temple of Alexander the Great. A nearby earthquake uncovers it for Lara and she dives underwater to find it. There, she finds an orb, quickly taken by some Chinese raiders. They are going to sell it to Jonathan Reiss (Ciaran Hinds), a Nobel-prize winning biologist now working for evil, releasing deadly diseases to get what he wants. To get the orb back for herself, MI:6, and her majesty the Queen, Lara enlists the help of ex-Royal Marine, ex-lover Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler) who has ties with these raiders. Long story short, she gets the orb back from Reiss and finds out that the orb leads the way to Africa where the box could be found. However, Reiss and Sheridan are hot on her heels to get there first.

This movie is full of waste. Wasted scenes leading to nowhere. (We find out about the temple through the effects of an earthquake at a wedding party. What's the point of having a wedding party in the first place?) Wasted action that clearly have no point and ends ridiculously. (Croft escapes the collapsing temple but her blood attracts a shark. How does she get out? She punches the shark! Can you do that?) Wasted characters. (Sheridan helps and helps and helps as best he can without looking helpless himself, and suddenly in the middle of the movie, Croft leaves him, never to be seen until the end.) Wasted music. (Geez, that thing I was hearing was music?) There's more, but we'll stop at wasted talent. Jolie is clearly the star and the movie treats her as so. But wasting Djimon Honsou in a two-bit role is a shame. He clearly has the potential to be a great actor but all he's done is be the token African in a movie, whether it be the African slave (Amistad), African warrior (Gladiator), tortured African prisoner (TV's ER), and now, African tribesman/translator. He does excellent in everything offered to him. But give him a different role to play! There's also the wasted talents of Croft's assistants who provide the comic relief, in it for probably 5 minutes tops. Anyway, director Jan de Bont is a long way from his greatest directed pic "Speed" or even Twister. Here, what lacks in pure excitement he adds pointless action which messes up the entire film. To his credit, the end is vastly superior to what came before it, save for the unnecessary CG monsters and what happens to Sheridan. And Jolie lights up the screen with her charm, beauty, and her presence on-screen. Too bad the movie around her couldn't keep up. 1.5 stars