Lynn b. of our Hollywood Preview crew, went to a screening of a new action-adventure film.. Here's the scoop on:

LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER

Angelina Jolie has said "Lara Croft is a great role model. This has been the hardest job of my life. It has really tested me." Simon Crane, her Tomb Raider stunt coordinator says, "We wanted to make Lara the kind of woman you would never want to meet in a dark alley--but then again--you would! She is so hot. But, if you fight her, she will finish you off"….or slap you into the next galaxy!

In London, Lady Lara Croft "works out" in her basement with a very impressive mechanical adversary. In Venice, a group of men meet secretly and we learn that a planetary alignment that occurs once every 5,000 years will happen in a week and the group is searching for a mysterious "key" which is divided into two halves. Lara, bored with treasure hunting, knows about the alignment and remembers that her dad told her that when this event occurred, she must find a mysterious "triangle of light" which can control time. She still mourns her archeologist father who went "missing in the field" in 1985. Lured by a glow from under a stairway, Lara investigates and discovers an old clock which houses a strange device with an "all-seeing eye". Rival tomb raider Alex West is very interested in her find.

An old friend of her father's refers Lara to rich lawyer/adventurer Manfred Powell, who pretends to know nothing of the device or its purpose She knows he's lying. After fighting off an army of Powell's ninjas who are after the device, Lara gets a letter from her father. It had been held for her all these years and explains the history and purpose of the triangle of light; and that it is now in two halves that, if reunited, will open a time vortex. It also tells her that a secret society (The Illuminati) hopes to control this power. She must find and destroy the triangle.

Lara, Illuminati leader Manfred Powell and Alex West compete in a race against time that leads them from a temple in Cambodia to a meteor crater/cave in Iceland. During the action-packed journey, Lara learns the fate of her father and teams up with the bad guys who promise her a time trip that will reunite her with him briefly. In the end, Lara bests her rivals and finds and destroys the triangle, as her father wished.
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Tomb Raider is loaded with fantastic stunts (many of which Jolie did herself), exotic locales and creative mechanical threats but, like the group of previous films based on videogames (Super Mario Brothers, Mortal Kombat, Wing Commander) it's all flash and little substance. Maybe the film is a victim of yet another director whose roots are in music videos and commercials. Working with actors to bring more life to their roles doesn't seem to be the top priority. Jolie, as Lara Croft, fits the role in every detail but, like her videogame counterpart, she isn't "real". She's expressionless and speaks in a low monotone for most of the picture. The only time Jolie brings Lara truly alive is in the few scenes with her father (played by her real dad Jon Voight). In the emotionless void of the rest of the film, these little scenes shine with feeling. Maybe this is because they ring true (Jolie and Voight were once not getting along and it's possible that the tears of reunion she sheds in these scenes come from her heart).

Following maps and putting together puzzles in a race against time is certainly nothing new to adventure films and the Indiana Jones movies are excellent examples of what Tomb Raider should have been. The problems here are easy to find. Lara is such a great fighter that we don't feel she's ever really threatened. Indiana got plenty of cuts and bruises and we worried about him ("It's not the years, it's the mileage"). The comic relief (in Lara's geeky sidekick Bryce (Noah Taylor) isn't all that comic and the script fails in several areas. We are told constantly that "We don't have much time" or "Time is running out" yet we aren't sure what will happen if it does. We never see an actual threat developing. It's as if we were watching Jaws and everyone is screaming that the shark is gonna munch us all down but we never see anything but a fin.

Also, Lara and group are questing for a device that can control time but once they find it, so little is done with it. Lara sees her dad briefly and turns the clock back a few seconds to save someone. With a universe of time open to the characters, it would have been fun to play with it a bit more. And what happened to Lara's photo-journalism as a cover? We never see her take a single picture.

No doubt, fans of the game will flock to Tomb Raider and watching live-action Lara kick it with vigor and drive fast cars, motorcycles and dog teams will be enough to make this movie a must-see. For girls, it's great to see a really in-charge, physically buff but feminine woman best all the guys at their own game. But with 100 million spent on the film, it would have been nice to see some of that used to buy a little more "heart".

Directed by	Simon West
Screenplay by	Patrick Massett and John Zinman
Starring:	Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft
	Jon Voight as Lord Croft
	Iain Glen as Manfred Powell
	Noah Taylor as Bryce