More Thoughts From Me #64: Lara Croft Will Be A Movie Character…Again

The first Tomb Raider movie sucks. Its not Jolie’s fault though. She has proven herself to be a good actress. It was very clear that the writer and director of the Tomb Raider movie wanted to do a “video game” movie. Beautiful actress, lots of action, and the fans are happy right? Ok, I’m not sure how the fans reacted. I just know that I didn’t like the movie. And now they are doing another Tomb Raider movie! This time with a younger, unknown actress. Will it be any good? Do I care?

I’ve never been a big fan of the Tomb Raider franchise. I didn’t like the orignal game on the Playstation 1 and I didn’t like many of the other games. It wasn’t until later when I played a more modern Tomb Raider game that I thought it was fun. So a Tomb Raider movie, with Angelina Jolie, did not excite me.

A friend wanted to see the Jolie Tomb Raider movie. We watched it and I thought it was awful. There was barely a story to the movie (and I barely remember what there was) and it was mostly just focusing on the fact that Jolie was good looking and there was a lot of action. Jolie deserved better than that movie. With the movie The Changling, Angelina Jolie proved that she was a good actress! It didn’t hurt that the script and directing in The Changling was great too. The Tomb Raider movie wasn’t so lucky.

The problem with video game movies is that most video games, especially older ones, don’t have much of a story. Its only in more modern times that stories in video games have become more important, especially on Sony and Microsoft systems. The modern Tomb Raider games have more of a story and are more cinematic. So what if the newest Tomb Raider movie was based on one of the modern games?

From everything that I know about the upcoming Tomb Raider movie, which admittly isn’t much, the movie will be based on the most recent Tomb Raider game where Lara was younger. The movie will be about how Lara Croft became a Tomb Raider. I like the idea of that and the plot synoisis I read sounded interesting. Whether the movie will be good or not remains to be seen.

The new movie has an unknown actress playing Lara Croft. Is she a good actress? Will the director and writer of the movie make the movie into an actual motion picture or will they try to make it too video game-like. There are so many questions regarding this new movie. But, in the end, I have to ask myself, do I even care?

I hope the new Tomb Raider movie is good. I honestly do. Lara Croft can be a good character when done right. And the movie and video game industry could definitly use a win in the video game-to-movie department. So, yes, I absolutely do care. Will I be holding my breath? No, I fully expect the movie will be awful. I hope I’m wrong. It would be very cool to see a good Tomb Raider movie!

So what do you all think? Will the new Tomb Raider movie be any good? What did you think of the old Tomb Raider movie?

Next week: “Gordon, Gordon Freeman! Come over here, let me get a good look at you…” Yes, I’m going to talk about Half-Life. My opinion on the first game, the second game, the episodes, and whether or not we’ll ever see Half-Life 3!

More Thoughts From Me is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed here are mine and mine alone. I will now…not rewatch the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie!