Post by George Willson on Dec 21, 2005 3:29:29 GMT -5
KIM Rating: 3.6.3
This is a film that was frustrating in how much didn't work, but how easy it would have been to fix its shortcomings. I probably could have done it in an afternoon. It had a final run time of 1 hour, 40 minutes. In a 2 hour movie world, they could have added another twenty minutes to take this film up to a much better level.
I was worried from the opening scene, which should give us an idea of what we're in for. So we have what amounts to our "tomb raider" fighting a robot in a tomb. Huh? It appears the robot is guarding a treasure of some kind, but that makes no sense in ancient architecture. When its explanation was revealed, it made sense in context, but didn't make sense dramatically. She isn't tomb raiding at all...but why not? Why aren't we seeing her in action instead of in a farce? To make things worse for this opener, nothing in this opening scene returns anywhere else in the film, meaning that you could cut this scene entirely and lose nothing. That's bad.
Then, there was the star. Not the actress, who did fine, but the character. In a movie like this one, you have a choice: either make her a person with depth and a past, or make her like Bond, with no past, but a lot of character. They chose to do neither. She's a woman with half a past, sort of a fatal flaw that really doesn't play into anything, and very little development. The development she does have is barely setup and not explained. She needed to be either filled out to the point where she had some kind of growth during the film, or made a static character with a Bond or Indiana Jone-like respect to her.
The other characters were almost completely flat. Her counterpart, Alex West, was given a meager past with her that is never delved into nor expounded upon, nor even utilized. His stand on what's going on is thin to none. Somewhere near the end, we get a half-baked idea that there might be a love interest or something there, but it was neither setup nor really used either. This relationship between him and Lara could have been used for a lot of development and growth between them, however, I guess in the interest of moving along, nothing was done with it, and his very presence is questionable.
The villain also fell flat primarily due to minimal setup. No character moments were really given to him. He delegated most of the action to other characters only taking center stage at the end, which is really too late to show off the villain's abilities. His motivation is ill-explained, and although he gets a pay-off, how his help acts at the end makes little sense except to bring the film to a close.
The plot had its own problems, primarily due to some major plot points being thrust at us with very little reason. The first plot point was stumbled upon due to a dream or something, and Lara continued to have this almost psychic tendency to get herself going in the right direction. Now this is fine if it is setup properly, but without that setup, it falters badly and just feels like bad storytelling. Then came the bigger question: why is she continuing on with the plot? She was given a basic mission and she accomplished it for the most part before we hit the one hour point. Some hinting was done at a possible reason for her to go on, but no reason was given as to why that reason was so important to her, especially since the reason goes against her fulfilling the mission.
The basic plot is actually fine. If it had been more action oriented and the characters better drawn, this film would have been a sight to behold. The actions sequences were actually pretty cool, and the concept, while a little hard to swallow, is fairly well explained. Many of the sequence are in line with what a video game adaptation would be in that they are a little over the top in scale, but that works for the idea.
Where this movie falls apart is in the execution of the idea. The writers and filmmakers took too many shortcuts in the conception of the storyline. They cut out character for action, and character driven plot for unexplained psychic phenomena-driven plot. With some very short scenes, this film could have been much, much better, but as is, it remains mediocre.
This is a film that was frustrating in how much didn't work, but how easy it would have been to fix its shortcomings. I probably could have done it in an afternoon. It had a final run time of 1 hour, 40 minutes. In a 2 hour movie world, they could have added another twenty minutes to take this film up to a much better level.
I was worried from the opening scene, which should give us an idea of what we're in for. So we have what amounts to our "tomb raider" fighting a robot in a tomb. Huh? It appears the robot is guarding a treasure of some kind, but that makes no sense in ancient architecture. When its explanation was revealed, it made sense in context, but didn't make sense dramatically. She isn't tomb raiding at all...but why not? Why aren't we seeing her in action instead of in a farce? To make things worse for this opener, nothing in this opening scene returns anywhere else in the film, meaning that you could cut this scene entirely and lose nothing. That's bad.
Then, there was the star. Not the actress, who did fine, but the character. In a movie like this one, you have a choice: either make her a person with depth and a past, or make her like Bond, with no past, but a lot of character. They chose to do neither. She's a woman with half a past, sort of a fatal flaw that really doesn't play into anything, and very little development. The development she does have is barely setup and not explained. She needed to be either filled out to the point where she had some kind of growth during the film, or made a static character with a Bond or Indiana Jone-like respect to her.
The other characters were almost completely flat. Her counterpart, Alex West, was given a meager past with her that is never delved into nor expounded upon, nor even utilized. His stand on what's going on is thin to none. Somewhere near the end, we get a half-baked idea that there might be a love interest or something there, but it was neither setup nor really used either. This relationship between him and Lara could have been used for a lot of development and growth between them, however, I guess in the interest of moving along, nothing was done with it, and his very presence is questionable.
The villain also fell flat primarily due to minimal setup. No character moments were really given to him. He delegated most of the action to other characters only taking center stage at the end, which is really too late to show off the villain's abilities. His motivation is ill-explained, and although he gets a pay-off, how his help acts at the end makes little sense except to bring the film to a close.
The plot had its own problems, primarily due to some major plot points being thrust at us with very little reason. The first plot point was stumbled upon due to a dream or something, and Lara continued to have this almost psychic tendency to get herself going in the right direction. Now this is fine if it is setup properly, but without that setup, it falters badly and just feels like bad storytelling. Then came the bigger question: why is she continuing on with the plot? She was given a basic mission and she accomplished it for the most part before we hit the one hour point. Some hinting was done at a possible reason for her to go on, but no reason was given as to why that reason was so important to her, especially since the reason goes against her fulfilling the mission.
The basic plot is actually fine. If it had been more action oriented and the characters better drawn, this film would have been a sight to behold. The actions sequences were actually pretty cool, and the concept, while a little hard to swallow, is fairly well explained. Many of the sequence are in line with what a video game adaptation would be in that they are a little over the top in scale, but that works for the idea.
Where this movie falls apart is in the execution of the idea. The writers and filmmakers took too many shortcuts in the conception of the storyline. They cut out character for action, and character driven plot for unexplained psychic phenomena-driven plot. With some very short scenes, this film could have been much, much better, but as is, it remains mediocre.