New Release! Tomb Raider (2018)

Director: Roar Uthaug

A completely average reboot that wastes some legitimate resources and acting talent.

Like plenty of men now in their early-forties, I played the original 1996 Tomb Raider game on the Playstation back when it was released. It was a fun little adventure/action/puzzle game, if not one that totally grabbed me. I didn't bother with any of the many sequels for a long while. I also didn't bother seeing the two feature films starring Angelina Jolie back in 2001 and 2003, as they looked rather campy and silly. I did, however, play the more 2015 reboot of the video game series, which was actually very well done and quite entertaining. This last interaction with the series, along with my brother-in-law's desire to see the film, is what brought me to the theater to see a movie I otherwise wouldn't have bothered with.

The film tells the story of Lara Croft, an heiress to a billion-dollar business empire who has little desire to claim her vast fortunes. We meet Lara as she tries to scrape out a meager living in downtown London. She is eventually confronted with the unavoidable task of signing documents which will declare her father, who went missing seven years prior, legally deceased, also making her responsible for the family's vast fortune. Lara quickly discovers some cryptic clues as to her father's mysterious disappearance, however, and she jets off to follow his cold trail and learn more. She initially traces her father's path to Hong Kong, and then to a tiny, remote, barely-known island off the southern coast of Japan. There, she discovers an entire crew of captive men being forced to search for some sort of treasure alluded to in little-known legends about a Japanese empress's tomb. Lara becomes embroiled in a game of survival and a race to prevent the potential thieves, led by the cold-blooded Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), from accomplishing their goal.

Tomb Raider is ultimately a pretty forgettable attempt to blend the most recent versions of the video game series with a few dashes from the Indiana Jones movies which have always inspired the character. There are a few culprits, but the two obvious ones are a lack of a sharp script and a misguided choice in tone.

Expect a mud-caked, battered Lara to hang from many
cliffs and grit many teeth. Actress Alicia Vikander certainly
looked and acted the part. If only the script had risen to her
dedication and acting levels.

The dialogue and character interactions never rise above mildly interesting, and often they are flat-out dull. This has nothing to do with most of the acting. Alicia Vikander and Walton Goggins do as much as they can with the lame dialogue they were given to work with (Dominic West, who plays Lara's father goes overboard, though). The film also misses out on chances to add a bit more depth to a few characters, such as Lu Ren, the young boat captain who accompanies Lara to the island. The basic idea of the character was fine, and actor Daniel Wu does well in the role; alas, nothing much was done with him to inspire interest in his plight.

The weakness in the script can also be connected to the general tone and approach to the film. About 20 minutes into the film, virtually the entire movie is pure survival adventure, with one cliff-hanger after another bombarding you. Some of the early sequences and set-pieces are actually decent. But when there are laughable coincidences and lame devices connecting one thrill-scene after another, for over an hour straight, it gets old pretty quickly. Some decent levity and comedy might have helped here, but the movie has a fairly humorless tone much of the time. And the occasional attempts at comedy always fall very flat, again due to mediocre writing more than any problems with the performances.

This iteration of Tomb Raider is one of those movies that you'd probably feel fine about watching if you're just looking for a decent, two-hour distraction while channel surfing at home, late at night. But I wouldn't suggest anyone go out of their way for it. 

Before I Die #620: Earth (1930)

This was the 620th film I've now seen out of the 1,199 films on the "Before You Die" list which I'm gradually working my way through.

Original Russian Title: Zemlya

Director: Aleksandr Dovzhenko

A curious old silent Russian movie that was intermittently hypnotizing and baffling, the latter only slightly due to poor subtitles.

This tidy little, 76-minute movie tells the story of a group of Russian peasant farmers who obtain a mechanized tiller/thresher, a highly advanced piece of machinery for the day. One group uses the thresher to till the fields of the wealthy land-owning kulaks, in a bid to take control over the land on which the peasants do most of the work. The young man most responsible for the tilling is killed that night, while drunkenly wandering home. This death leads to his young wife's death through grief, and his father swearing revenge. This leads to a greater uprising in which the kulaks are brought down, thus heralding a new age in which peasants have control over their own lives.

Earth is a quick watch, which I found to be fortunate. Although I can appreciate the film artistry and clear passion that went into this pre-Stalin era Russian movie, it was quite obviously meant for a particular audience. Namely, the common Russian peasant of the 1920s, '30s, and even '40s. Like many of the great Russian movies in and around the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, this one wears its propagandic nature right on its sleeve: the kulaks are evil, and the common peasants are the downtrodden heroes. As simple as that premise is, this movie is actually rather confusing for someone who doesn't understand exactly how Russian agrarian society was organized, along with its built-in tensions. I honestly had to pause the movie and do a bit of research on the Internet so that I didn't get lost. For me, one mark of any great piece of art is that is doesn't rely as much on context and can stand on its own feet. In this regard, Earth doesn't hold up well. A Russian citizen or Russian scholar would probably follow the grander themes without trouble, but the rest of us are bound to be at least a little confused.

There are plenty of wonderful outside shots in the film,
including Vassily's funeral march. The implication is also
rather clear - nature itself, in the form of the sunflowers'
down-turned heads, mourn the loss of one of their own.

Though the narrative elements are not terribly accessible, director Dovzhenko's skills as a filmmaker are quite clear. He uses a variety of then-deft film techniques to tell the story in evocative, poetic ways that can be quite engaging. He will superimpose shots of nature with the age-lined faces of the peasants. He will allow the camera to linger on farm machinery as it churns away, not unlike the brilliant Russian film Man with a Movie Camera from the prior year. Such fascinating camerawork and editing made me wish I had been watching a better copy of the film, as opposed to the online streaming version I found, which was passable but hardly of Criterion Collection quality.

Put this one in the same category as movies like Battleship Potemkin and October - silent Russian Revolution propaganda movies by excellent filmmakers in their day, but movies which now are mostly for academics and pure students of the visual aspects of film.

That's 620 movies down. Only 579 to go before I can die.