Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Directed by Simon West
Produced by Lawrence Gordon,
Lloyd Levin
Written by Mike Werb,
Patrick Massett
Starring Angelina Jolie,
Jon Voight
Music by Graeme Revell
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date(s) June 15, 2001
Running time 100 minutes
Language English
Budget US$94,000,000
Followed by Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (a.k.a. Tomb Raider) is a film adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video game series featuring the character Lara Croft. It was released during the summer of 2001. Lara in the screen role was not portrayed as a CGI character, but was played by actress Angelina Jolie.

A sequel, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, was released in 2003.

Tagline: Who is Lara Croft?

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film opens with Lara Croft in what appears to be an Egyptian tomb. In the opening moments, it is apparent that she is seeking what appears to be a computer chip on a display at one end of the chamber. As she approaches, however, she is suddenly attacked by a large robot intent on killing her. After an intense chase and battle with the robot, she manages to disable it by ripping out key motivational circuits, whereupon it deactivates. She then goes to retrieve the chip, but as she does so the robot reboots and begins again, but she yells "Stop!" and the robot immediately ceases its attack. She then takes the chip, labeled 'Lara's Party Mix,' and inserts it into the robot, whereupon it starts playing music. She then drags the robot out of the chamber and into an adjoining one to meet her associate, Bryce. The entire situation took place in a practice arena in Lara's own home and Bryce programmed the robot, SIMON, to train and challenge her in combat.

The date is May 15, the day of the first phase of a planetary alignment, or syzygy, of the planets of the solar system culminating in a solar eclipse on the Earth, an astronomical occurrence that only happens once every 5,000 years. In Venice, the secret order known as the Illuminati is searching for a key of great importance so that they can rejoin two halves of "the triangle," which they must do by the final phase of the alignment, in one week's time. Mr. Powell, a member of the Illuminati, assures the Council that they are almost ready but in reality he has no idea where to find the key.

Meanwhile, in Lara's mansion, she is sitting rather morosely in her father's office while her butler, Hilary, tries to interest her in several different projects. May 15, as Hilary is aware, is the day that Lara's father disappeared in the field several years before, and as she says, "That is never a good day." She has never recovered from his loss.

Later that night, Lara is sleeping when she has a dream reminding her of what her father told her about the alignment, and about an object linked to the alignment called the Triangle of Light. After waking up from the dream, she becomes aware of a clock ticking somewhere in the house, and after a search opens a secret chamber beneath the stairs, in which there is a carriage clock that had spontaneously begun ticking. She wakes Bryce before dawn, who probes into it and discovers a strange device hidden inside the clock.

At daybreak, Lara motorcycles to an auction house to speak to a friend of her father's, Mr. Wilson, an experts on clocks, since the device resembles and seems to behave like one. She believes it's connected to the "Triangle of Light," but Wilson disavows any knowledge of the clock or the Triangle. While there, Lara also encounters Alex West, a fellow tomb raider with unscrupulous methods. They are attracted to each other, but Lara cannot abide his for-profit attitude. That night, Lara is contacted by Mr. Wilson, who tells her that he gave her name to a man named Manfred Powell in regards of the clock. In reality, Mr. Wilson is also a member of the Illuminati.

The next day, Lara goes to see Mr. Powell in his lavish home, but instead of showing him the clock she shows photos instead. That night, discussing it with Bryce, she points out that Powell was obviously lying about his knowledge. Before bed, Lara partakes in a "bungee ballet" to relax her, but while she is doing this, commando troops invade the house, imprisoning Bryce in his motor home on the premises, attacking Lara, and destroying a great deal of the house in the process. Lara manages to incapacitate most of the commandos but they still succeed in stealing the clock.

The next morning while cleaning up the mess, Lara receives a letter from her father, arranged to arrive after the beginning of the alignment, whereupon he explains that the clock she found is the key to retrieve two halves of the mystic Triangle of Light, forged from metal from a meteorite that fell during the final phase of the last planetary alignment 5,000 years earlier. Misusing the Triangle destroyed the city where it was kept, and to prevent its further misuse it was split into two halves. One half was hidden in a chamber in Cambodia, the other half in the ruined city itself, in modern-day Siberia. In the letter, her father urges her to find and destroy both halves of the Triangle before the Illuminati can find it.

In order to get to Cambodia in the short time they have left before the final phase, Lara calls in a favor to a military unit she worked with in the past, who deliver her to the temple, which she enters just as Mr. Powell and Alex West enter. West figures out part of the puzzle of how to retrieve the Triangle half, but Lara realizes that they are about to put the clock-key into the wrong lock, and convinces them to give it to her to put in the right one next to her. They do so, but this simply releases a suspended log, which must pierce the urn of the chamber's giant multi-armed statue, which in turn releases the half of the Triangle from a hiding place in front of Powell. Before Powell can retrieve it, however, Lara grabs the half and gets herself to a safe distance away.

Before she can escape, however, the statue and the stone guardians of the temple come to life and begin attacking everyone in the chamber. Powell, West, and many of the men escape with the key, but Lara is left to fight the statue, which she destroys by driving the still-swinging log into it. She then escapes the temple and Powell's men outside by running through the forest and diving from a waterfall. West tries to stop her, but though she is an easy shot he lets her go. Lara phones Powell from Angkor Wat and they arrange to meet in Venice, since each of them has what the other needs to finish the Triangle.

In Venice, they meet in the base of the Illuminati, where Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle. He also tells Lara that her father was also a member of the Illuminati, in the seat Powell now occupies. She doesn't immediately commit to helping him, but eventually Lara and Bryce meet with Powell and proceed to Siberia to the lost city.

Once inside the city, they discover a large chamber set up as a giant model of the solar system, which activates as the alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the last half of the Triangle inside the model’s sun, but when Powell tries to complete the Triangle, it won’t fuse together. He realizes that Lara knows the solution to the puzzle, and to induce her to complete it he kills West and induces her to complete the Triangle to save both West’s life and the life of her father. Lara retrieves the final fragment of the Triangle, hidden inside the key, and the Triangle fuses together. Lara and Powell then struggle for control of the Triangle, with Lara prevailing.

Lara then finds herself in a strange alternate existence facing her father. He explains that it is a “crossing” of time and space, and urges her to destroy the Triangle instead of using it to save his life. She leaves her father and returns to the chamber, where time is slowly running backwards from the point where Powell killed West. Lara takes the knife he threw into West’s chest and reverses it, then destroys the Triangle with a gunshot, which returns time to its normal flow and directs the knife into Powell’s shoulder.

The chamber begins to self-destruct. Everyone turns to leave, but Powell taunts Lara by telling her that he killed her father and retrieved his pocket watch. Lara fights him in a vicious street-style fight to retrieve it, killing him in the process and escaping as the chamber comes down around her.

Back at the mansion, Hilary is about to serve breakfast when Lara enters wearing a dress and hat “like a lady,” unlike her usual self. After paying her respects at her father’s memorial site, she returns to the house, where Bryce and Hilary have a surprise for her: a rebuilt and reprogrammed SIMON, ready for combat. She takes the guns they offer her and prepares for battle.

[edit] Main cast

Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.
Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

[edit] Financing

  • Tele-München Gruppe: TMG is a German tax shelter. The tax law of Germany allowed investors to take an instant tax deduction even on non-German productions and even if the film has not gone into production. By selling them the copyright for $94 million and then buying it back for $83.8 million, Paramount Pictures made $10.2 million.
  • Lombard Bank: The copyright was sold again to this British investment group and a further $12 million was made. However to qualify for Section 48 tax relief, the production must include some UK filming and British actors, which was acceptable for a film partially set in England.
  • Presales to distributors in Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain made a further $65 million.
  • Showtime: $6.8 million for premium cable TV rights. (Showtime was a subsidiary of Paramount's parent company Viacom, until it became part of CBS Corporation at the end of 2005).

Total: $94 million.

The deal between Eidos, Tomb Raider's publisher, and Paramount Pictures was structured is such a way that Eidos received a single fee, but no royalties for the making of the film.

Source: Slate: How to finance a Hollywood blockbuster

[edit] Similarities to James Bond

The film was dismissed by many critics as merely featuring a female version of James Bond. However, there are indeed several coincidences connecting this film with the long-running film series.

[edit] Trivia

  • In 1998, writer Brent V. Friedman had also written an unproduced Tomb Raider script. The year before, another video game movie, the hugely disappointing Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which was co-written by Friedman, was in theaters.
  • Early rumors circulated during production that whoever was cast as Lara would have to have their chest digitally enlarged. Jolie wore a padded bra during filming in order to approximate Lara Croft's physical dimensions (Jolie is a 36C; Croft is a 36D); this was abandoned for the second movie.
  • Lara Croft's father, Richard Croft, is played by Jolie's real-life father, Jon Voight. Croft's canonical name was originally Henshingly, but it was retconned to Richard in the games.
  • Portions of the movie were shot on location in Angkor, Cambodia, making it the first Western-produced picture to be filmed in the country since Lord Jim in 1964.
  • Tomb Raider marked the feature film debut of television actor Christopher Barrie (Hillary), who is best known for his role of "Arnold Rimmer" in the long-running BBC sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf.
  • The exterior of Lara's home is actually Elveden Hall, a vast country estate in Suffolk, England.
  • American actress Jolie and Iain Glen, a Scot, both adopt English accents for their roles, whilst English actor Daniel Craig adopts an American accent for his.
  • The Buddhist ceremony in which Lara takes part (following the scene when she telephones Powell from Cambodia) was an actual occurrence and was not staged.
  • When Lara calls Bryce from Cambodia, he is seen watching a stop motion children's program, a BBC animated series called The Clangers, which ran from 1969 to 1974.
  • Lara's featured vehicle was a specially modified Land Rover Defender, which, due to Department of Transportation regulations, was never available in the US.
  • This film was recently added into the iTunes Music Store on April 20, 2007 for the price of $9.99.
  • In the novelization of the film, when Lara uses the Triangle to see her father, she appears to him just after he finished placing the clues about the clock and just before he is killed by Powell. He knew the when she appeared to him as an adult that she was at least partly successful in following his plan and did not mention anything to Powell just after the adult Lara leaves.

[edit] Goofs

  • There is a blatant gaffe in the film's climax in the ancient city in Siberia. As Lara Croft retrieves the second half of the Triangle of Light, Bryce and Mr. Pimms are outside watching the final stage of the planetary alignment, a solar eclipse. In reality, watching a solar eclipse with the naked eye is extremely dangerous and can result in severe retinal damage, up to and including permanent blindness.

[edit] External links


v • d • e
Tomb Raider video games

Tomb Raider • II • III • The Last Revelation • Chronicles • The Angel of Darkness • Legend • Anniversary
Tomb Raider (Game Boy Color) • Curse of the Sword • The Prophecy
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (film) • The Cradle of Life
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