Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lara Croft:Tomb Raider | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Simon West |
| Produced by | Lawrence Gordon Lloyd Levin Colin Wilson |
| Written by | Sara B. Cooper Mike Werb Michael Colleary Simon West Patrick Massett John Zinman |
| Starring | Angelina Jolie Jon Voight Iain Glen Noah Taylor Daniel Craig |
| Music by | Graeme Revell |
| Cinematography | Peter Menzies Jr. |
| Editing by | Dallas Puett Glen Scantlebury Eric Strand Mark Warner Stuart Baird |
| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures United International Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 15 June 2001 |
| Running time | 101 mins |
| Country | Cambodia United Kingdom United States of America China Iceland |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life |
| IMDb profile | |
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a film adaptation of the Tomb Raider video game series. Directed by Simon West and starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, it was released in U.S. theaters on June 15, 2001.
A sequel, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, was released in 2003.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film opens with Lara Croft in an Egyptian tomb, seeking what appears to be a diamond on a display at one end of the chamber. As she approaches, however, she is suddenly attacked by a large robot. After an intense chase and battle with the robot, she manages to disable it by ripping out key motivational circuits. She then takes the diamond, which is actually a memory card labeled 'Lara's Party Mix,' and inserts it into a laptop computer inside the robot, whereupon it starts playing music. It is revealed that the scene took place in a practice arena in Lara's own home, and her assistant, Bryce, programmed the robot (nicknamed 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, culminating in a solar eclipse on the Earth, which happens once every 5,000 years. In Venice, a 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. Mr. Powell, a member of the Illuminati, assures that they are almost ready, but in reality he has no idea where to find the key.
Meanwhile, Lara's butler, Hillary, tries to interest her in several different projects, but she ignores them. May 15, as Hillary is aware, is the day that Lara's father disappeared many years earlier, and she has never recovered from his loss.
Later that night, Lara has a dream reminding her of what her father told her about the alignment, and an object linked to it called the Triangle of Light. After waking up, she becomes aware of a clock ticking somewhere in the house, and discovers a secret chamber beneath the stairs, in which there is a carriage clock that had spontaneously begun ticking. Bryce probes into it and discovers a strange device hidden inside the clock.
Lara consults a friend of her father's, Mr. Wilson, an expert on clocks, since the device resembles and seems to behave like one. She believes it is connected to the "Triangle of Light," but Wilson disavows any knowledge of the clock or the Triangle. Lara 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 home, and shows him photographs of the clock. That night, discussing it with Bryce, she points out that Powell was obviously lying about his knowledge. That night, armed commando troops invade the house and steal the clock despite Lara's attempts to fend them off.
The next morning, 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, which was split into two halves; one was hidden in a tomb in Cambodia, the other half in the ruined city itself, in modern-day Siberia. Her father urges her to find and destroy both halves before the Illuminati can find it.
In Cambodia, West figures out part of the puzzle on how to retrieve the triangle half, but Lara manages to successfully grab the piece and escape the temple after fighting off and destroying a huge six-armed Brahman guardian statue.
She and Powell arrange to meet in Venice, since each of them has what the other needs to finish the Triangle. Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle, and informs Lara that her father was a member of the Illuminati, which she vehemently denies. Though hesitant at first, she, along with Bryce, meets with Powell for the trip to Siberia. Inside the tomb, there is a giant model of the solar system, which activates as the alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the last half of the Triangle, but when Powell tries to complete it, the halves won’t fuse together. He realizes that Lara knows the solution to the puzzle, and kills West in order to induce her into completing the Triangle to save both West’s life and her father's. Lara reluctantly complies, and they 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, 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 tells Lara that he killed her father and retrieved his pocket watch. Lara fights him to retrieve it, killing him in the process and escaping as the chamber comes down around her.
The movie closes back at the mansion, where Hillary and Bryce have a reprogrammed SIMON, ready to challenge Lara once again.
[edit] Cast
- Angelina Jolie - Lara Croft
- Daniel Craig - Alex West
- Jon Voight - Lord Richard Croft
- Iain Glen - Manfred Powell
- Noah Taylor - Bryce
- Richard Johnson - Distinguished Gentleman
- Chris Barrie - Hillary
- Julian Rhind-Tutt - Mr. Pimms
- Leslie Phillips - Wilson
- Robert Philips - Julius, Assault Team Leader
- Rachel Appleton - Young Lara
- Henry Wyndham - Boothby's Auctioneer
[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 the United Kingdom.
- 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.[1]
[edit] Additional information
Tomb Raider went through many drafts and several writers, which resulted in production delays. In 1998, writer Brent V. Friedman, who had co-wrote the disappointing Mortal Kombat: Annihilation the year before, penned an unproduced Tomb Raider script. Producer/screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who wrote and directed the 1994 video game movie Street Fighter, penned an early draft of the Tomb Raider script in 1999, but it was rejected by Paramount. However, it was partially resuscitated for the 2003 sequel Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. The final draft of the script was attributed to five writers, including director Simon West.
The picture also 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. Iain Glen, a Scot, adopted an English accent as Powell, whilst English actor Daniel Craig adopts an American accent for the role of Alex West. Angelina, being American herself, takes on an English accent.
[edit] Differences from the games
- The original Tomb Raider game manual describes Lara as having been disowned by her parents, both of whom are still living. In the film, both of her parents are deceased, and she is shown to have been on much better terms with them. Lord Croft's name was originally Henshingly in the game series prior to the release of the film, in which he was named Richard. Eidos subsequently retconned Lord Croft's name to Richard for future releases.
- In the games, Lara's butler, Winston, is an elderly man who totters around her manor home. He is younger and named Hillary in the film.
- Tomb Raider: Legend, released several years after the second film, adopts several of the differences found in the first film into Lara's revised backstory. These include Lara having a more positive relationship with her parents and her father's background in archaeology.
[edit] Box office
Tomb Raider debuted at number one with $48.2 million, giving Paramount its second-biggest debut ever and the fourth-highest overall debut of 2001. It also marked the largest opening ever for a movie headlined by a woman, surpassing the $40.1M debut of Charlie's Angels. It is the most successful video game adaptation to date, grossing over $300,000,000 worldwide.[2]
[edit] References
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2008) |
[edit] External links
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider at the Internet Movie Database
- http://www.premiere.com/features/1114/tomb-with-a-view.html at Premiere Magazine
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider at Rotten Tomatoes
- Lara Croft: Tomb Raider at Box Office Mojo
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Preceded by Swordfish |
Box office number-one films of 2001 (USA) June 17, 2001 |
Succeeded by The Fast and the Furious |
