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rides her motorcycle on the Great Wall of China like casual, ho-hum slices of ordinary life, perfectly logical and not a bit unrealistic. “Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle” got away with nearly every one of its inhuman stunts, because of the tongue-in-cheek attitude it had to apply to itself to allow the scenes to work. “Tomb Raider” has absolutely no such excuse. It appears grounded in humorless reality, only to veer off to fantasy now and then without acknowledging it. Maybe the intention is to make the crowd go “wow” when one of these bizarre stunts occur, but all that really happens is a big, collective yawn.
What’s the story you ask? Something about Pandora’s Box being real and evil Eurotrash’s quest to find it and unleash a virus versus Lara’s quest to stop it. Gerard Butler plays a fellow adventurer Lara recruits to help her, igniting a blazingly lukewarm romance to add some “depth” to the proceedings. Yeah, that’s about it.
With gaping plot holes and a lack of any plausibility, “Tomb Raider” is that big, generic action groaner that’s managed to evade theatres so far this summer. Lacking neither the wit to wink at itself nor the talent to make something truly good of itself, the film is another lackluster entry into a franchise that seemingly had so much potential. Angelina Jolie shines like always, but she doesn’t need Lara Croft to keep her career afloat. She’d be wise to cut herself loose from the whole dirty mess, assuming this stinker doesn’t kill the series altogether. If you really need an action fix this weekend, see any other movie that’s been released in the past two months instead. If you’ve seen them all, see one of them again. “Tomb Raider” has nothing you’re looking for, and would easily qualify for “F” territory, along with recent garbage like “Rollerball”(Sorry Dan, it had to be said), if it weren’t for Jolie. Even then, it’s only worth a
D
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