Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life (2003) Review
"Some things were not meant to be found."
-Lara Croft
What Works:
The Cradle of Life has one and only one redeeming quality and that is Gerard Butler. The guy is trying to give us an interesting character and he is charming most of the time. He's the one interesting element of the entire story as you can never fully trust his motives.
What Sucks:
Man, where do I begin? I absolutely hated this movie from start to finish. On a technical level, it's a mess. All of the action sequences are full of choppy, slow-mo shots that were very prevalent at the time. It looks awful and any action scene that would otherwise be tolerable is rendered jarring and ugly.
The CGI looks awful as well. I recognize that it was 2003, but even for 2003 it looks bad. Especially atrocious is the shark that Lara rides to safety and don't get me started on how terrible that scene was.
There is one scene in the film that is shot day-for-night, which means it's a scene that takes place at night, but they shot it during the day. This doesn't work. You see it all the time in straight-to-video B-movies. Everything just looks kinda blue and it isn't convincing in the slightest. They shot day-for-night in this big budget blockbuster. That's unforgivable. Just get some lights and wait for dark! It's not that hard!
Apart from Butler's character, none of the characters are interesting or engaging, including Lara Croft. They're all just kinda there. None of them are developed. I don't know how they managed to make an action movie so dull. I could write more interesting characters in my sleep.
There are tons of plot holes that don't make a ton of sense. There aren't any massive ones, but it's a lot of little stuff. If you think about what's going on at all, it starts to fall apart.
Finally, I started to get a little hope when the final battle takes place in a cave where the laws of physics don't apply. That's a cool idea. Unfortunately, they don't do anything with it. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child did a better job and that's saying something. It's a confusing mess that could have been really cool, just like the rest of the film.
Verdict:
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider - The Cradle of Life is one of the worst blockbusters I have ever seen. It doesn't make any sense, it's a technical mess, the characters suck, the story is boring, and it was miserable to sit through. Gerard Butler is the only redeeming quality in this piece of trash. Throw every copy of this movie in a tomb and seal it away forever.
1/10: Horrendous
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