Tomb Raider

Mortal Kombat? Horrible. Mortal Kombat: Annihilation? Horrendous. Street Fighter? Even worse. Tomb Raider? Well, at least it's better than the previous three videogame to film adaptations.

It was a very wise decision picking Angelina Jolie to play the part of the street-wise, gun-toting, voluptuous Lara Croft. Her seductive smile and body would fit well in the legends of the Tomb Raider saga. If only the movie itself did as well as the image that Jolie presents.

Jolie fits the action star persona perfectly. She does all she can with what she's given, and it seems that she's having fun doing it. Crippling her, however, was a dreadful script. Is she supposed to really spout some of this dialogue? Is she actually supposed to keep a straight face during these situations? Well, yes. She is. It must have been difficult.

Simon West and the scriptwriters just can't seem to figure out what to do in between action sequences. More often than not they choose to show off Jolie's chest in various manners: taking a shower, after which she drops her towel; a new, skin tight outfit in every scene; and repeatedly showing us Jolie's backside, or maybe they're just advertising for a brand of clothing? Nah... It's called taking advantage of what you've got.

Because of the script's inability to keep us interested between moments of guns, stunts, explosions, and bouncing body parts, the film is unable to take off. It skims along the track for almost the entire running time. It manages to take a jump near the middle when there is an interesting invasion scene, but even the climax didn't resonate with that much effectiveness.

The plot is a somewhat lame contrivance involving a device capable of controlling time. The storyline might make decent videogame fodder, but its scarcely adaquate for a feature film. Croft must do what daddy (Jon Voigt) says and keep the villianous bad guy from commanding the "Triangle of Light." The artifact is in two halves, each in a different part of the world. To gather them, however, Lara are her nemesis must work together.

Overall, Tomb Raider is a missed opportunity because of Jolie's natural presence as an action star. It's slightly boring for most of the time, but sitting through it isn't close to painful. Jolie does her own stunts, making some of the risky moves in the frantic action scenes interesting. But, the wonderful set design seems to have gone to waste in this typical action fest.

On a scale of 1 to 10 pushup bras : 5