Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) (PG-13) No Rating

Girls just wanna kick butt, as Angelina Jolie proves in this action adventure based on the popular video game.

Story

This is a tough one to judge. You never get any explanation of who these people are or why they do what they do; if you don't know the video game, you're basically thrown into Tomb Raider blind. Just go with it and figure it'll all make sense eventually. It does--for the most part. Lara Croft (Jolie), who is carrying on her deceased father's (Jon Voight) work as an English archaeologist/antiquities hunter, uncovers an ancient puzzle that she must solve before it's too late. Centuries before, a mysterious, otherworldly object with a godlike power to alter time was split in two and the pieces buried in tombs on opposite ends of the earth. Jolie must race against time to find both halves of the object and destroy it before a leader of an evil secret society (Iain Glen) gets his hands on it.

Acting

With her long, dark braid and impossible figure (thanks to some stuffing up top), Jolie certainly is a dead ringer for über-heroine Croft. Her hoity-toity, monotone Brit accent is sporadic and fleeting; she slips in and out of it as often and easily as she does impending death. Our globetrotting superwoman switches languages as needed, winning over Buddhist monks and little Mongolian girls in the process (tell me, please, how she wears a T-shirt while dog sledding in Siberia while everyone else is bundled up in parkas? That bra must've been padded with Thinsulate). Jolie can kick butt with the best of 'em, but she's tiresome. All arch looks and badass 'tude, this Kelly-LeBrock-for-the-new-millennium is not terribly much fun. Granted, Croft has serious work to do, but a little lightheartedness goes a long way. Raiders of the Lost Ark this ain't.

Direction

Given that there's little story line acted out by characters with whom it's hard to connect, since you have no idea who they are, the movie surprisingly manages to keep your attention for a couple hours. Then again, that could be due to the tremendous and seemingly never-ending clamor on screen, where every few seconds a hailstorm of bullets showers the scene or really big things are happening--gargantuan rock statues turn into sword-wielding CGI beasts, enormous retro-futuristic contraptions like something out of Brazil materialize from the earth, beams of light descend from the distant beyond. Or maybe it's just the mesmerizing effect of waiting for Jolie's lips to crawl across her face like two fat slugs going after the magic jasmine Daddy Croft told Lara about.

Bottom line

Whatta rack(et)!