|
Reviewinator |
| Starring |
Angelina
Jolie |
| Director |
Jan
de Bont |
| Official Site |
Link |
| US Opening |
July 25, 2003 |
| Rated |
PG-13 |
| Genre |
Action, adventure, video game sequel |
| Trailer Clichés |
Quick-cut title-splash |
| Explosions |
2 |
| Weapons |
Spears, kendo sticks, shotgun,
throwing knife, handguns, swords, assault rifles, big ugly
teeth and claws, pencil erasers, soundtrack. |
| Voiceover |
No |
| "In a world where..." |
"A weapon more powerful than you could ever imagine..."
|
| Spoilage Factor |
20% |
| Geek Factor |
30% (Based on a video game) |
| See Trailer? |
Yes |
| See Movie? |
No |
An evil man wants a powerful archeological box, which could destroy
the world, and our heroic archeologist races to find it first. No,
it's not a remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but it certainly
borrows the plot. It's Tomb Raider 2, oh wait, Lara Croft:
Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (What is it with movie sequel
titles these days).
This time the box isn't the Ark of the Covenant, but Pandora's Box.
Not the one of Greek mythology that they teach kids about in Sunday
school, Lara reminds us. Wait a minute, they teach Greek mythology
in Sunday school these days? I assume that the original script actually
had the Ark of the Covenant, which they would teach about
in Sunday school, but then somebody reminded them that Raiders already
did that, so they had to change it.
Lara tells us that the box was discovered by an Egyptian Pharaoh
at a place called the cradle of life, but it takes some magical map
to tell Lara that the box is in Africa. Gee, isn't Egypt in Africa?
Duh. I also hope the magical glowing orb narrowed the location down
more than just Africa, because I hear it is a pretty big place.
 |
|
Edited
for your protection.
|
Lara needs the assistance of a criminal, who knows how these bad
guys think. She tells him "No guns, no weapons of any kind," but
every time we see her in the trailer she's brandishing a weapon of
one kind or another.
Later, Lara teams up with African tribesmen to protect the box,
but of course spears and tin shields are no match for assault rifles
(unless of course you're a small furry creature on the forest moon
of Endor).
Once the plot is "explained," nothing else that follows
makes sense. With this being a Jan de Bont film that fact shouldn't
be all that surprising. There are action scenes without any context,
a cave troll and some sort of stealth glider that lands on the water.
 |
|
Croft
gets ready to kiss the "cradle of life"
|
About half way through the last half of the trailer (three quarters
of the way for those of you keeping score at home), I just wanted
this trailer to stop, and not just to gaze upon Angelina Jolie's
nipples. The frenetic pace and awful music hurt my head. The music
sounds like it was pulled from a mid 1990s video game, a bad video
game with even worse music. One of those repetitive electronica background
scores that makes you turn down your speakers and search for the "Music
Off" switch (Ed. note: As several readers have pointed out
the music is Prodigy's lovely "Smack My Bitch Up". I'll
leave it as an exercise for the reader to explore the irony in using
that song for this trailer).
Conclusion on Trailer: There are two reasons to see this
trailer, and many more to not see it. Whether you should use the
bandwidth downloading this trailer depends on how much you admire
those two reasons.
Conclusion on Movie: Jan de Bont, movie based on a video
game, uninspired original film, what other reasons do you need to
NOT see this movie?
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