Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
★★½ — Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
By the turn of the millennium, video game adaptations had a fairly dismal track record on the big screen, but that did not stop Hollywood from backing one of gaming's most recognisable faces. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, released in the summer of 2001, brought the Eidos Interactive heroine to life in a production backed by Paramount Pictures and Lawrence Gordon Productions, pitched squarely at the blockbuster crowd. The premise follows the aristocratic archaeologist and adventurer Lara Croft as she races against a celestial deadline to recover the two halves of an ancient artefact capable of controlling time, all while fending off a shadowy secret society with its own designs on the prize. It is, on paper at least, exactly the sort of high-concept pulp that lends itself to big-budget spectacle, and the studio clearly agreed, giving the film a platform release and considerable marketing muscle behind it.
The director's chair was occupied by Simon West, who had previously helmed the Nicolas Cage action romp Con Air (1997), and his preference for oversized set pieces and a certain gleeful disregard for subtlety is very much in evidence here. West is a director with a polished but unremarkable visual style, capable of staging impressive action on a large canvas but less interested in the quieter mechanics of character or story. The screenplay, developed through several hands, draws on the mythology built up around the games while adding its own layer of mystical plotting involving a planetary alignment that recurs once every five thousand years. Whether or not that mythology holds up to scrutiny is, to put it charitably, a secondary concern.
The casting of Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft was, and remains, the single most discussed element of the production. Jolie brought genuine star power and a physical presence to the role at a point in her career when she was already an Oscar winner and one of the most talked-about performers in Hollywood. The supporting cast around her includes Iain Glen, Noah Taylor, and Chris Barrie, while a then relatively unknown Daniel Craig also appears in a supporting role. If you are curious about Jolie's work in a very different register, it is worth checking out her voice performance in Kung Fu Panda (2008), or its follow-up Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), both of which also feature her. The direct sequel to this film, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, The Cradle of Life (2003), also stars Jolie and is worth bearing in mind for comparison once you have sat through the original.
Tomb Raider (2001) is the definition of early-2000s cheese. Glamorous, overblown, and packed with gothic sets, rotating wardrobes, and slow-motion dodges. Angelina Jolie is Lara Croft: fierce, fearless, impossibly fit, and delivering every ridiculous line with stone-faced intensity. She brings charisma and physicality to the role, effortlessly commanding the screen whether she’s dual-wielding pistols or decoding ancient puzzles in a temple that defies physics. The plot is pure B-movie nonsense. Something about an artefact that can control time, a secret society, and Iain Glen as a delightfully campy villain with a manor full of traps. It’s not supposed to make sense, and for a while, it’s fun in a “turn your brain off” kind of way. The action is flashy, the production design is lush, and the whole thing leans hard into its comic-book absurdity. But beneath the nostalgia and style, it’s extremely average. The pacing drags, the dialogue is clunky, and the supporting cast (like Daniel Craig in a forgettable role) are wasted. It never builds real tension, stakes feel fake, and the deeper themes about power and destiny are buried under explosions and gratuitous outfit changes. Worth watching once for the Jolie factor and the sheer audacity of its silliness. A nostalgic guilty pleasure, but far from essential. Not terrible, not great. Just… there, like a relic in a forgotten tomb waiting for someone to dust it off and say, “Hey, I remember this.”
So where does that leave us? Pretty much exactly where I expected it to, if I am honest. There is a version of this film that could have been genuinely good, and the bones of it are occasionally visible beneath all the noise. But good bones do not make for a satisfying film on their own, and the weight of everything piled on top eventually crushes whatever potential was there. I keep coming back to it every few years, half hoping I will feel differently, and I never quite do. Sometimes a film is just what it is, and no amount of revisionism changes that. Dust it off by all means, just do not expect it to shine.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2001 | Watched: 2025-10-24
Trailer
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Simon West: Con Air (1997)
More with Angelina Jolie: Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) · Kung Fu Panda (2008) · Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life (2003) · Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
More from United Kingdom: Lessons of Darkness (1992) · Shinjuku Boys (1995) · The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) · Blue (1993)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
