Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
★★½ — Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001)
Simon West arrived at this $115 million Paramount production on the back of Con Air (1997) and The General's Daughter (1999), making him a reasonably safe pair of hands for a big, loud studio blockbuster. The film is adapted from the long-running Eidos Interactive video game franchise, with Lara Croft having been a cultural fixture since her 1996 debut, and the project represented one of the earlier serious attempts by a major Hollywood studio to make a prestige action film out of a gaming property. Angelina Jolie, cast largely on the strength of her Oscar-winning turn in Girl, Interrupted (1999), trained extensively for the role and is the daughter of Jon Voight, who appears here as her on-screen father. Filming took place across Cambodia, Iceland, and the UK, with Hatfield House standing in for Croft Manor. Daniel Craig, still several years from Bond, appears in a supporting role.
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.”
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 2001 | Watched: 2025-10-24
Where to watch (UK)
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK
Affiliate disclosure: Movies With Macca may earn a small commission on purchases or subscriptions started via these links. It costs you nothing extra.
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)
