(This review may contain spoilers).
This isn’t the first Lara Croft movie I’ve seen, but so far, I think it might be my favourite.
This version of Lara Croft was very easy to empathise with and care about. It was really good to see the brief snippets of her past, as it allowed me to see the relationship she had with her father and something of what her life had been like growing up.
There wasn’t a lot of depth to the main villain of the movie, even though it was clear some attempt had been made to humanise him. The best types of villains are those who have good reasons behind their actions…or at least good reasons as far as they’re concerned. But many of his actions throughout just showed him as a completely evil person who enjoyed tormenting those forced to work under his command.
I found myself drawn really easily into this movie, even though it was kind of difficult to suspend my disbelief when it came to some of the things Lara could do. Some of those were foreshadowed and made sense; others really didn’t.
I did find the legend of Himiko to be really intriguing and it was particularly good to see the puzzles that had to be solved throughout.
I did think that, even though she was clearly capable of defending herself, Lara didn’t necessarily make the best decisions; and until she left to follow in the direction her father had taken, there were elements of telling rather than showing.
I couldn’t really say how true this movie stayed to the source material, but I did enjoy this movie and I did care about what happened to the characters. I probably wouldn’t rush to buy this movie on DVD, but I wouldn’t mind watching it again in the future.
Ink of Blood 