It can’t be denied that Tomb Raider fans are anxiously awaiting the release of director Roar Uthaug’s movie adaptation of the hit video game series, which is slated for release in March next year.
Actually, the hype train for Tomb Raider the movie has been rolling at full speed since Warner Bros. announced that Alicia Vikander would be playing the title role and the first images of the movie’s shoot emerged online last February.
But now that the first trailer for the movie has been released, I am worried that this upcoming Tomb Raider film could end up being just another action movie, and that it will fail to break the infamous video game movie curse, the rule by which film adaptations of video games are never very good.
This would be a pity, taking into account that with a solid director at the helm (Roar Uthaug also directed the pretty decent disaster movie The Wave) and an Academy Award-winning actress in the title role this certainly has the potential to be something special.
Another plus is that Uthaug has said the movie won’t be relying too much on CGI, something that many criticized about the earlier Lara Croft: Tomb Raider staring Angelina Jolie back in 2001. And this Tomb Raider film also appears to be heavily based on the 2013 reboot game and its 2015 sequel Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is not a bad thing taking into account these are some of the best Tomb Raider games released to date.
Upon seeing this trailer though, it’s likely anyone who didn’t knew this was a Tomb Raider flick would think this was a preview for any other generic Indiana Jones-style film. And despite the fact that Alicia Vikander is undoubtedly a talented actress, I’m not sure her girlish face and petite physique make her the right choice for playing Lara Croft in a movie. Plus, the less of those slow-motion effects which are seen in the trailer at some point, the better in my book too…
Of course, this may turn out to be a great action film that finally proves that video game adaptations can actually be good, although given the superb box office performance of the earlier Tomb Raider films it would take a major disaster for this to turn out to be a flop in the end. So here’s hoping for the best then, and that Lara Croft fans get the movie they truly deserve when Tomb Raider hits theatres in 2018.
Tomb Raider (Warner Bros.)