2001-06-15 16:27:34+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments
Sometimes movies come along that let critics riff off them in wonderful ways. Today's Chronicle review of Tomb Raider (headlined Raiders of the Lost Brassiere) is one such.
Think of "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" as a culmination. It is the ultimate in a trend in action movies to replace story with art direction and substitute style for a coherent narrative.
[ related topics: Games Movies ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment made: 2001-06-16 23:42:48+00 by: topspin [edit history]
Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton truly scare me. Perhaps I'm not cosmopolitan enough or perhaps I'm merely sane, but read the RollingStone article.
She bought her husband and herself clear pendants inside which you are supposed to place dried flowers. Inside theirs, they have each other's dried blood. "It's us being corny romantic," she explains, sincerely. She'd like to go further. "If there was a safe way to drink his blood, I'd love to," she says. "We've thought about it. You lay in bed and you just want to bite holes into each other. It's not about cutting yourself or some kind of weird thing - now it's just, 'I want to eat him.'"
Tomb Raider was mostly filmed in London, where Jolie was required to work out and stop smoking and drinking. (She drew the line at giving up coffee.) Though flying is high on the things Thornton dislikes to do, he went to London to visit. (He had fun, went to lots of record stores. He didn't eat much, however. All those old buildings. "I can't really eat around old stuff," he explains. Thornton will often joke about his OCD: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. One evening, playing me a song from a CD, he will apologize and say that, as the song he wants to play is the second track, we'll have to hear the first track. He can't put on a second track, cold. He just can't.)
#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:56+00 by: TC
I went and saw Tomb Raider agaist advice from all those the care about and love me. They were wrong. It's a fun flick. Yeah, you have to suspend belief (think of Batman, the first one). It would seem that Roger Ebert agrees with me it's just a fun film to see.
#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:57+00 by: Pete
SPOILER
mild intensity
If the goal was to keep the world safe, couldn't she have just let the other crew place the doohickey in the wrong slot in the Hindu-ish temple, like they were going to without her intervention? She's the one that actively endangered the world.
And her padded boobies were not fun to watch.
#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:57+00 by: TC
My wife said that too. My take was that she was obessed with seeing her father again at that point, ergo she endagered the world for a selfish moment. Of course thats me trying abstract depth from the character most people won't see it that way. Actually I think the padded boobies were appropriate for the look of Lara Croft. just like plastic pecs for batman. Lara is like barbie (beyond the range of real). I mean, weren't Jessica Rabbits boobs fun??
#Comment made: 2002-02-21 05:31:57+00 by: Pete
Jessica was funny, and therefore fun. I can't make that work for Lara. And I don't remember any scenes with Jessica where she ended up all googly, pointing off at weird angles, as Lara did in one scene.