Well... at least Angelina Jolie looked good.

Couldn't really think of a better way to start this review. The movie... as a movie, was pretty bad. Enjoyable, but bad. Definitely don't go see this movie expecting an Oscar winning performance... in ANY category.

The movie had decent action... which was made all the more better watching Angelina Jolie run around in tight clothes. Nothing's cooler than a hot chick with guns. But, she alone couldn't save this movie's story. The story was very cliché... bad guy wants to rule the world, and our hero, Lara Croft (Jolie) must stop him.

The movie started out good... a nice quick action sequence to get things started... lots of Angelina's ass... but when we're introduced to the main plot... the story begins its downward spiral. Apparently, this group of men, known as the Illuminati, are searching for a key that will unlock the two halves of a triangle... that when the two halves are united, will create the Tri Force! ... wait... no... the triangle of light, which gives it's bearer the power to control time. Seems that 5000 years ago, when the planets were in perfect alignment, a meteor fell to the earth, and this triangle was forged from a metal found within the meteor's core. The people who created this triangle built a city within the crater left behind from this meteor... but their ruler was greedy, and the Tri Force... I mean... the triangle destroyed the city. It was then broken into two pieces, and each were sent to opposite ends of the earth... which is apparently Cambodia, and what appeared to be the North Pole.

So now we come to present day, and discover that Lara has had the key all along... it was hidden away in a secret room underneath the stairwell... in a clock, which started ticking on the 1st day of the planetary alignment... which only happens once every 5000 years. Lara receives a letter from her deceased father, instructing her to find the two halves, and destroy them, before the Illuminati find them.

Here's my thing... if you've got the key, why not just destroy that? Then... problem solved. Nobody will EVER be able to recover these two pieces... or... if that's not good enough... when you find one piece, why not just destroy it? I mean... if you can't connect the two pieces, it's powerless, so really... why? But, I guess that wouldn't make for a very interesting movie, now would it?

So the first piece is found in Cambodia, as stated above... which would have been fine, had they just found the piece, and been done with it. However, you could tell the writers were really reaching on this... because once it was released from it's watery grave, the water begins to flow out, and through the cracks, into these statues along the wall. Hmmmm. Yup, you guessed it... soon the statues come to life, and begin attacking the intruders.

Now, I could buy this if these were actually golems, which LOOK like statues, but are really machines on the inside... that would lend some credibility to this. But these were just stone statues, that when this water touched them, they came to life. Yeah... ok.

Lara makes out with the first piece, while the villain makes out with the key... seems they now have a mutual arrangement to not kill each other. However, Lara soon gives the piece to the villain who... doesn't kill her. Why? "Because one Tomb Raider is good... but two Tomb Raiders are better." Yes... that's an actual line from the movie. That's almost as bad as the line in X Men ("Ever wonder what happens to a toad when it's struck by lightning? The same thing that happens to everything else."... yeah, that line.)

So now we get back to the crater site... which looks to be in Alaska, or the North Pole... because there's Eskimos, and they speak Russian. They get inside the crater, and discover this room with a large model of the planets... which looks amazingly similar to the one used in The Dark Crystal... only without the blades.

Somehow, Lara just knows things. There's one scene in this room where a dog jumps through this glowing sphere looking thing... as it's going through this sphere, you can see its muscle structure, and stuff like that... and then it comes out on the other side just fine and dandy. And Lara just blurts out "It's a time rift. Time is disrupted here." Oh! Right! Why didn't I think of that?

All in all, it was a decent movie, if you don't expect a good movie. I'm certainly glad I didn't pay to go see it... but to watch Angelina Jolie's boobies bounce when she's escaping the crater... that's probably worth the price of admission. You know that scene was deliberately done in slow motion... just to enhance the boobie bounce. God bless them for that! Just the fact that she's scantily clad throughout 80% of this movie is worth the price of admission. But the movie itself... it's a one hit wonder. I'll see it this one time, but I don't think I'll be seeing it again anytime soon. I will however probably be getting the DVD... for the reasons listed above :) What can I say... I'm a sucker for a hot chick with guns.

From the first preview you ever saw for this film you knew what you were gonna get. A film with a storyline as transparent as my bank account full of special effects and no name actors and at the center..... Academy Award winner, Angelina Jolie. "Oooooh and Aaaaahhh" all you want, folks. The best part of this whole movie going experience for me was that I got to have my popcorn MY WAY.... no salt.

So, here's the skinny. Angelina (I make out with my brother and married a fossil) Jolie plays the character of Lara Croft. She's a "Tomb Raider". For the layman, she's kinda like Indiana Jones but without a penis. However, just like how most people compensate for a lack of a penis, she carries around some BIG ASS guns. We are introduced to Lara Croft as she tries to elude a huge, robotic sentry and collect some kind of important relic. This is the best part of the film.

Once this part is over... get up and go see Shrek or something because everything is down hill from here. What we learn is that Lara Croft is a "Tomb Raider" a.k.a. a master of discovering the unknown. A professional treasure hunter. She's also (supposed to be) British as Miss Jolie tries so hard to convey through a terrible, tired, I wish I was Elizabeth Hurly accent. Apparently, Lara lost her father a long time ago and was forced to rough it alone in a mansion full of servants with a seemingly endless cornucopia of funds. Unfortunately, I didn't pay too much attention to the film at this point because there was this cool colorful light coming out of the wall behind us all that was just absolutely brilliant. I turned back around and noticed that the film had shifted to a different location.

We open up on a huge cathedral-esque interior in Venice, Italy where a group called the Illuminati are on a desperate search for the "Triangle of Light". Never mind that everyone in this room speaks perfect English... I mean, there are NO Italian speaking boys in this place... not even an accent!! But back to this "Triangle of Light". The myth is that if someone brings the triangle together at the time of the alignment of the planets, the bearer will gain control of time. Sounds neat, huh? The Illuminati have dispatched a suave Brit...(surprise surprise) to locate this triangle. We cut back to the home of Lara Croft. She's asleep and dreaming of the old days with her father played with eerie realism by Jon Voight. Not since the film Wild at Heart where Diane Ladd played Laura Dern's mother have I felt that the actors had extensively researched their roles and truly found a familial level at which to perform. Talk about convincing. (And if you can't tell... I'm being sarcastic)

Back to Lara. She just happens to be recounting her father teaching her about the alignment of the planets and the resulting full eclipse of the sun. Suddenly, she whips up out of bed and creeps downstairs to the front door where she hears a mysterious ticking. The ticking is coming from under the stairs... she can't believe this!!! She breaks through the wall and finds an old chest. In this chest is an old clock. She's so taken aback that there was a secret room in her house. This is the part of the movie where I just raised my hands in defeat. She's Lara Croft. The "Tomb Raider". The most experienced adventurer and treasure hunter the world has ever known. And she didn't know that there was a secret room under her stairs!!?? You just killed the credibility of your character right there! I really don't want to giveaway what little this movie may have to offer so let me just say that this mysterious clock leads her to the Illuminati and all kinds of wacky antics ensue. From trekking in Cambodia with phantom children and statues that come to life to dog sledding in the Arctic in skimpy ass clothes and running relay races up a pyramid. The sense made from this movie just fades more and more as the time just DRAGS on.

I wanted this movie to be good. I tried to justify that the trailers sucked by saying...."Maybe it's just a bad promotional company that's setting up the trailers." I told myself over and over that it wouldn't be as bad as I thought. Even if it was cheesy, I wanted to like it. Come on, this is the guy who totally digs Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. This film offered nothing. A perfect chance to cash in on the "high adventure" genre that The Mummy and The Mummy Returns revived. These movies you sat through and thought, "Wow... I haven't felt like this in a movie theater since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Tomb Raider could have been this and more. With the recent success of Charlie's Angels, Hollywood has more than acknowledged that women kick ass too. To me, Tomb Raider was supposed to be Charlie's Angels meets Indiana Jones. Kick ass action and special effects with a smart and endearing storyline filled with colorful and memorable characters. What I got instead was a Saturday morning cartoon wannabe. A flick made for teenage boys who are sick of panting over a computer animated video game character and want to see her for real.

Unfortunately, I'm an outsider on this Angelina Jolie attraction. I want to see a woman in sexy clothes as much as the next guy but come on!! It almost insulted me. I'll give you a dollar if you can keep track of the different tight fitting shirts that Angelina Jolie went through in this film. They should have called this Boob Raider. But now I'm rambling. The dialogue was trite and uninspired and the action sequences felt so empty. Yeah, here's this attractive woman firing guns and kicking ass and riding large battering rams but I felt nothing. They were all large fight sequences but there was no depth whatsoever. Maybe I set my expectations too high but I was expecting a throwback to the Indiana Jones days. Where the fights were grand and breathtaking. Remember when Indy grappled for his life on the truck carrying the Ark and fought off 5 Nazi soldiers in the process. How about when Indy split a rope bridge with 20 other guys on it. You remember when Indy went head to head against a Nazi tank with just a horse to rescue his dad? These are the things we should expect from a movie like Tomb Raider and we just don't get it. There's no real payoff to this film. From beginning to end, it's just a brainless display of breasts and bullets. If I want breasts, I'll click on Showtime. If I want bullets, I'll watch Desperado. Unless you're seeing it free... DO NOT SEE THIS FILM! Wait for it to come out on cable or something.

NOTE: I hear from people now and then who say "Joe, you shouldn't go in there with such high expectations." Or, "If you go in expecting less then you won't be disappointed." What the hell is that supposed to mean!? Why would I waste my money and time to go sit in a full theater to see a movie that I KNOW won't knock my socks off!? I encourage you all to raise the bar... expect more from these films. You're paying enough to demand excellence, right?