I was never a big TOMB RAIDER guy (mainly because they were hard and I suck at videogames), but I appreciated what they were attempting, especially in those early 3D consoles. Those games were some of the first third-person adventures to really utilize acrobatics and legit puzzle-solving among the shoot-outs and platform jumping, and were technical marvels at the time. Hell, even the movies with Angelina Jolie were't terrible (though not great either). She at least nailed the part…it's the films around her that didn't quite stack up.
Now, after a long line of bad and terrible sequels, the rebooted TOMB RAIDER game series – focusing on a young Lara Croft – have been critical and financial darlings. This reboot also means a rebooted film series, with relative newcomer Alicia Vikander (EX MACHINA) filling in Angelina's big boots. She doesn't take that lightly, according to an interview with Entertainment Weekly:
I was surprised that my mum knew what Tomb Raider was. That’s due to the fact that Angelina Jolie made Lara Croft such an icon. But this is a beautiful way of showing a very loved character from more angles.
She goes on to say that, like the new rebooted game series, the film will focus on a younger, greener Croft:
She has all the fierce, tough, curious, intelligent traits, but we’ve stripped away all of her experience. She hasn’t gone on an adventure just yet…this is the beginning.
She then talks about the extensive stunt work involved:
Naturally that gives me an extra thrill. I have mostly done dramas and indie films in my career but I don’t know how many times I’ve watched big adventure films like Indiana Jones or The Mummy. I love to get embraced in all those big journeys and to do an action role has always been a child’s dream of mine…[and] we have a lot of water sequences. I spent my last two days of shooting in a tank and that was my 16th total day being fully drenched or submerged in the water…for one action scene, we used the London venue for Olympic rafting [laughs] They threw me down that river — with my hands tied — about 50 times. I didn’t need to act, just react!
Now, I'm rooting for this one. I like Vikander (she was great in EX MACHINA), and I think we need another good videogame film, and this could potentially be one. Fingers crossed!
Meanwhile, the new TOMB RAIDER will swing into theaters March 16, 2018.