Plot
Lara Croft is on a quest to save Pandoras box.

Release Year: 2003

Rating: 5.3/10 (48,063 voted)

Critic's Score: 43/100

Director: Jan de Bont

Stars: Angelina Jolie, Gerard Butler, Chris Barrie

Storyline
Intrepid British archaeologist Lara Croft has made perhaps the most important archaeological discovery in history: an orb that leads to the mythical Pandora's Box. Unfortunately, the orb falls into the hands of Jonathan Reiss, an evil scientist who deals in killer viruses and hopes to sell the secrets of the box as the ultimate weapon. Recruited by British Intelligence to get the orb back from Reiss, Lara recruits Terry Sheridan, a British marine turned mercenary (and her former love interest) to help. The two embark on an adventure that spans continents in an attempt to regain the orb...

Writers: Dean Georgaris, Steven E. de Souza

Cast:
Angelina Jolie - Lara Croft
Gerard Butler - Terry Sheridan
Ciarán Hinds - Jonathan Reiss
Chris Barrie - Hillary (as Christopher Barrie)
Noah Taylor - Bryce
Djimon Hounsou - Kosa
Til Schweiger - Sean
Simon Yam - Chen Lo
Terence Yin - Xien
Daniel Caltagirone - Nicholas Petraki
Fabiano Martell - Jimmy Petraki
Jonny Coyne - Gus Petraki (as Jonathan Coyne)
Robert Cavanah - MI6 Agent Stevens
Ronan Vibert - MI6 Agent Calloway
Lenny Juma - Village Leader

Official Website: Paramount |

Release Date: 25 July 2003

Budget: $90,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend: $21,783,641 (USA) (27 July 2003) (3222 Screens)

Gross: $156,505,388 (Worldwide) (16 April 2004)

Runtime: 117 min

Trivia:
Angelina Jolie is the only actor/actress in the movie to be American-born.

Goofs:
Revealing mistakes: When Lara is kissing Terry on the boat, a piece of tape is visible holding up her towel.

Quotes:
[first lines]
Jimmy Petraki: They found another one. There's going to be no treasure left by the time she gets here.

goofball action film

Rating: 6/10

Angelina Jolie returns as a distaff Indiana Jones in "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life," an action/adventure film (based on a video game character) that is just goofy enough and inane enough to be almost entertaining.

In this follow-up adventure - which is designed to give historians and social studies teachers a severe case of the heebie-jeebies - Lara, the world-famous archaeologist and adventurist, finds evidence that the mythical Pandora's Box is really no myth at all, but rather an actual object loaded with enough plague and pestilence to wipe the entire human race off the face of the planet. It lies buried somewhere, hidden by Alexander the Great in the 4th Century B.C. when he discovered how virulent and deadly the contents of the box really were. Now, twenty-four centuries later, Lara has to try and prevent an evil billionaire capitalist from locating the container, prying open the lid, and bringing an end to civilization as we know it.

Though the storyline is clearly not one to be conjured with, all that really matters in a movie such as this one is that the action move quickly and the stunts be sufficiently enterprising to engage the audience. Credibility is the last prerequisite in a Lara Croft adventure, as evidenced by the fact that if Lara isn't parachuting smack dab onto the deck of a ship or into the passenger seat of a moving jeep, she's hitching a ride on the back of a great white shark and riding it to safety. Ah well, it's all in good fun, I suppose, and Jolie not only looks stunning in all the outfits she's been given to wear, but seems to be having a fine time playing along with the joke.

The ending is inevitably anticlimactic, but viewers can have a pretty good time getting there at least.

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