Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 American action-adventure film based on the Tomb Raider video game series featuring the character Lara Croft, portrayed by Angelina Jolie. An international co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, it was directed by Simon West and revolves around Lara Croft trying to obtain ancient artifacts from the Illuminati.

The film was released on June 15, 2001, and received generally negative reviews from critics for its stylized action and bland plot, although Angelina Jolie was praised for her performance. Tomb Raider was the highest-grossing film on its opening weekend. A sequel, titled Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, was released in 2003.

Plot
Adventurer Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) defeats a robot in an Egyptian tomb, revealed to be an training exercise arena in her family manor, where she lives with her technical assistant Bryce (Noah Taylor) and butler Hilary (Chris Barrie).

In Venice, as the first phase of a planetary alignment begins, the Illuminati search for a key to rejoin halves of a mysterious artifact, "the Triangle," which must be completed by the final phase, a solar eclipse. Manfred Powell (Iain Glen) assures the cabal that the artifact is almost ready, but has no real idea of its location.

Lara's father Lord Richard Croft (Jon Voight), long missing and presumed dead, appears to her in a dream. Lara awakens to a mysterious ticking, and finds a strange clock hidden inside the manor. On her way to consult a friend of her father's, Wilson (Leslie Phillips), Lara crosses paths with Alex West (Daniel Craig), an American associate and fellow adventurer. Lara shows Wilson the clock, and he puts her in touch with Powell. Lara shows Powell photographs of the clock, which he claims not to recognize.

That night, armed commandos invade the house and steal the clock, bringing it to Powell. The next morning, a prearranged letter from Lara's father arrives, explaining that the clock is the key to retrieving the halves of the Triangle of Light, an ancient object with the power to control time. After misuse of its power destroyed an entire city, the Triangle was separated: one half was hidden in a Cambodian tomb, the other in the ruined city, now modern-day Siberia. Her father tasks her to find and destroy both pieces before the Illuminati can exploit the Triangle's power.



In Cambodia, Lara finds Powell, who has hired West, and his commandos already at the temple. West solves part of the temple's puzzle, and Powell prepares to insert the clock at the moment of alignment. Lara, realizing they are mistaken, finds the correct keyhole; with only seconds left, Lara persuades Powell to throw her the clock. She unlocks the first piece of the Triangle, and the statues of the temple come to life and attack the intruders. West, Powell, and his remaining men flee with the clock, leaving Lara to defeat an enormous six-armed guardian statue. She escapes with the first piece; recovering at a Buddhist monastery, she arranges a meeting with Powell.

In Venice, Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle, and informs Lara that her father was a member of the Illuminati, and offers to use the Triangle's power to resurrect him; though reluctant, she agrees to join forces. Lara and Bryce travel with Powell, West, and the leader of the Illuminati Richard Johnson to Siberia. Entering the tomb, they discover a giant mechanical model of the solar system, which activates as the alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the second half of the Triangle, and Powell kills the Illuminati's leader to restore the Triangle himself, but the halves will not fuse. Realizing Lara knows the solution, Powell kills West to persuade her to complete the Triangle to restore West's and her father's lives. Lara complies, but seizes the Triangle herself.

In a "crossing" of time, Lara faces the memory of her father, who urges her to destroy the Triangle for good rather than save his life. Returning to the tomb, Lara manipulates time to save West and stab Powell, and destroys the Triangle. The tomb begins to collapse, and all flee but the wounded Powell, who reveals to Lara that he murdered her father. After a hand-to-hand fight, she kills Powell, retrieving her father's pocket watch and escaping the tomb.

At the manor, Hilary and Bryce are shocked to see Lara wearing a dress. After visiting her father's memorial, she finds Bryce has reprogrammed the robot, and Hilary presents her with her pistols, which she takes with a smile.

Cast

 * Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft
 * Iain Glen as Manfred Powell
 * Jon Voight as Lord Richard Croft
 * Daniel Craig as Alex West
 * Noah Taylor as Bryce
 * Richard Johnson as Distinguished Gentleman
 * Chris Barrie as Hillary
 * Julian Rhind-Tutt as Mr. Pimms
 * Leslie Phillips as Wilson
 * Henry Wyndham as Boothby's Auctioneer

Development
Tomb Raider went through many drafts and several writers, which resulted in production delays. In 1998, writer Brent V. Friedman, who had co-written Mortal Kombat: Annihilation the year before, penned an unproduced Tomb Raider script. Producer and screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who wrote and directed the 1994 video game film Street Fighter, penned an early draft of the Tomb Raider script in 1999, but it was rejected by Paramount. The final draft of the script was attributed to five writers, including director Simon West.

Financing
Lara Croft was financed through Tele München Gruppe (TMG), a German tax shelter. The tax law of Germany allowed investors to take an instant tax deduction even on non-German productions and even if the film has not gone into production. By selling them the copyright for $94 million and then buying it back for $83.8 million, Paramount Pictures made $10.2 million. The copyright was then sold again to Lombard Bank, a British investment group and a further $12 million was made. However, to qualify for Section 48 tax relief, the production must include some UK filming and British actors, which was acceptable for a film partially set in the United Kingdom. Presales to distributors in Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain made a further $65 million. Showtime paid $6.8 million for premium cable television rights. In total, $94 million was put together.

The deal between Eidos, Tomb Raider's publisher, and Paramount Pictures was structured so Eidos received royalties.

Casting
The announcement of the film generated significant discussion about who would be cast to play Lara Croft. Numerous actresses (and non-actresses) were rumoured to be on the shortlist to play her and countless others declared their interest in the role, most notably Jennifer Love Hewitt, Famke Janssen, Jennifer Lopez, Rhona Mitra, Elizabeth Hurley, Ashley Judd, Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Diane Lane, Demi Moore and Denise Richards, with many considering the latter the favourite to win the role.

The casting of Jolie was controversial among many fans of the Tomb Raider series, who felt she wasn't physically appropriate enough to play the large-breasted heroine; others complained about an American actress being hired to play a British character; others cited Jolie's tattoos and well-publicised controversial personal life. Director Simon West dismissed these concerns and said, in reference to Jolie's penchant for sexual knife play, "it was always Angelina. I mean, Lara sleeps with knives and doesn't take from anybody. That's [Angelina] down to a tee." Jolie wore a padded bra to increase her bust size when playing Lara. As she explained to NY Rock in June 2001: "C'mon, I'm not so flat chested to begin with. When I wear a tight T-shirt, I look a certain way. So it wasn't like we had to completely change me. You know, we just had to enhance me a little. I'm a 36C. Lara, she's a 36D. And in the game, she's a double D, so we took her down some. But we did give her a bit of padding there. For me, it was simply one size. So it was like having a padded bra. But no, I am not flat chested anyway. So we still made it Lara Croft, but we didn't go to any extremes. And Lara doesn't apologize for herself, and for having that, you know, recognizable shape. So I'm not going to apologize for her either."

The film marked the feature film debut of television actor Chris Barrie, known for his role of Arnold Rimmer in the BBC science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf. English actor Daniel Craig adopts an American accent for the role of Alex West whilst Jolie, being American herself, takes on an English accent. Jon Voight, Angelina Jolie's father, plays Richard Croft, Lara's father in the film.

Filming
Principal photography for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider took place from July 30 to November 30, 2000. Portions of the film were shot on location at the Ta Prohm temple, located in Angkor, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia. The film was the first major motion picture to be shot in Cambodia since Lord Jim in 1964, following the country's occupation by the Khmer Rouge regime. In addition to on-location shooting, a majority of the film's production also took place on the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios.

Critical response
The film received generally negative reviews, earning a 20% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with 31 out of 157 critics giving it a positive review with an average rating of 3.9/10. The site's consensus is "Angelina Jolie is perfect for the role of Lara Croft, but even she can't save the movie from a senseless plot and action sequences with no emotional impact". On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 33% based on reviews from 31 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade B on scale of A to F.

IGN gave the movie the lowest score, a 0.0 ("Disaster") rating, condemning everything from character performances to the ending. Todd McCarthy of ''Variety said "[the film] has the distinction of being a major motion picture that’s far less imaginative, and quite a bit more stupid, than the interactive game it’s based on." McCarthy praises Jolie but says "everything else about this frenetic production is flat and unexciting." A positive review came from Roger Ebert, who awarded the film three out of four stars and said, Lara Croft Tomb Raider' elevates goofiness to an art form. Here is a movie so monumentally silly, yet so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault."

Box office
Tomb Raider was a box office success. The movie debuted at number one with $48.2 million ahead of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Shrek, giving Paramount its second-best debut and the fifth-highest debut of 2001. It beat the opening record for a film featuring a female protagonist (($42.3) million for Scary Movie) as well as the opening record for a video game adaptation ($31 million for Pokémon: The First Movie), and is one of the highest grossing video game to film adaptations. The movie has grossed a total of $274,703,340 worldwide.

Themes
Director Simon West would comment a decade after its release that the creation of Lara Croft was influenced by a film market "wasn't used to women leading summer blockbusters" (with the exception of the Alien film series). This factor influenced his decision to cast Angelina Jolie who was not well known at the time, and not the studio's first choice (in contrast to Catherine Zeta-Jones, Ashley Judd, and Jennifer Lopez). West said that his decision to cast Jolie lay in the fact that "there hadn’t been a female lead of an action-adventure film that had carried a film [by herself recently], and Angelina wasn’t as big as some of the other actresses that were up for the part, who’d done bigger films and had a longer track record and bigger box-office grosses. … Some of their [images] were safer than Angelina’s, whose was quite dangerous. She had all sorts of thing written about her—some obviously not true. She was a young woman experimenting.” While Lara Croft's box office totals were the highest for an female-led action film at the time ($131 million), inspired theme park rides and led to a sequel, West stated that "at the time, the studio was incredibly nervous at what the outcome could have been. I’m surprised it’s taken so long [for other female-fronted action stories to rise up], because I thought that two or three years after, there’d be 10 other movies like it cashing in on its success ...[b]ut it’s amazing how things work so slowly. But finally The Hunger Games and Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman have caught up!”

Awards and nominations
The film was nominated for two MTV Movie Awards, these awards included: Best Female Performance and Best Fight scene, but the film lost to Moulin Rouge! and Rush Hour 2 respectively. The film was also nominated for Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie - Drama. Angelina Jolie was nominated for the Worst Actress Golden Raspberry Award for her role in the film, but she lost to Mariah Carey in Glitter.

Soundtrack
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 soundtrack album to the film. The various artists soundtrack was released June 15, 2001. The Score was later released on June 25, 2001. The movie also featured the song "Lila" by Vas and a Piano rendition of "Largo" from Johann Sebastian Bach's Harpsichord Concerto no. 5 performed by Hae-won Chang. These were not featured on the soundtrack. Also used in the movie were elements of "Elevation (Influx Remix)" by U2. This was uncredited.

Score
For the first Tomb Raider film, Nathan McCree was hired, though the producers eventually decided that a feature-length film needed a feature-name composer. Therefore, they hired Michael Kamen, despite the fact that his score for the similarly cult X-Men the previous year failed to arouse the interest of many of the concept's followers. Kamen wrote and submitted a demo for Tomb Raider, but no feedback on that music was returned by the director or producers. Only during the process of recording a second demo did Kamen finally hear back from the Tomb Raider team, and by then, the lack of enthusiasm for the relationship on both sides caused Kamen to seek other projects that were more promising to him (namely, the HBO show Band of Brothers, requiring 10 hours of music). Thus, the producers of Tomb Raider were forced to hire another composer at the very last minute. The man hired for the last minute assignment was Graeme Revell. He composed the soundtrack in less than two weeks. He did not use the original Tomb Raider theme.

The CD was released through Elektra Entertainment, but as noted by Revell and after failed attempts to stop the pressings, the tracks were mislabeled. For example, the opening track includes both the Main Titles and Lara Croft at Home cues together. The resulting score was so poorly received that the composer himself issued an apology through his website. The track list was later revised.

Sequel and reboot
Angelina Jolie returned in the sequel Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life. While it was viewed as a critical improvement over its predecessor, it did not repeat its financial success, grossing $156 million compared to the previous installment's $274 million.

GK Films first acquired the rights to reboot the film in 2011. In April 2016, MGM and GK Films announced a reboot of the film starring Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft with Roar Uthaug directing. It was released March 16, 2018.

Home media
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider was released on DVD and VHS on November 13, 2001; a Blu-ray release followed on June 3, 2008. A 4K UHD Blu-ray release followed on February 27, 2018.