Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life is a 2003 American action-adventure film based on the Tomb Raider video game series. Angelina Jolie stars as the titular Lara Croft character with supporting performances from Gerard Butler, Ciarán Hinds, Chris Barrie, Noah Taylor, Til Schweiger, Djimon Hounsou and Simon Yam. An international co-production between the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan, the film was directed by Jan de Bont and is a sequel to the 2001 film Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

The Cradle of Life received mostly negative reviews, though critics noted it as an improvement on its predecessor, particularly in the action sequences, and continued to praise Jolie's performance as Lara Croft. Despite this, it did not repeat its box office performance, grossing $156 million compared to the previous installment's $275 million. It was still a financial success, and plans were made for a sequel, which were cancelled when Jolie declined to reprise her role as Croft. The series was rebooted in 2018 with Alicia Vikander taking over the title role.

Plot
On Santorini island, Greece, a strong earthquake uncovers the Luna Temple. The temple was built by Alexander the Great to house his most prized treasures. Among these treasures is a glowing orb with a pattern resembling a code etched into it. Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) finds this orb; but crime lord Chen Lo (Simon Yam) attacks her group, kills her two companions and takes the orb. Lara escapes with a strange medallion.

MI6 approaches Lara with information about Pandora's box, an object from ancient legends that supposedly contains a deadly plague (the companion to the origin of life itself). The box, hidden in the mysterious Cradle of Life, can only be found with a magical sphere that serves as a map. The sphere is the same orb that was stolen by Chen Lo, who plans to sell it to Jonathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds) - a Nobel Prize winning scientist turned bio-terrorist.

After the MI6 reveals that the sphere must be kept away from Reiss, Lara agrees to help them, with the condition that they release her old flame Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler), who is familiar with Chen Lo's criminal operation. Together, Terry and Lara infiltrate Chen Lo's lair, where he is smuggling the Terracotta Soldiers. Lara defeats him in a fight and learns that the orb is in Hong Kong.

Retrieving the orb in a laboratory housed in a Hong Kong mall, Lara and Terry take refuge in a yacht. The next day, Lara uses the orb and learns the location of the mysterious Cradle of Life; Tanzania in Africa. After Lara sends returns information to Bryce back at Croft Manor, Reiss and his men infiltrated the mansion and capture him and Hillary (Chris Barrie). Lara and Terry travel to Tanzania then meet up with Kosa (Djimon Hounsou), the former's longtime African friend. They question a local tribe about the Cradle of Life, wherein the chief states that the Cradle of Life is in a crater protected by the "Shadow Guardians".

As they set out on an expedition, Reiss' men ambush them and kill the tribesmen. Outnumbered, Lara surrenders. Using her companions as hostages, Reiss forces Lara to lead him to the Cradle of Life. At the crater, they encounter the Shadow Guardians, monsters that appear in and out of wet patches on dead trees. The creatures kill most of Reiss' men. Lara manages to find the "key hole" and drops the Orb in it. The Bigfoots melt and the entrance to the Cradle of Life opens.

Lara and Reiss are drawn into the Cradle, a labyrinth made of a strange crystalline substance where normal laws of physics do not apply. Inside, they find a pool of highly corrosive black acid (linking back to one of the myths about Pandora's box), in which the box floats. Terry arrives, frees the hostages and catches up to Lara.

Lara fights Reiss, and knocks him into the acid pool, which kills and dissolves him. Terry then announces the intention to take the box for himself. When he refuses to back down, Lara regretfully shoots him dead, replaces the box in the pool and leaves.

Cast

 * Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft
 * Gerard Butler as Terry Sheridan
 * Ciarán Hinds as Jonathan Reiss
 * Chris Barrie as Hillary
 * Noah Taylor as Bryce
 * Djimon Hounsou as Kosa
 * Til Schweiger as Sean
 * Simon Yam as Chen Lo
 * Terence Yin as Xien

Production
The budget for the film was $95 million (less than the first film's $115 million budget), and like the first film, it was financed through Tele München Gruppe. The picture was also distributed internationally by Japanese company Toho-Towa.

Filming lasted for three and a half months, which included six-day shoots on location in Hong Kong, Santorini, Llyn Gwynant in North Wales (doubling for mainland China), and a two-week stint in Kenya for shooting at Amboseli and Hell's Gate, with the remainder of the picture filmed on soundstages in the United Kingdom. One scene in the film was set in Shanghai, but it was shot on a set and not on location.

The film also featured the new 2003 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, first seen when Lara parachutes into the moving vehicle in Africa and takes over the wheel from Kosa. As part of Jeep's advertising campaign, it was specially customised for the film by Jeep's design team along with the film's production designers, with three copies constructed for filming. 1,001 limited-run Tomb Raider models were produced—available only in silver like the film version and minus its special customisations—and put on the market to coincide with the release of the film. Jeep vice president Jeff Bell explained, "[The ad campaign] is more than just a product placement ... the Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is the most capable Jeep ever built, so the heroic and extreme environment in which Lara Croft uses her custom Wrangler Rubicon in Tomb Raider is accurate." In the end, Lara's Rubicon had less than two total minutes of screen time in the finished film.

Critical response
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life holds a 25% rating out of 171 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 43/100 based on 34 reviews. Audiences polled by Cineascore gave it a grade "B-" on scale of A to F.

Salon described it as a "highly enjoyable summer thrill ride." Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, stating that the film was "better than the first one, more assured, more entertaining ... it uses imagination and exciting locations to give the movie the same kind of pulp adventure feeling we get from the Indiana Jones movies." David Rooney of Variety praised Jolie for being "hotter, faster and more commanding than last time around as the fearless heiress/adventuress, plus a little more human."

The film was nonetheless panned by most critics. Rene Rodriguez of The Miami Herald called it "another joyless, brain-numbing adventure through lackluster Indiana Jones territory". James Berardinelli of ReelViews said "The first Tomb Raider was dumb fun; Cradle of Life is just plain dumb ... the worst action movie of the summer." Wesley Morris of The Boston Globe wrote, "It's a bullet-riddled National Geographic special [that] produces a series of dumb, dismal shootouts that are so woefully choreographed there's reason to believe Debbie Allen may be behind them." He then said of director De Bont, "He has yet to meet a contraption he couldn't use to damage your hearing." Jolie earned a Golden Raspberry Award nomination for Worst Actress for her performance in the film.

Box office
The film debuted in fourth place with a take of $21.8 million. In the United Kingdom, the film opened at number three, earning £1.5 million in its first three days. The film finished with a domestic gross of $65 million.

Paramount blamed the failure of the film on the poor performance of the then-latest installment of the video game series, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. After numerous delays, Angel of Darkness was rushed to shelves just over a month before the release of the movie, despite the final product being unfinished and loaded with glitches. It spawned mediocre sales, and mixed reviews from critics. Former Eidos Interactive senior executive Jeremy Heath-Smith, who was also credited as an executive producer in the film, resigned days after the game was released.

Soundtrack
As with the original movie, the sequel opted to separate its soundtrack onto two CDs: the first, with tracks contributed by various artists; the second with Alan Silvestri's original score for the movie.


 * The track "Did My Time" by Korn was supposed to appear on the soundtrack, but due to problems with Korn's record company, this did not happen. The song still appears during the films end credits.

Score

 * Composed by Alan Silvestri
 * Performed by London Symphony Orchestra
 * Conducted by Alan Silvestri

Home media
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life was released on DVD and VHS on November 18, 2003; a Blu-Ray release followed on October 8, 2013. A 4K UHD Blu-Ray version was released on February 27, 2018.

Cancelled sequel
In March 2004, producer Lloyd Levin said that The Cradle of Life had earned enough internationally for Paramount to bankroll a second sequel, but any hopes of it going into production were soon quelled by Jolie's announcement that she had no desire to play Lara Croft a third time: "I just don't feel like I need to do another one. I felt really happy with the last one. It was one we really wanted to do."