About as vacant as you'd expect a movie based on a video game to be, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is a desperately bland and formulaic excursion in which the posh totty traipses around the globe in world record time. Once again, the stunningly attractive Jolie plays the amply proportioned Lady Lara Croft, the fun-loving female riff on Indiana Jones, who enjoys nothing more than looting the odd tomb. For some reason which is never fully explained, our gal is instructed to stop Jonathan Reiss - a modern day "Dr Joseph Mengele", according to the dreary dialogue of this rubbish - from getting his mitts on Pandora's Box, which supposedly contains a plague to end all plagues. For this sort of mission, Lara requires the aid of her ex-boyfriend, mercenary soldier Terry Sheridan (the charisma-free Gerald Butler). And when they're not flirting mercilessly with each other or uttering shockingly banal lines, Lara and Terry scurry off to all manner of delectable locations in a bid to save the world from Armageddon. Or some such nonsense.
It was once said that one of the great privileges of movie reviewing is being paid to watch a film which turns out to be far worse than even your most negative expectations. Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is that movie. Insipid and hackneyed, the film crawls from one rather boring set piece⁄shoot out to the next with barely a concession towards anything that could be confused with brash energy or humour (intentional or otherwise) over the course of its 116 minutes. Jolie is a goddess but even her striking beauty and nonchalant attitude can't save this one.
