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Review: Tomb Raider
The cultural context surrounding Tomb Raider is significant, apart from the quality of the movie. Videogames passed films in revenue last year for the first time, and have become one of the world's most significant and ascendant cultural forces, especially in the U.S. and parts of Europe. Hollywood is scrambling to catch up.
It was so predictable that Tomb Raider would get trashed by most critics, as it has, that the producers didn't even have the guts to screen this movie for critics in advance. That was a mistake. They have nothing to apologize for. Tomb Raider is great, silly fun. Despite all the media yowling about violence in the movie, there really isn't much. There's hardly a drop of blood in the movie, and the shooting and kicking are cartoonish, not explicit.
Tomb Raider is by no means the best, most challenging or most creative video game, but it is one of the world's most popular ones: Lara Croft is gaming's first billion-dollar babe and one of its first superheroes. The movie comes closer to the experience of playing the game than watching a film. That's both the best and worst thing about it. Gamers may find it lush, familiar, original and fun. Non-gamers may see it as stupid and improbable.
West takes little time for character development, plunging right into a narrative involving the now-familiar archaeologist/scholar as adventurer. (Why are all of these archaeologists so rich in movies? And so brave?) Maybe there's no other way to explain how they can afford to cavort around the world, digging up musty tombs and crypts seeking keys to the universe.
Lara Croft, who works as a photojournalist to fund some of her adventures, is a Tomb Raider, of course. She lives in a huge English mansion stuffed with geek toys and gadgets (her resident hired-hand geek -- played by Noah Taylor -- builds killer robots to hunt her down and test her combat skills, which are finely honed. He could live in the mansion, of course, but prefers sleeping in a battered trailer parked outside.) In this Indiana Jonesish story, an evil gaggle of mostly white men (a stand-in for the usual NSA villains and cigarette-smoking men), called the Illuminati, meet in Venice and seek the ancient talisman called the Triangle of Light. They've hired bad guy Iain Glen (Manfred Powell) to get it. Lara, still mourning her lost and presumed dead father (Jon Voight), receives Dad's instructions from beyond the grave to stop the Illuminati at all costs, since the Triangle -- effective once every 5,000 years when the planets are in "alignment" -- gives its possessor God-like power. Although nobody even bothers to explain what the Illuminati expect to do with such divine capabilities, we take it on faith they they're not up to Godish standards.
The movie reflects the cavernous, open style of the game. And Jolie has a blast playing the competent, sneering, indestructible Croft. She plays the role for just what it is -- a campy romp into a new kind of cultural form, where heroines bungee-jump in slinky silk pj's. I think she's good here, even if the movie could certainly have been smarter, more coherent, a bit more attentive to details like plot. Jolie wears a perpetual Indie-like smirk, fears absolutely nothing, and shoots faster than any of the zillions of menacing things that suddenly pop up at her.
West et. al. didn't make this movie on the cheap. Tomb Raider spares no expense on special effects or locations, rocketing around the world as Craft and Powell slug it out. As in the game, despite her access to some stunningly sophisticated firepower, Croft prefers the 9mm pistols strapped prominently to her hips, wielding them against robots, commandos, even supernatural creatures of yore. Only in the movie, she never runs out of ammo. There is, in fact, no foe that can't be brought down by enough smoking 9 mm shells. It's interesting how supposedly hi-tech movies like this one and The Matrix are wedded to the contemporary equivalent of the six-gun.
This is what makes Tomb Raider a faithful evocation of a videogame rather than a conventional movie. It's exactly what many gamers will like about it, and many non-gamers won't.
Personally, I'll take a minority view on "Tomb Raider". It's fun and moves like a rocket from the opening shot. The overall effect is visually striking, sometimes even gorgeous, and while the movie lacks even a momentary sense of menace, so does the game that inspired it. Both are about movement, confidence and reflex.
Let's not get carried away. This movie won't show up on anybody's Top Ten list, but I'd recommend seeing it.
Addendum: Jon Likes It. CmdrTaco Hates it SO MUCH. CmdrTaco speaking now, I just couldn't resist abusing my ability to append a paragraph or 2 to this review to tell everyone how horrible Tomb Raider was. For however long this movie was (it felt like 6 hours) I just wanted everyone to die so I could leave. The acting was flatter then flat, but I have a hard time blaming any actor required to say dialog so moronic that any high school kid could have written something that sounded more real. I'll give Angelina Jolie credit for doing a reasonable british accent, but lets be honest, she was hired because she's a flavor of the month. WHich makes it even more sad that the real point of this movie (Lara's T&A) is padded. And padded so much that when packed into her traditionally tight t-shirt, she looks so much like a toy that I just wanted to scream. There is really no love interest in this story (one is hinted at, but its stupid) so there's only one even remotely sexy scene. It fails to do anything.
The action scenes are poorly edited and largely poorly conceived. It's as if the director said "I really enjoyed The Matrix and Crouching Tiger. Let's see how badly I can recreate those classic scenes for my movies". See, the cast of The Matrix trained forever to do just a few simple shots. And the cast of Crouching Tiger had actual skill to begin with. So when the horrible bungee scene comes together, shots are so quick and so poorly assembled that not only is it difficult to figure out what the hell is going on, but it looks exactly like what it is: A cheap knock off.
Ok, so they didn't have punchy dialog. And so the action scenes were derivative and poorly assembled. The effects are good, right? Oh don't I wish. A few effects are passable, but for the most part, I felt like the effects were of the same caliber that one might see on a syndicated cable sci fi show. Obviously computer animated effects are everywhere. The dramatic finale occurs on a set that looks like it was stolen from The Dark Crystal, but with a lame looking CGI bubble in the middle.
The plot? Well the illuminati are involved (of course) but we don't really see any of them. But don't worry, they don't make sense. All that we know is that the dude responsible for finding the triangle of zinthar (oh wait! thats South Park. Oh wait! you should watch that instead) is a jerk. Well they're going to rescue those triangles because they have power or something. Good thing Lara's got notes coming from her dead old man, and she is such a genius that she just knows how all the traps work in the tombs. But thats her job. She is a Tomb Raider. Apparently this is a title that goes on Business Cards. Cast members refer to her as The Tomb Raider. It falls so flat it makes me want to scream. Anyway, Lara uses her psychic powers to figure out all the traps and secrets, and then she shoots the hell out of zillions of bad guys (be they human, robot, or stone monster) and escapes with only a few scratches. Which are magically healed by the countless friends that her father (who apparently was more influential then the whole rest of the illuminati having left behind clues, ghosts, and friends to help his beloved daughter on her quest. Never mind that some of them were born after his death. He's a magic man).
So, in summary. This movie was absolute crap. Avoid it like the plague. Every nickel you give to this movie is a nickel more that they can use to justify another moronic brainless badly scripted badly acted shoddily assembled knockoff crapfest. Or worse, a Sequel. Run in terror. Please.
Thinking that the movie, "Tomb Raider" was going to be a historical documentary about the time when God and his angel buddies jump-started Jesus' heart 2,000 years ago and robbed His grave in the greatest "tomb raid" of all time, I went into the theater with religious anticipation. "Hollywood was finally going to do an accurate, factual, historical film about the resurrection," I thought. "They finally woke up and smelt the blood of Christ." After all, I thought, if John Travolta can make propaganda for something as outrageous as so-called "Scientology" with Battlefield Earth, isn't there room for a blockbuster about a religion for heterosexuals, too? Well, I couldn't have been more wrong!
It's been over 2,000 years and we're still talking about the angels raiding the tomb of Christ. Mark my words (Matthew, Luke and John my words, too if you like!), not even unsaved trash is going to be talking about the film, "Tomb Raider," two weeks from now. But the problem is that that is time enough for millions of American Christian children to visit their local multiplex and have their brains pumped full of the shocking sacrilege that the angels who flocked to our Savior's dead side wore shorty-shorts that would make Daisy Duke blush and tight, sleeveless t-shirts without appropriate support and concealment of their perky, nubile bosoms. Those messages will stick like last night's gum in the cranium. Innocent minds will be polluted, and Satan's team of experts in Hollywood will rejoice in turning another batch of moviegoers into an organized army of hell bound tattooed liberals.
It is obvious to a man of God like myself, trained in spiritual discernment that the very name of the main character of the film - Angelina -- should have given the whole thing away. Now, I don't know this "Angelina Jolie" young lady, but I assume that off-screen she is probably a lovely, chaste young lady in a modest Christian marriage. But the director of this movie has taken this sweet, innocent creature and forced her to do appalling, trampy things not witnessed by humanity since Mrs. Patsy Ramsey last picked up her camcorder. In scene after degrading scene, Miss Jolie acts completely inappropriate for her gender (like smart-mouthing a UPS delivery man - and winning in battles against the Lord's preferred gender, male). And I don't know which mortuary they recruited the make-up people from, but they made Miss Jolie's lips look they got stuck in the wrong end of her Electrolux last time she was sprucing up her rumpus room!
Everyone knows that angels are the only ones who have the authority to raid a tomb and help themselves to jewelry. Satan knows that too, and when he cast this movie, he made dead sure he'd hock up another wad of spit and aim it at the face of Christ by casting an "Angel-ina" to make real angels look like gender confused sluts, hopped-up on hormones, on a militant lesbian-feminist "I HATE MEN AND KILL MY BABIES" shooting rampage. Lucifer! You ain't fooling me. I know what you're up to. And I'm telling everyone what you're doing! And there ain't a thing you can do about it!
SPOILERS AHEAD, FOLKS: I'm going to give the whole movie away right now. Readers, Satan is getting his Angelina "Jollies" out of teasing Christians into seeing a film they think is about the only real "tomb raid" that ever took place. This movie is about a woman who travels back in time to steal the underwear of historical figures so she can sell them on E-Bay. She, no doubt, picked up this mercenary knack for turning the sacred into quick cash from the Roman Catholics. Jesus' t-back thong-style unmentionable is found to have so much power that simply waving it in the air can not only fend off demons and stop rivers, it can also shut MSNBC's Chris Matthews up for a full minute.
The climax of the movie is when Angelina finally enters the tomb of Christ to steal his blessed, yet alarmingly provocative loincloth. It is then that we find out about her real plan - to fill a vial around her neck with the blood of Christ! In a fiendish scheme to thwart the salvation of millions of Americans, she plans to replicate the DNA of Christ and clone millions of Jesuses, setting them loose in cities throughout the United States. She concocts this nefarious plot with the knowledge that if most modern Americans met the real Jesus they would regard Him as uncouth liberal trash, rebuff Him and thereby assure their damnation! But the Lord intervenes by replacing the blood of His Son with the blood of a scraggly, heroin addict in Hollywood who always wears a ball cap.
This movie will give you nothing but 2 hours of lustful looks, pants and skirts flying all over the place, shots of exposed knees and elbows, sexually suggestive back packs, naked statues, and the brazen harlotry and absolute gall of this "so-called" woman with the power to raid only what God has ordained the angels in heaven to raid - tombs!
The only thing inherently Christian about this movie is that it teaches the proper use of firearms in close-range, sniper rifle, and distance shooting. There are also some liberal, pansy gun safety tips (which I booed and the audience could have well done without being subjected to).
Hey does this look STRIKINGLY SIMILIAR to katz's review or what?
user review on imdb.com
"Date: 16 June 2001
Summary: Just barely worth taking out of the Tomb
Video games are now a multi-billion dollar industry, with a fan base Numbering in the millions. So its no surprise that Hollywood has tried to tap into this audience. However with the exception of 1995's "Mortal Kombat," their attempts have mostly been met with dismal failure. Remember "Street Fighter," "Wing Commander" or the embarrassment that was the "Super Mario brother's" movie? I didn't think so. Audiences stayed away in droves from these bottom feeding movies. And this really shouldn't be a surprise. Most of the games in question have exceedingly thin storylines. However, this is not a problem with the `Tomb Raider' series.
Lara croft is a wealthy, globe-trotting archeologist in the vein of Indiana Jones. Plenty of opportunity for intriguing storylines here.
And indeed the movie's plot is fairly interesting. But its not riveting either. And this is a problem that plagues the entire movie.
I was strangely ambivalent throughout the entire film. While I enjoyed Angelina Jolie's performance -- the rest of the cast's was nothing to write home about. The action scene's were well done -- but too few and far between. In the final analysis -- director Simon west should have taken a cue from the video game -- and pumped up the pacing of the movie. As it plays now -- "Tomb Raider" the movie isn't the most exciting game in town. 3 STARS OUT OF 5."
Nixter, you're a pathetic plagiarist.
What is true is that the total revenue of the videogame industry from all sources (games, books, consoles, hardware, etc.) is now more than the box office revenue of the movie industry. Of course, this ignores the tiny little profits the movie industry makes from rentals, sales, toys, licensing properties, etc.
The game industry has a long ways to go before it actually beats the movie industry in total revenue.
it might be just me, but i dont remember playing or hearing of any game that resembled "The Mummy Returns"
Mr. Cranky has the most insightful review.
Well, that doesn't mean all people are like you, your son, wife etc? Personally I prefer Taco's review as it surely smells more up to the point than Katz rumbling.
Whats wrong with tits?
Personally, I'll take a minority view on "Tomb Raider".
Anyone else notice this line in pretty much all Katz reviews, positive or negative? I think he feels comfort in knowing that his tastes are different from the 'masses'. Actually, I think he reads real reviews of movies before going to see it to determine the general media appeal of the movie, then decides he will do the opposite of them, whether that is to like or hate it. I can't figure out if that is his plot, or if he tries to guess what the Slashdot readers thought and appeal to them. I figure that can't be it because every review (and does anyone ever actually comtemplate how low a person's career has sunk when they are writing Sunday morning movie reviews for _SLASHDOT_???) gets knocked on by practically everyone here. I have not seen the movie, but this review hardly made me want to. Its target demographic is much younger and much more male than myself. It also seems that some weeks, "mindless fun" as Katz so eloquently puts it is just fine (this week), but not other weeks (Mummy Returns). Anyway, do NOT see this film please, Taco's review seemed honest and funny enough. If he doesn't like it, NOONE will. (except katz apparently)
Good point, except for one thing. Taco's review was not so much butting in (IMHO) as augmenting. There were two separate reviews here, just like in the old days. See theonion.com's point, counterpoint.
:)
Oh, and chill out dude
Bounce ya' boobies.
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And remember, don't look at your hands.
Signed
Your Fiends in Bavaria & Shadowvision
ttyl
Farrell, Erisian
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Hey, that's my line!
Kallisti!
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
I am confused by the bad review given this movie by CmdrTaco and other critics. Giving a bad review to Angelina Jolie is simply baffling to me. How is this possible?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
And, hey, you Brits aren't any better. I still laugh at Monty Python skits where one of them was pretending to be an American (and it's not because of the humour). Especially the "Big Business Boardroom" scene from the Crimson Assurance skit.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Unlike most heroines, Xena doesn't expect anything from anybody. Lara Croft expects men to win the bread. She expects to fall off the rope bridge and wait for a man to save her.
Xena doesn't rely on men to provide her every clue on how to do something. Lara Croft lives in her dad's mansion and needs on her dad's love notes to find the focus ring on her binoculars.
Xena doesn't weigh 60 lbs and vibrate like a violin string in every gust of wind. Lara Croft needs to eat a sandwich.
Xena makes facial expressions and takes chances normally reserved for a male hero. Lara Croft just makes flirty expressions while lying on her boyfriend's naked chest.
Lara Croft earns partial income as a photojournalist. Xena supports herself and her sidekick fully and if she lived in 2001 she would be an engineer.
Well, IMNSHO, the movie was GREAT.
Many movies that are inspired by games just go to far in trying to make the game believable, and go into explaining SO much so. Not this one.. From shot one, its just born on the screen. No need to have even SEEN the game to watch the movie.
And amazingly, it actually manages to be faithfull to the game at the same time. Sorry Cmdr Taco, but this time, your SO wrong.
To each their own, but this is one good movie..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Hence the line by Cary Elwes in "Robin Hood: Men in Tights"
And unlike some other Robin Hood's, I can actually do a British accent
To be honest, I don't even remember Costner even trying to do an accent in Robin Hood, but it's been a long while since I've seen it.
Near the end of compositing tons of CGI together, someone said "Hey...we should at least pretend to add a plot to this." So they added him in at the last minute...probably some 16 script kiddie with a pirated copy of LightWave :)
I was seriously disappointed by the Scorpion King. Tim Curry in Legend was much more impressive.
The only thing "The Mummy Returns" was inspired buy was the FX guys going "Hey...look what we can do."
Hollywood has a long tradition of frankly appalling British accents, from Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins" through Keanu Reeves in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (quite possibly the worst example in living memory) to modern example like this and Renée Zellweger in "Bridget Jones' Diary". They are dramatically over the top, competely unplaceable or just plain laughable (back to Mr Reeves again there!).
How can you forget the execrable performances of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Christian Slater, and Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves? They should have been bitch slapped every time they attempted a British accent.
On a personal note I went to England a while back and got to meet some brits. On the way to a pub I asked if I good my fake british accent a try. They said sure and I did. Well, they said they could tell no difference between my mid-west accent and my fake brit attempt. I was crushed. I thought I did it pretty good. My guess is they were being polite. At least we still went to the pub and got pissed.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
of what Slashdot stories were like before I turned off Mr Malda.
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Yeah, but they're all insane anyway.
Listen, she's a 36C, which would have cut it, in my book. They gave her a padded bra, which made her a 36D (one cup size short of the 36DD that Lara Croft supposedly is...which I think is crap. She's way bigger than that.)
In any case, I agree with Taco. The movie was a great big bag of ass. It wass ass-tastic. Ass-alicious. It was composed almost entirely out of ass. One could say, even, that it was RIFE with ass.
And not the good kind, either.
Of course! It's a teenage hormone-tweaking movie. You can't tell me you were actually expecting some truly good plot and decent character development. Not when all that most people have seen of Lara so far are T&A and some gunplay (not necessarily in that order).
But, believe it or not, Roger Ebert LIKED the movie. Now THAT floored me.
Was he impressed by the plot? Not really.
Did he like the depth of the characters? Not even close.
It's what he called a "popcorn movie".
Basically it's a movie that gives you non-stop action almost from start to finish. And you're so busy watching the screen to see what pops up next that you don't really have time to care wether or not the plot is swiss cheese, or that the character development is more shallow than the cracks in a sidewalk.
If you went to see Tomb Raider for anything other than the T&A and the action, you went for the wrong reasons.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I guess Lara Croft is Brithish... so she should be using 9mm x19 version of H&K USP Match. At least you have 15 magazine... besides 9mm x19 shells are much better than .45...
He can come down from Mount Olympus and make a, *gasp*, post, can't he? If he wants to argument or counterargument he can do so like everyone else, can't he?
Hail Eris! Hail Discordia!
RA Wilson must be rolling over in his... oh, wait, he's still alive... RA Wilson should be howling for compensation from these plagarists!
And, why does everything she touch in the movie break? She's as bad as Spike in Bebop, and always makes these little moans after things explode. Crazy girl with those collagen lips...
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
John compares TR to video games, pop culture, etc., and in a surprising turn of events ends up not making much sense.
Taco compares TR to what a movie should be compared to - good movies. And unsurprisingly, TR turns up short.
Also, I like Taco's frankness regarding the T&A. Hey, I'll admit it too - I like T&A. Isn't it kinda sad when a movie for which this is a major draw screws that up too?
The enemies of Democracy are
This is offtopic, but I've got a couple of points:
1. You're making a big ol' blanket statement about Wayne State students, aren't you? Beware generalizations. After all, college is what you make it.
2. I'm not entirely sure what operator type thingy you're trying to get across with "e ta da tee." Presumably [something]/dt ?
3. It's a bit arrogant to assume you're more intelligent than someone just because they speak with a regional dialect, as you imply.
That's it for now. I'm out.
Wombat.
"Y end paranthesis X? NOW THAT'S FUNNY!" - Einstein in 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile'
My sister said of Angelina Jolie in Tomb Raider; "If I were to go that way, she'd be the one"
Should I worry? Heheh
--- http://foo.ca
Armaggedon was a blockbuster.
Pearl Harbour is a blockbuster
Mission to Mars was.
Red Planet attempted to be one
and so on.
So I'm sure you'll agree that if you think this was awful, it was definately a blockbuster.
--- http://foo.ca
Road Trip, Freddie Got Fingered, Scary Movie, Armaggedon, Red Planet, Mission to Mars, The Animal, Deuce Bigalow, My Myself and Irene, Sixth Day, any movie with cross-promotions at McDonalds or Burger King (whoops... Atlantis?), A Knight's Tale, Dued Where's My Car, Joe Dirt, Mummy Returns, Pearl Harbour, and a number that are escaping me.... These are movies with no saving graces. I only enjoyed 6th Day because it was like watching a travelogue of Vancouver, BC - one where we get to see them destroy our library. Other than that, it was a car wreck. I liked Tomb Raider. I wasn't going there looking for Shakespeare; I was expecting a genre film. One involving mystical monsters and shooting. Not unlike how I remember the Indiana Jones movies, but I wasn't expecting anything specific. I had no idea how the movie was going to progress; what little there was of plot was not given away in the first 5 minutes. This is more than I could say of the third Indian Jones movie, or of any Disney cartoon, or any of the movies I mentioned at the start of this post. Hell, I was pleasantly surprised to find any plot at all in Tomb Raider, and was grateful for it. CmdrTaco's brain has obviously been polluted by too much collect-and-trade-with-your friends of Disney memorabilia at fast food restaurants and ebay. I hate to say it, but I agree with Katz. Go see it at a matinee; at least they're generally cheaper.
--- http://foo.ca
The movie stunk. It was slow, and lacking plot, and the padding destroyed even the minor joys of being able to oggle Angelina.
However I noticed that there was a save point in the movie, when she meets her father's unknown Buddhist friend with magical powers. Many times I was left thinking, where's the controller.
I just saw the movie tonight, so it's fresh in my mind. There are several scenes in the movie where she reloaded her guns. She's got a little roll-out magazine rack that pops out of her backpack that she can quickly and easily drop out the empty magazines, flip the guns to her back and load them, pull them back up, and continue to fire. Pretty nifty trick. I'm surprised you missed it. They had a close up of the rack, too.
And the guns are strapped to her THIGHS - not her waist! What kind of Tomb Raider fan are you if you don't even recognize the thigh holsters? Jeez!
I liked the movie.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
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Is this "jon katz" a real person or one of those marketing produced talking heads? =)
..."
They butchered the orignal script so badly why bother to expect a good movie? "Let's make it more like lethal weapon 3. Lara needs a man! and chris rock as a sidekick, and stone monkeys, and
Brandon Lee
It's pretty much Enter the Dragon (one of his father's best films) with a techno soundtrack and a supernatural villain instead of one who's just maniacal. He was born to play this role, it's a pity he didn't live to do it.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
Eh? Estuary English is the bastard offspring of Cockney spoken by the people who moved out of East London to places like Thamesmead and Southend (on the Thames Estaury, natch), known for its glottal stops. Very different from the cut glass/RP accent that you very rarely hear, even on the BBC, these days, but Hollywood still imagines we all speak.
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
Don't take it personally, man - if it's not a New York or California accent, Hollywood is going to butcher it. For some reason, contemporary actors and actresses are under the impression that Foghorn Leghorn is an accurate representation of a Southern (US) accent. Just go rent Cape Fear to listen to DeNiro doing what is probably the worst assassination of a Southern accent in the history of film.
They can't even pull off regional accents from their own country - yours is going to be a total loss, I'm afraid...
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Well, don't feel too bad - Jon didn't even notice the obvious mistake in his own article:
As in the game, despite her access to some stunningly sophisticated firepower, Croft prefers the 9mm pistols strapped prominently to her hips, wielding them against robots, commandos, even supernatural creatures of yore. Only in the movie, she never runs out of ammo.
So, uh, in other words, that would be the same as the game, Jon?
In Tomb Raider (the game), the pistols never run out of ammo. Sheesh, you'd think if he was going to compare the movie to the game, he'd at least play it sometime.
Tim
That's "Goal-post Head" actually.
It's a reference to how the H looks like the goal-posts for Rugby football.
Tim
but CmdrTaco is sooo right on this one. I've played all 5 of the games, and this movie was just awful. I went in expecting very little, maybe not as much plot as even one of the games, and I was still disappointed. It was just boring. No, make that BORING. Incredibly bad effects, dull acting, and no story whatsoever. The original Tomb Raider would have made a much better story to base a movie off of. Natla, at least, was a baddie that was interesting. If you are a big fan of the games, and just have to see it, wait until it's at the dollar theatres, or rent it. It's not even worth matinee prices. Yecch.
I never played past III. The first was the best, the second was alright. I never finished the third. It became too much of a rehash. I heard about the others, but I was not overly impressed. They need to add more to the games.
On another note, it was interesting that there was no wholesale slaughter of endangered animals in the movie, as there is in the video games.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
I admit that I was pleased that Chris Barrie (A.K.A "Rimmer" from Red Dwarf) played the part of the butler. Barrie is an awesome actor, unfortunatly it does not show in this movie, as he is basically playing Rimmer again.
I have played all 3 Tomb Raider games, and I can say Katz is correct. This is a rehash of the game. I felt myself looking for a controller to move Angela Jolie around... (Now thats not a bad idea...) If you have not played the games, then this movie will stink. In fact it DID stink, but I enjoyed it because I have played the games. I would reccomend you check it out on video, not the theater.
In summary, there is no plot. There is lots of action (with no consequence) there is expensive computer animation that, unfortunatly LOOKS like computer animation. There are more rounds fired in this movie than in all the Robocop and Rambo movies combined - yet no human ever seems to get hit...
Jolies accentuated padding is actually obvious, as is the patch that covers her "billy bob" tattoo. This movie is all about T&A and action. And that is it.
I would say that the only thing I liked about was Chris Barrie. Its good to see him get more exposure as an actor.
The whole irony to this is that the first Tomb Raider Game, actually had a plot, and a purpose. Even the violence inherient in the game made sense. This movie made no sense.
Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
OK. She gets a note from her dead dad, "You must destroy both parts of the triangle." Why? If she destroys one, then the movie is over. So you have to wonder why in the hell she gets the first triangle half and keeps it. Oh, later on someone suggests that she could use the triangle herself to see her dead dad. Hello! Perhaps that might have made it seem reasonable to not destroy the first half right away.
The opening robot fight scene was absolutely idiotic. It would have been much better to introduce her father at that point and set up the movie a little.
Good point, except for one thing. Taco's review was not so much butting in (IMHO) as augmenting. There were two separate reviews here, just like in the old days. See theonion.com's point, counterpoint.
Taco: "Jon, you ignorant slut!"
Actually she's a 34 C. Which is nice anyway.
He said, "You'll be able to tell your grandchildren that you helped assemble the first NT supercomputer," and I cringed.
Not all the credits panned it. Roger Ebert gave it 3 stars, in recognition that while the plot is mindless, it's got some great action sequences and cool set pieces.
How is this different from if I had not seen the film?
;)
So who is this Tom Braider guy, and why is Angelina Jolie in his movie? And what's with that cartoon girl all over Tom Braider's web site?
(Don't call me a karma whore; i'm already at 50)
--
--
Mod up a post Rob doesn't like and you'll never mod again
RP does exist yes, but I am still arguing that American actors cannot pull it off. RP is placeable, it is placed in the Public School system (as you said) with a high degree in the Home Counties.
American Actors generally can't do that one either. IMHO she aimed for it and missed.
I'll give Angelina Jolie credit for doing a reasonable british accent
Actually I'd give her credit for doing a reasonable charicature of a British accent. As usual the British character in a Hollywood movie has developed that British accent which doesn't exist in Britain.
The problem is that Britain has many quite different accents. They can can change dramatically within 20 miles (my native Warwickshire has no accent even remotely like that of Birmingham, a mere 20 miles away). Time and time again Hollywood ends up with a slightly upper class accent that is far too neutral. If it can't be placed it doesn't exist. When you go to see films like this in Britain it is quite easy to hear the giggling in the cinema - and no they aren't giggling at any jokes.
Hollywood has a long tradition of frankly appalling British accents, from Dick Van Dyke in "Mary Poppins" through Keanu Reeves in "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (quite possibly the worst example in living memory) to modern example like this and Renée Zellweger in "Bridget Jones' Diary". They are dramatically over the top, competely unplaceable or just plain laughable (back to Mr Reeves again there!).
I'm sorry, but people from the US have an idea of what the British accent is. Unfortunatley that accent is usually quite far off the mark. It is very rare indeed that an actor from the US pulls it off - and IMHO this is another case of just not managing it.
At first glance, I thought you had recommended Firefox, starring Clint Eastwood.
cpeterso
Taco didn't like it.
It's just a hunch.
Thank Eris SOMEONE could inject a little perspective into this gripe fest.
And I thought all I was seeing was various aspects of Angelina Jolie's marvelous figure in full motion. I did not realize it needed a plot...
A good movie, even with all the overhead of a plot and characters.
Just remember 2 rules:
1. Never see a movie that is based on a video game.
2. Never play a video game that is based on a movie.
Where the value of X-Mailer: is the true measure of a man...
If I were you I would be thanking Rob. If you listened to Jon; and dropped nine dollars on this steaming turd transfered to film; you would want to hunt him down and beat him to death with a Tomb Raider action figure.
I just read an article in the local newspaper that Shore is shopping around for studios to buy the movie he produced, directed and acted in. *shudder*
I realize... The movie is supposed to be a comedy. And Pauly isn't funny ... and he's a bad actor ... and he was in Biodome ... that's three strikes ...
I haven't yet seen the movie, so I haven't formulated my own opinion of the movie ... but I did have critical observation to make here.
Yes, I know this is Malda's site. Yes, I know that gives him "creative" rights to do whatever he wants. But come on. Butting in on someone else's review? Ugh.
That descends even below whatever line of decency any of us might have any hope of sharing.
Sorry, moderate me as off topic, but this just annoyed me. Get your own damn site to review, taco!
oh wait. . .
They're rail guns, not beam weapons. They fire slugs of metal at enormously high speeds attained with (waves hands) magnetic effects.
Assault weapons with grenades are used in Half-life, quite possibly the best first-person shooter ever.
dave
I have never in my life seen a movie with such bad accents. While I admit I haven't driven to Fargo yet, I've been as to Grand Forks and I don't remember anybody sounding that stupid...
Sorry, Angelina, but....as comic book guy would say:
"Worst career move ever"
:)
1) Fit Laura Croft's body ... ANSWER: Asia Carrera ... ANSWER:Asia Carrera - if she doesn't know now she would be able to figure it out ... ANSWER:Asia Carrera ... actually I am now ashamed to say I have never seen her films. Alas she was not in either Night Trips I or II, Latex, Shock, Chameleon, ...
2) Know how to operate a 9mm gun
3) Act
Maintain a questioning attitude
I believe Juanita
thats nice until your daughters tell you they want implants and are starving themselves to look like barbie dolls. is this really the image we want weomen to model themselves after? flip through any magazine and you see the wafelike starved calvinclein models looking at you. kids see this and think: "man i'm too fat, if i want to be accepted as beautiful i'm going to have to starve myself and get plastic sugery". it's really odd to have my 11 year old sister ask me if i think she is fat. i respond with "no, turn off mtv and read a book".
i agree that strong role models are good but i really dont think that laura is a good role model from every perspective.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
now-familiar archaeologist/scholar as adventurer. (Why are all of these archaeologists so rich in movies? And so brave?)
I can answer that.
Because the a poor, fearful archaeologist would only have enough funds and courage to venture to the end of the street. It's going to be difficult to find the ruins of ancient civilizations there.
- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
I saw TR last night and I did like it. It makes me really sad to have you guys just trashing it up and down. I'm not sure what you want.
.sig go? Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
I look at TR as a fantasy. It was basically based on a fantasy type video game, yes? So the bad guys are bad, because they're bad; it's a tautology. Why are the bad guys in any fantasy novel bad. Usually, the same reason. They're just evil/non-human/whatever.
Frankly, I was totally vibed to see a movie where they the didn't try to sell me totally unbelievable action as if it were somehow real. Contrast with:
Mission Impossible--Jumped off exploding helicopter to moving train and didn't get killed by the explosion?
Matrix--That dead guy came back to life just in time to save their butts. Give a break. Not to mention the "I love you" resuscitation.
Armageddon--They jump a trench with that crawler AND survive a massive meteor shower. And those are just two of the stupid plot points I remember.
If you didn't like the love interest, contrast with any movie where the characters don't even like each other and get together in the end. Or where they spend two movie-hours in relationship angst (where we see no real love developing) and get together at the end anyway. Her father was the love interest, and that was developed throughout the movie.
And speaking of angst, frankly I was grateful to enjoy an action movie, where I didn't have to feel tense the whole time. This totally in contrast to movies like Armageddon. How liberating to have a movie be FUN!
TR fits in the same class as movie based on comic books. The Shadow, The Phantom, The X-men (which had too many characters so that no one was developed adequately; see, you never win).
AND SINCE I HAVE THE FLOOR, I think I'll end with an angry remark: I don't think I'll ever submit anything to SlashDot. It was totally out of line to stomp on his review by adding a second review on the tail just because you have the power.
How does that
today: Tomb Raider starring Angelina Jolie
tomorrow: Rick Dangerous starring Sylvester Stallone
Ambitious indeed.
The article has pushed to my conciousness a realization. I have a confession to make. I take guilty pleasure at seeing critics rip this movie apart. I WANT it to fail. Badly.
Its not Angelina Jolie. Its not the idea of taking a game and trying to stretch the premise into a full feature movie. Its that they're trying to wrap sex, gamer culture, and special effects around an extended commercial and glaze it with the usual "blockbuster must-see" Hollywood hype. Its a bitter pill to swallow. A horse pill, at that.
I remember coming across an article on pronunciation in newscasts, and that CNN also has their own methodology to finding the proper accent for broadcasting.
:) like any country, localized accents become the stereotype of a nation)
Apparently Canadian reporters can do well in the US because the natural accent suits the needs of the broadcasting industry there well.
(note: for the ignorant, this does not involve pronouncing about like aboot.
From the country that bought us Ebonics and David Spade movies! *shudder*
I was brought up speaking received pronunciation. I still can, when I want to put down some under-educated oik, such as now. But in Britain today, no-one who does not wish to be deliberately offensive uses RP - it's a great accent to be offensive in.
I haven't actually seen this movie - yet, although on the basis of these reviews I probably shall; but if Jolie does speak RP in it that is - shall we say - not a very probable representation of modern Britain. Not, of course, that this film is seeking to be probable, so why pick nits?
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
You seemingly have an odd sense of what a "summer blockbuster" means. This movie was absolutely horrible. The special effects don't rival anything I've seen and were done extremely poorly. All in all I'd have to agree with the latter review done by Cmdrtaco. This movie was a movie I could of probably watched on Scifi.
Hey, my family and friends saw it withe me. Excellent movie, hundreds of times better than Lost in Space and better than X-Men (the whole movie developing the characters)
I'm a gamer and I thought this movie fucking sucked. BIG time. I only went because my fiancee thought it had potential for actually showing a strong female lead character. Instead, I get a same old big boobs, tight shorts, cocky swagger, no-good-acting, up-on-the-screen-to-please-the-15-year-old-horny-b oys, bitch. I ended up wishing I could fall asleep during most of the DULL and BORING action scenes, but I couldn't because the annoying background music was like a screw being drilled into my head. Did someone say this movie had a great SOUNDTRACK? I guess so, if you think music has no purpose but to add a dull drone of sound to the background of mediocre, nay, nauseatingly bad acting.
What the fuck was Jon smoking??? You GO Taco! You're the only one on this site with any integrity. Kick all the rest off and take Slashdot back to what it was in the glory days! At least get rid of that pompous bastard Katz. The man can't get a job at a SERIOUS journal source. Why should we have to read his crap? It's a fucking MOVIE. You don't have to pull your self-righteous geek shit in the review of some 3rd rate MOVIE.
God, what has this site turned into?
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
it Could have been much better, almost tolerable, just remake it as an R. :) I'll go and see it
I'm from Sweden and have travelled extensively over many parts of the world. I have never been anywhere where it's so hard to get by on my English as Scotland (I should probably say Glascow). Sure, they understand what I say, but it's very rare for me to get what they say. And you can't ask them to switch to English, cuz that is what they're already speaking.
After 3 days, I got on a train to Greece, never to return.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Heheh. 5'th element the movie becomes a game.
:)
Tomb Raider the game becomes a movie.
Somehow I think 5'th Element is better as a movie, and Tomb Raider should stick to being a game
Nevrar
Nice of Taco to jump in here.... just what we need TWO reviews in one (and no chance for Katz to respond since he doesn't have the POWER).
I saw Tomb Raider last night and enjoyed it. Not only did *I* enjoy it, but my wife, my 18-yr-old son, our two friends (in their 30s) and their three sons (12 down to 5). Nope.. it wasn't Dr. Zhivago but it was fun. Even watching Lara's boobs sway when she ran was fun.
Katz was right on with this movie... it's meant as fun and not great cinema. Taco needs to learn to keep his finger off that button.
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Someone thought that was insightful? Aack. Some people have no sense of humor.
Thank you, that was my point (well, my real point was to nitpick Katz for the error of casually referring to all semi-automatics as 9mms), but I'm obliged to you for bothering to explain more fo the background than I bothered to do so. The Tomb Raider Tech Manual as referenced by CaptainFlyingToaster may say Lara's guns are 9mm, but the guns she's actually carrying are .45s. Personally I've seen some nice match-accessorized Browning Hi-Powers that would have been quite photogenic enough.
Umm, not all semiautomatic pistols are 9mms. She's using match versions of the H&K .45 pistol the US military adopted for the elite units (SEAL, Delta, etc). Come on, get obvious details right.
1 _p istols/01_07_index.html
http://www.heckler-koch.de/html/english/civil/0
(exposed URL, cut&paste to see the gun)
Lara does run out of ammo at least once when it's inconvenient, and does reload frequently. I can't believe I'm defending the realism of a videogame-turned-movie, but it's honestly not as bad as the old western "sixty-six shooters" or the never needs recahrging energy packs of most sf blaster/laser weapons.
I want to formally protest the blackening of the Illuminati's name by being portrayed as the bad guys in so many movies, openly here in Tomb raider and in thinly-disguised slanders in so many other films and novels. Just because you're a secret underground society, it makes defending your name and good works ever so much harder...ahem, sorry.
News for Nerds. Stuff that matters and other stuff
Get a free ipod.
Hey Taco, what makes high school kids so bad at writing dialog? I'm sure the average hich school kid could write better prose than the stuff you churn out. One thing is for certain - a degree is not an assurance of skill with the English language.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
...The game wasn't very good...
...The game was'nt very good...
...who expected any different?
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Not to bash the game all out, as I remember before the first game came out I was so looking forward to it. Maybe I was caught up in the hype, or maybe it was just that I was looking for something new instead of something rehashed.
Then when I got the game (Both on the Saturn and PC) I was very disappointed. Thinking it might just be the versions, I tried the Playstation version and asside from minor visual and control issues the game just seriously failed to impress me.
A few dozen sequals later I was sick of the whole Tomb Raider thing. Now the movie is out and I've already got a bad taste left over from the first game.
I didn't need a review to tell me the movie sucked, but I'm glad a few negative reviews have saved me from giving in to curiosity.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I went into the movie expecting crap. Not Duece Bigalow crap, but The Patriot crap. But while Duece Bigalow was funny and gave us some laughs Tomb Raider just ate asshole. All the times that we were expected to laugh I just sadly shook my head. There was nothing funny about this movie. All the times that Laura was locked in a desperate life-or-death struggle, I was bored stiff. Unlike the game there is no chance for the main character to die. You knew she was going to live through it all so there was no excitement or suspense. There was just an hour and a half of crap. I'm thankful that I saw it, though, for one reason. It gave me something to make fun of for a couple days. Seriously, if you haven't seen it yet, it was really bad. It was Pat the Movie bad. It was Wayne's World Part II bad.
Hmmm. Actually, it's in the game that her ammo never runs out. In the film, she has to reload magazines. And she never has access to any other firepower, because she can't unlock her gun cupboard.
As someone who enjoys great popcorn action movies, I have to say: Lara Croft: Tomb Raider sucks big time. Why?
1. Incoherent action sequences. For some reason, it is now fashionable to construct action sequences after the fact, in the editing room, rather than letting the camera shoot properly choreographed action in the first place. This was the worst aspect of Gladiator, eg, where the fast-cutting close-ups precluded any understanding of the spatial logic of those fights. It's even worse in this movie. We don't understand - and therefore don't care - how Lara moves about and wins fights.
2. Not enough violence. I know they wanted to make this a kiddies' film, but over the course of the entire movie, Lara only kills one person. It's like a (bad) episode of The A-Team.
3. Not enough sex. Angelina Jolie only wears hotpants in the first scene. Shame. The one interesting part of her characterisation, meanwhile, is a sort of pseudo-sexual moan she makes whenever a situation is about to turn violent. This could have been an interesting way to go - make Lara a real psychopath - but it's never really exploited.
4. A stupid, stupid script. I don't just mean stupid like in all blockbusters - I mean much more stupid than something like Con Air. Just boring, incoherent and dull.
5. Bad special effects. So a six-armed giant Buddha comes to life, huh? Yeah, we saw that in Sinbad. And the CGI here pales in comparison to Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion monsters. It really does.
6. Crap monsters. Monkey statues coming to life? Never mind, they're really easy to kill. Hit 'em with a sword, shoot them, punch them - hell, even breathe on 'em, they'll fall over. Boring.
7. Er, did I mention it sucks really badly and in every possible way? Angelina Jolie is great, and she has some nice outfits, but she can't save the film single-handed. It really is terrible.
Taco's so cute when he's mad :P
Mike Roberto
- GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
Hollywood is lost in its own little world...
Non-geeks will enjoy it too, but this one is really for us. While you're there, check out some of her other reviews and chuck a buck or two in her paypal jar if you like them.
TomatoMan
-- http://frobnosticate.com
Hey, it's not Shakespeare, and hey, it's not even Raiders of the Lost Ark. But it's got gorgeous scenery, a gorgeous Laura, more of a plot than a lot of $100 million blockbusters, good action scenes, good backstory and most of all, it's FUN. Most amazing of all, my wife liked it.
The link leads to a site called "Celebrety Nude Database"!
;P
Now my life is complete!
Mvh:
- Knut S.
When Siskel died, so did any point to listening to movie critics.
Got Rhinos?
Indeedly oh. IMHO, the first Mortal Kombat movie was a good escapist Kung Foo movie. Right on about the sound track. MKII was just did not click with me, though, and I can't recommend it.
/. Doesn't anyone remember the fact that we (or at least the GNU apostles) are locked in a death-struggle with the MPAA? Every dollar we spend in the movie theater or the video store funds the MPAA's lawyers.
Even as I am writing this, I think it disturbing that movie reviews are given any prominence here on
It seems to me that we as a concerned community should not be doing anything to help our enemies. Don't see any movies, period.
Just my $.02
~Religion is O.K., as long as it gets you laid.
...so basically, I gather that when my brain's fried and I really want to watch a movie that has no plot at all, but instead a basic shoot-em-up with the main character being a Barbie doll, this would be the movie to see, huh?
I'll give Angelina Jolie credit for doing a reasonable british accent, but lets be honest, she was hired because she's a flavor of the month. WHich makes it even more sad that the real point of this movie (Lara's T&A) is padded. And padded so much that when packed into her traditionally tight t-shirt, she looks so much like a toy that I just wanted to scream.
Well, I mean, come on! Do you really expect that Hollywood could fine someone who could
1) Fit Laura Croft's body
2) Know how to operate a 9mm gun
3) Act
...and on top of it all, have a good British accent?
I think you have a better chance of finding a movie company that is in favor of DeCSS.
Don't have to think hard for an actress that would not need padding....
Jeri Ryan from Deep Space Nine. I'd pay 8 bucks to see how those things move when they are not constrained to a Starfleet uniform...
Alright, I had to give up my chance to moderate in this story in order to point this out:
These statements are stolen nearly verbatim from Harry Knowles' review on Aint It Cool. Now moderate the idiot back down to -1, please.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
I might as well give my take on the movie. Basically, IT'S A FUCKING POPCORN FLICK, GODDAMMIT! It's not supposed to be a "film" or have any pretensions to greatness. It's entertainment, the kind of mindless entertainment that everyone except whiny pretentious little bitches like the geek comic book store guy on *The Simpsons* likes to watch every once in a while. Sometimes we want a little escapism with pretty scenery and totally outrageous and unrealistic themes and actions and characters. Sometimes this takes the form of things which actually have literary merit, like *Lord of the Rings*, or filmic value, like *Return of the Jedi*. However, the desire to be entertained and escape into a mythic universe for a couple hours is separate from any other value a movie or book may have, except for overly pretentious geeks like our friend from 'The Android's Dungeon'.
It's only that kind of poor, misguided soul who could nitpick a movie or book whose sole goal is to be enjoyable, mindless pulp fiction. You don't have to be mindless to enjoy it--you just have to want to let your frontal lobes relax after a hard bout of life, and let the more base parts enjoy a little tit, ass, action, fantasy, etc. And that's the kind of movie this was meant to be. It never tried to be more, so slamming it for being what it was intended to be is just bullshit.
After all, as someone who's seen it, I can say that it was far more entertaining than a movie like *The Phantom Menace*, which not only was a bad movie and bad science fiction, it tried to be a "film" and failed miserably. The only people who weren't disappointed in Episode I were hardcore SW and SF fans and very young children who couldn't comprehend the movie's failings and liked the shiny things and the stupid sidekick. Conversely, the only people who *are* disappointed in *Tomb Raider* are the pretentious geeks who wanted it to be serious SF or more geek-nitpicker friendly, and the critics who want all movies to be "films" with some sort of artistic, dramaturgical, or serious comedic, value, instead of accepting the truism that sometimes an entertaining movie can just be an entertaining mopvie without having to have some other value. The critics who realize that sometimes it's OK to let our higher reasoning parts take a rest and just let our visceral instincts have some mindless fun--like Roger Ebert--acknowledge that this is a good three-star action/adventure. It isn't a *Raiders of the Lost Ark*, but it does deliver the action and adventure it promises. And just because you *can* load an action/adventure movie with more meaningful themes, to make it into an Indiana Jones type film, doesn't mean you have to or even should.
If you want action and adventure and entertainment you don't have to and shouldn't analyze, then this is your summer action flick. I'f you're a nitpicking dork who can't just relax for a couple hours and enjoy it, then don't bother going. But the suggestion that all entertainment has to have some filmic or literary meaning is just plain misguided. Sometimes we want art and meaning, and sometimes we want to watch shit blow up and watch calves flex and tits strain. Criticizing *Tomb Raider* for not having a less stretchy plot and more filmic meaning is like criticizing *Holly Fucks Beavertown* or most Jackie Chan movies (though a few rhave deeper value) for the same reason.
I don't want Hollywood to *only* make mindless titty-filled action flicks. But I also wouldn't want them to *only* make meaningful films. It's like comparing RPGs that take some knowledge and thought to FPS that take mostly brute reflex and quick motor skills but only rudimentary strategic skills. Again, sometimes you want to think, and sometimes you want to see stuff explode.
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."--Tacitus, *The Annals*
That was worth my 8 bucks right there. Not to mention some other things, like nearly nude jolie, and tons of action, but those took a back seat to Rimmer in my book.
-Kai Rasmussen Life, Don't talk to me about life. Here I am, Brian the size of a Planet, and it is Can you pick up the
Absolutely the worst movie I've seen since Wing Commander.
Vote Libertarian
It is the "proper" pronounciation tought in public school to children. Until the late 80's the BBC would not let anyone on their news broadcasts who could not speak in this way. It is also called "BBC English".
I am not trying to defend American actors who butcher British accents, I am simply saying that there is a very prominent accent in Britain which has no direct regional analogue. I find it hard to believe that someone in Britain has not heard of RP, even if he or she hasn't gone to a public school. Look it up sometime, the teaching of RP has a very interesting history.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
"Were you expecting another Doctor Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia?"
2 >here</A> for Aint it cool's scoop from last october.
Actually, the director of the film, Simon West, exclaimed triumphantly to the press last fall that the inspirations for this film were Dr. Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia, and the Conformist.
Don't believe me? Check <A HREF=http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=730
Come on, Tinkler, Tink!!
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
i don't see anyone else butting in on your articles.
why not just let the man have his say, just like you had your say?
that's the single most childish thing i've ever seen taco do.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
So everyone who hated pearl harbor was wrong because they should have expected a complete waste of three hours? And they all should have given it ***** because as a complete waste of three hours it did a fine job?
SF Chronicle reviewer suggested that the best special effect in the movie was Lara's bra; I nominate it for the Worst Special Effect. (Worse even than bad implants. Scary.) I do think it was sweet that her dad tried to rescue her in this one. Nice Father's Day movie, Jon.
OK, now what?
so is there some good reason that everyone on slashdot HAS to have the exact same opinion on everything?
Despite all the media yowling about violence in the movie, there really isn't much. There's hardly a drop of blood in the movie, and the shooting and kicking are cartoonish, not explicit.
Thak god for this. I think it's really important that movies show a lot of shooting, kicking, and general mayhem, but emphasize that there's no consequences to this.
It really pisses me off, the way Hollywood usually spends so much time emphasizing the shattered lives, broken bodies, and lost dreams that accompany real lethal violence. I'm glad this movie has chosen to take a stand, and make the point that you can shoot people without any blood, much less diminishing the world.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
This movie sucked total ass, if enough people fail to see it, we may be lucky enough to not be treated to a sequel.
Minesweeper : the movie
Solitaire part III.
Snake (featuring a giant anaconda attempting not to bite its tail)
Hunt the wumpus. This would be the worst game film ever made. You'd never even see the wumpus, just empty caves and a wumpus hunter.
I was in Wales once with a bunch of students from all over the UK, and even those from middle and southern England had several different accents. There was one guy fom northern England who I couldn't understand half the time.
Scotland is also the same way, with a variety of accents. Edinburgh and Glasgow are only about an hour apart by train, but have completely different accents.
Did anyone else use the nude patch for the movie? It's much better that way :)
Like sex? Read and write about it! Indecent Blogging
The action and gun fights were awesome, having a sexy lead actress didn't hurt the movie either. The story line does have a few weird twists and there are certain points where you are yelling for them to do something that in all the world makes perfect logic but of course it is a movie and they need a story line...
I give this movie a 3 out of 5, it looses points for lack of intelligence/class and has very strong points in it's action scenes.
Well what is to be said about this movie... First the accent; well let us think about this, when an actor must fake an accent they have a few months to (psudo) learn it and then they have to shoot, and the accent can't change. When, however, you come from that land and have spoken with that accent for all your lives of course it will sound different. I have acted and acting depends on stereotypes -- not reality. If an actor pulls off a real Brittish accent it will not sound like what an AMERICAN audience believes is a Brittish accent. However, I don't believe AJ pulled off either a fake or real Brit accent that well anyways. But you know what... it is a game to movie movie and that means one thing: don't expect ANYTHING. If you went into the movie expecting anyting more than crap you are gullable or neive (probably both) and should realize that you need to think about the roots of this problem. They have two groups of audience those who game and those who see whats popular (or liked the preview or something along those lines)... now if they wish to try and please their PRIMARY AUDIENCE they will stick to the game and not think about how bad a movie it makes (and other than RPG's not many games have plots that will translate to the screen in any way)... If they wish to please Joe the movie janitor who saw the preview and liked Jolies' Breasts (and you know Joe did) then you make some attempt at a plot and butcher the game beyond all belief... of course the end result is that the Director and Script writer will make some compromize between these two extremes but in the end it won't be very good if your expecting Shakespeare. Don't get me wrong it was a piece of crap but there was some effort made and maybe if the industry demands movies from games, then games will finally have better plots.
Bottom Line: if you want a game to movie experiance that makes you more than thrilled wait for "Final Fantasy: The Sprits Within," if you get free movies or have money to kill see the cheap show with low expectations and you might have a good time making fun of the gaping holes in the plot line. (just destroy the half you have Lara)
Stars: **/******
--MEB
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
I believe what was referred to as 'the Illuminati' in the film was actually based on the Golden Order of the Hermetic Dawn judging from their symbols, rights, and beliefs. Members have included such notoriety as Aleister Crowley.
Stumped yah....huh.
She was the best choice for the role
Worst movie... ever.
"After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." - Tao of Programming
It's another video game movie marketed at 13-17 year old males who like tits!
I'm 18 and I liked it! 13-17, bah.
Though how the hell the Mayans got to Cambodia, well that part was stretching even Hollywood creative license a bit.
Ever get the impression that your life would make a good sitcom?
Ever follow this to its logical conclusion: that your life is a sitcom?
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
"I'm a 36C. In the game, she's a 36DD. In the movie, she's a 36D. So, we split the difference and made her more athletic." - AJ
x .h tml?fresh
http://icq.eonline.com/Celebs/Qa/Jolie2001/inde
is the source and also includes "her breasts are the stuff of legends"
On to address the breast-size issue: The # is the measurement around the ribcage, and letter is the number of additional inches around the breast (ie, the difference) except that for some reason they use DD instead of E, because they can't do math. This means that a 34C and a 36C have the same depth (surface-to-ribcage), and are presumably the same size, but the 34C will look bigger (esp from any distance) because the only thing giving it scale will be the girl, who's smaller. This is the nature of human perception of size. 34B-36C (four sizes) seem to be the most common sizes.
I can't believe I just posted that. I feel so sinful. (I can't tell whether it's from a long post about breasts, or from reading movie interviews on icq.eonline)
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
You say tits like they're bad or something. I'm a lifelong fan :)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I had no problem figuring out what was going on in the bungee scene, which I thought was pretty cool. And while the acting won't win any awards, it was better than the acting in Pearl Harbor. :-b
Oh, and Angelina Jolie (who may have *the* poutiest lips of any woman on the planet) played the character *perfectly*.
In short, I thought it was an entertaining film. :)
I don't care if the movie is any good I'm boycotting it anyway. Angelina Jolie is ugly and Lara Croft is supposed to be gorgeous. We've got way too many hot looking talented actresses so why not give them a shot? We're getting tired of the same faces in every movie.
"It was so predictable that Tomb Raider would get trashed by most critics, as it has, that the producers didn't even have the guts to screen this movie for critics in advance. That was a mistake. They have nothing to apologize for. Tomb Raider is great, silly fun. "
The producers of Tomb Raider have at least one thing to apologize for: an arctic scene without nipplage.
2 weeks ago (after one of Katz's poorer reviews) I wrote a comment to counter what Katz was going to say. He surprised me by stating basically what I wrote in his review. I guess it only applies to CmdrTaco's review since I agree with Katz. Note, I wrote the following without seeing the movie. Please substitute Katz with CmdrTaco wherever applicable...
I thought I could outguess Katz, but he surprised me. CmdrTaco fell for it, however so the following applies to him.
Don't forget to s/Katz/CmdrTaco/g; and I should have realized that there would be Matrix references in the review. I've yet to see an action movie review onKeeping
Actually I got it from a friend on Texags.com if you want to hear the truth. I have never read Ain't It Cool News. What is the url?
It was like watching a Star Wars movie and hearing Yoda say, "Luke! You'll have to learn the ways of the force before THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK!"
Or Darth Vader announcing, "Luke...there will be no RETURN OF THE JEDI!"
It was quite silly.
The review he gave the movie predicted these comments and answered them: he praised "Tomb Raider" as a good "popcorn movie", and explained why. He describes "The Mummy" as part of the same category, and explains why "The Mummy Returns" fails to fit it. All in all, very interesting perspectives from a man I still consider the last word in movie criticism.
I haven't seen the movie myself, and I don't intend to: "popcorn movies" don't do it for me anymore. I like to have my brain challenged a little if I'm going to spend $20 to take myself and my date out for popcorn and a show. But I'll take Ebert's word for it: if you're looking for mindless entertainment, this is probably better than most.
...at the end of the movie, how did the commando's laser-sight work in the "dead zone"? hmm.
If pro is the opposite of con, then progress is the opposite of congress.
Croft prefers the 9mm pistols strapped prominently to her hips, wielding them against robots, commandos, even supernatural creatures of yore. Only in the movie, she never runs out of ammo.
In the game her 9mm pistols never run out of ammo either. Obviously you spent more time holding down the '0' key to get a good angle for a brest or butt shot than playing.
Slashdot: Proof that a million monkeys at a million typewriters can create a masterpiece
If you don't think he's funny then you just don't get him.
Neither do I, BTW.
Yeah, but say chowder.
I really hate Dan Patrick.
In the Movie, "True Identity", Lenny Henry(A British Actor) pulls off the best American accent I've ever heard. Originally, I thought he was American until I saw "The Chef" series on PBS. My god was I surprised. So yes, the impossible has been accomplished by a Brit, and a very talented one at that!
If I'm not mistaken, in the games, her 9mm's never run out of ammo either. In fact, it's the only weapon she has that never runs out of ammo. I find the fact that the producers translated that fact to the movie (intentional or otherwise) rather funny.
Anyway, lousy or not, I intend to see this movie. It's fluff, but then, fluff has it's place in society. 95% of American TV is fluff. The other 5% is imported. Well, except Star Trek and B5 . . . .
Anyway, I have both Gone In 60 Seconds and Lawrence of Arabia in my DVD collection, along with some Jackie Chan, Disney/Pixar films, and masterpieces like Jaws and BladeRunner. There is a range, there will always be a range, if there wasn't, life would be pretty boring.
In closing, I just want to point out that Tomb Raider is a classic Summer Movie. Expecting more than that is like expecting Star Wars Episode One to be the end all-be all of movies. It's celluloid, people. Where would MST3K be without some people putting crap on it?
Do not touch -Willie
i just got tired of the 3rd person perspective - and staring into her ass through the whole flick. I mean - they didnt have to follow the game *that* closely.
I'm an actor, and I agree with Taco that she did quite well for a crappy script. But I don't agree on the matter of her accent. My British friends tell me it was impeccable, that she must have spent time in England picking it up. I felt that I agreed. Two pats to Angelina. :)
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
www.darkchapter.net Free Speech Forum
CmdrTaco has a horrible habit of using the word "then" when he means "than". One has to do with time, and the other has to do with comparing things. English nerd out.
CmdrTaco is pretty accurate in his review. The only problem is that the movie is so bad that one person can't be expected to remember all of the idiocy involved. My friends and I saw it on Saturday only because every other movie at that time was sold out and we were paying for 2 hours of air-conditioned protection from the east coast heat wave. The funny thing was, the 4 groups of people around us in line saw the movie for the same reason: it was the last thing available. The movie was so uninteresting that it became very relaxing to watch--just a bunch of colored lights flickering on the screen. My biggest complaint was that the movie theater wasn't nearly cold enough to justify paying $8. I had a slight fear that we were contributing to first weekend revenue figures, but from the looks of things the movie is going to be such a flop I won't feel guilty about that.
I had the exact same thought as Taco and I haven't seen the Dark Crystal since it was released.
Hey Jon look, its Lara Croft!
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
"Videogames passed films in revenue last year for the first time ..."
Actually, video games passed film revenue back in the early '80s as well.
CmdrTaco wrote: It's as if the director said "I really enjoyed The Matrix and Crouching Tiger. Let's see how badly I can recreate those classic scenes for my movies". See, the cast of The Matrix trained forever to do just a few simple shots. And the cast of Crouching Tiger had actual skill to begin with.
Uh, I hope you don't think the Crouching Tiger actors all actually know martial arts? Unless you mean because Michelle Yeoh has done some other martial arts / action movies. But Zhang Ziyi (the young female lead) was a pretty new actress, and didn't have any martial arts training before as far as I know. I don't think Chow Yun Fat has done much martial arts stuff before either, although he's done some great gun-toting action movies. But most of the Crouching Tiger cast were not skilled martial artists (unlike say Jet Li, who was a martial arts champion in China before he made Shaolin Temple and became a big movie star, but he wasn't in Crouching Tiger).'Nuff Said.
:)
(The second one blew big hairy donkey balls, tho)
MK3U was the best of the coin-ops, of course
---
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
Whizzmo
werd.
===sam=== free nessus vulnerability scan = www.vulnerabilities.org
Well, we all know what to do here-- Time to fry!!
FREEDOM DEFINED IS FREEDOM DENIED
Were you expecting another Doctor Zhivago or Lawrence of Arabia? I just wish that they had chosen an actress that didn't need padding! Then it would have been a perfect movie to watch with the sound muted.
according to eberts review:t ml
http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/lara15f.h
the title of this movie seems to be 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider'
so, is it:
'Tomb Raider' or 'Lara Croft Tomb Raider' ?
Please, it can't be anywhere near as bad as Hurl Harbour, which made me want to puke. After 3+ hours of watching that I was rendered brain dead for a day, no cognition at all was going on in my head. And the reason I went to see it - I was intrigued by reports that they changed the true end of the battle in the film.
I find it sad that people feel they have to turn to fiction to learn (?!) about something that was historically documented.
At least, when I go to see Tomb Raider, I will expect it to be exactly what it is, a film based on a computer game. I'm not expecting fantastic dialogue. And if the computer graphics are crap, well, at least the film is true to the game - the graphics in the game were crap as well.
~~~~~~~~~ "I must create my own system, or be enslav'd by another man's." William Blake, Jerusalem.
Now, understanding that this is terrible offtopic, I feel as though it is the perfect time to ask a question that has been nagging me for quite a while. After reading the posts below, I may even call it a peeve. Here goes: I was under the impression that when refering to differences in speech in the same language due to reigon, it was known as a dialect as opposed to an accent. I thought an accent refers to differences in speech due to a different language. Please let me know if I am correct in being peeved when hearing that different British "accents" are being spoken in different reigons of England. I wouldn't want a peeve to go unjustified. :)
"Ummmm..."
The truth is, wee don't reeaally tawlk like thaayut, and from what I've been told by friends who have been all over the world, the Southern accent in America is considered the sexiest accent in the world.
If Katz is going to give shit about the greatest movie of all times, Super Mario Brothers (starring Dennis Hopper and John Leguizamo in a futuristic wonderworld and featuring a freighttrain plot that crosses dimensions and social rolls with such reckless abandon), we're going to have to throw down. Think I'll start by bouncing off his head, thereby turning him upside and making him kick his feet in the air.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Jennifer Lopez or Kate Winslet would be a little too filled out, not that I don't prefer looking at them.
I'm thinking, maybe Jennifer Aniston with darker hair and a few extra Big Macs in her thighs, like during the off-season of Friends prior to the big starvedown (which should be starting right about now.)
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> I'd even forgive her the ridiculous lip-work she has had done.
Huge, well-textured lips like that are awesome! Those wrinkly lips soak up saliva like broccoli soaks up spicy sauce in a Thai dish.
I heard somewhere makeup books actually recommend heavy, waxy lipstick to smear away those glorious, sexy wrinkles! Wrinkles = good, wrinkles = sexy, all important skin on the body is heavily wrinkled.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Pauly is supposed to be funny (I suppose, in some theoretical way) so his acting isn't supposed to be good.
Now Keenau Reeves, well, let's just say that if your acting is worse than Divine's fat little troll-ette friend in Polyester, you are in as deep shit as you can get.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
> I'd take a flat chested, big-assed girl anytime over Lara.
I, too, am a fan of Jennifer Lopez and Kate Winslet.
Do you want to know the funniest thing? A magazine asked men which women in Hollywood they most wanted, and Jennifer and Kate came out on top. Another mag asked women which Hollywood woman they would most want to have sex with, if they were to have sex with another woman, and Ms. Jolie won that contest.
So, feminists, you seek to know the evils of Hollywood with respect to starvation ideals? Look into thine own eye, not to the eyes of men.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
It's a fucking bad popcorn flick, goddammit.
It's dull. It's tedious. It's shoddily made. It's about as involving as 4th person gaming, i.e. watching your little brother playing Tomb Raider. I've already seen that. I wanted a little more.
Specifically, I wanted some smart lines. I wanted to be interested in Lara. I wanted a film that didn't look as though it was written by a commitee of twelve year old dateless wonders and shot by Film School 101 dropouts. I wanted a film that looked as though it was made by people who actually gave a damn about what they were doing.
Men In Black was a popcorn flick. Galaxy Quest was a popcorn flick. American Pie was a popcorn flick. Tomb Raider is cheap, dull, uninvolving exploitation rip off.
Do yourself a favour; watch your little brother play Tomb Raider for a couple of hours, then go and whack off to some decent porn. Much cheaper and less painful than this travesty.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It's actually rather impressive to think that Pong sales could even APPROACH the money spent in the theatres, let alone surpass it.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Correct me for some little stuff. But I was under the impression that all 3 were on a plane when Lara was age 12 in the Himalayas. It crashed, only Lara survived. Wasn't that the original story?
I suppose they theoritically could be 9mms. I mean Hollywood has lots of money and it actually wouldn't require all that much work by an armourer to modify the guns to shoot 9mm ammo, however I fail to see the reason.
For a little information behind the gun: The gun is a deravitive of the H&K Mark 23, the gun of the US Special Operations. The MK23, while cool is really expensive so H&K decided to make a series of guns built on similar principles, but cheapher hence the USP series. The USP series has 3 normal guns, a 9mm, a .40, and a .45, 3 compact guns also 9/.40/.45 and 2 special guns the tactical and the match. The USP tactical is a .45 designed to look and feel like the MK23 and is a little more accurate than the normal USPs as well as having a threaded barrel for a silencer. The USP Match is a .45 pistol that is designed for enhanced accuracy. It's quite a bit larger and heavier than the normal USP .45 (about a half pound more), but for that you get an increase in accuracy.
I don't know why they chose the USP Match guns for her in the movie, they are designed for target shooting not for running around, the MK23 is more suited to that. I guess they just thought they looked cool. That, and they also have a bit better recoil suppression than the rest of the series (though they all have good RS).
This was the funniest review I have read in ages. I don't know why /John posted anonymously, but
it certainly deserves to be modded up considerably
higher than zero.
Leaving aside all the griping over whether this is or isn't a good movie, or whether the reviews are or aren't unfair, Katz makes a good point about high-tech heroes with low-tech guns.
Mind you, Hollywood dumbs down new weapons too. In the Arnold Schwartznegger film "Eraser" Arnie battles guys with particle beam weapons. You can see the beams. They glow blue, like Cherenkov radiation. And they travel so slowly you can see them head towards our heroes. They are almost slow enough to dodge. I don't think even "slow" neutrons go that slow.
Aren't some American GIs issued with M16s that come with an attached grenade launcher slung under the barrel? I've never seen one used in a movie however.
If what you see on the game is what you see on the movie, maybe not-gamers think that the movie is junk. But it's real public will like it.
In time: I never played Tomb Raider, too :)
Blind_Bard.
--
The degree to which life sucks is directly proportional to your blood/caffeine ratio.
Blind_Bard
--
Blind_Bard
--
The degree to which life sucks is directly proportional to your blood/caffeine ratio.
if you're thinking of just going to to see this for angelina jolie, you might consider just renting foxfire instead because it contains much more porn.
i was angry:1 with:2 my:4 friend - i told:3 4 wrath:5, 4 5 did end.
i was angry:1 with:2 my:4 friend - i told:3 4 wrath:5, 4 5 did end.
i was 1 2 4 foe i 3 it not 4 5 did grow
I wound up with a whole bunch of JonCmdrTaco's. Ain't that just scary?
Why, Nintnedo, why? Why have you forsaken us and sat on the Metroid title for so many long years?
as SinFest demonstrates.
--
Then it should be a phenomenal success. Alex
A winner is you!
I had the joy of seeing this at the drive in and believe it or not, my date suggested seeing this movie. Now, did i go in expecting some colossal story brimming with realism? NO! did I expect a film based on a video game to be cinematic mastery? NO! Did I expect to see lots of stuff get blown up and see A.J. kick some bad guy azz? Hell yeah! Get a life Taco, PLEEEEZE! I love sitting in theatres watching fiction and hearing some dolt behind me complain about realism and such. umm its a movie? duh, its fiction? you know? FICTION??????? TR was fun, loud, sexy, and had a great soundtrack and kept my short attention span locked in. Go watch a National Geographic special if you want reality. Go watch TR if you wanna soften yer melon for a couple hours and have some fun. Bite me!
----------{{{-
The video game industry first surpassed Hollywood box office revenues in the early 1980s (not Pong, but close).
Of course, Hollywood then was far less profitable than today, and there wasn't much of a video rental market to speak of, but still impressive for the day.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Well, it certianly didn't fail to do anything to my masculinity. *grin*
---
"The universe is a womb for the genesis of gods."
How come a crappy movie that doesn't hide it's lack of plot, dialogue, acting, etc. can get a good review as a "fun movie" whereas a bad movie that tries to make a good plot, have good acting, dialogue, etc. is "crap"? The Tomb Raider games were much overrated. The only reason they did so well was because of the hormonal 15-30 year olds that bought them to "control a chick with big boobs".
My karma is -1 because I don't use AC posting. LOL.
- Resident Evil ("Why don't you pick the lock? After all, Jill, you are the master of lockpicking.")
- Red Alert 2 (unless Keri Werher comes onto the screen in a bikini and says absolutely nothing for 90 minutes)
- Anything related to that "Someone set us up the bomb" game that mainstream media has milked to death
- Super Mario Advance (Great game, but the voices will go down as the most annoying in gaming history. Toad dying [a 4 sec sound bite] is pretty funny, though.)
- StarCraft (Another great game, but come on. The animated cut scenes were good but the scriptwriter must've been playing with his Thesaurus in Word. "Zeratul, you and Tassadar must reach the clandestine notion of the terran outer worldly spacial realm. Only then can you fix my ancient crystal rotary watch..." etc, etc.)
Alternatively, you just do what i did and go from GB to the US of A for long enough to pick up a bit, by which point you sound American to the British, and English to the Americans. Considering that most of the market is American, I suppose that's all they really needed to do.
43rd Law of Computing:
I already know this:
Lara Croft ain't no Indiana Jones!
The only reason for me to see this movie was destroyed when I found out that Angelica Jolie used a bodydouble in the nude-scenes!
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
You should here the way Hollywood butchers the northern New England accent. I live in New Hampshire, and contrary to the Steven King movies, I have never said "ayuh" or "You cahn't get theyah from heerah" (spelled as it sounds, I can't say phonetically because I don't know the proper symbols.) In addition, I'd like to know why New Englanders in movies always, without fail, wear plaid. I don't have even one plaid shirt! True, I have a plaid pajama shirt, but that doesn't count, damnit!
Hollywood feels perfectly free to caricature any accent.
I'm the stranger...posting to
No, the worst actor in cinematic history was Pauly Shore. (See Jury Duty. With a barf bag.)
I'm the stranger...posting to
Um, in C++ != means "not equal to". Are you saying in the subject that tomb raider is not equal to crap?
I'm the stranger...posting to
Admittedly, there is a liquor store right off every Interstate exit in New Hampshire, and they are state-sponsored, but that doesn't mean a thing. I think you're taking us for granite, man.
I know that was bad, but I couldn't help it.
I'm the stranger...posting to
FINAL FANTASY : THE SPIRITS WITHIN
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
I didn't mind the Katz review, which, yes, is strange, but damnit, Taco.
Write your own goddamn review -- it's your site, sure, but now you're subverting your OWN WRITERS. At least leave them alone so their turnover rate stays lower than that of your readers.
*keeps turning*
-Phu
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Who ARE you?!
I don't doubt that the video game industry will eventually outpace the the movie industry in terms of revenue, but by that time the difference won't be games vs. movies, it will be interactive media vs. non-interactive (legacy) media.
-a boy puts a feather into his mouth-
Lara went through the whole thing and didn't ONCE save/reload...
Going into movies... you need to have the proper expectations... It should be quite obvious to anyone watching previews on what a given movie caters to. Go into the movie expecting too much and you will always be disappointed...
Reviewers see way to many movies, and expects way too much from every movie. Sometime people just want to escape for a few hours and just enjoy the action. All reviews/reviewers should be boycotted ;-)
Looking for any old 8-bit Heathkit/Zenith software/hardware - http://heathkit.garlanger.com
I absolutely agree with Katz... yes this movie could have used a little more thought to plot to prevent the predictability, but it was less predictable then the Titanic or Pearl Harbor. In all, it was FUN, full of action & accurately reflected the nature of these kind of computer games in general. Just like X-men was made to have the comic book feel, this movie felt like the game. I suspect most of masses in our culture have difficulties accepting a real-life kick ass woman who isn't a "bitch" (like the gal in Terminator) or a squeemish screamer like Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies. Had this been an animated show, our masses would have gladly accepted the bouncing breasts with the kick ass style, along with the "matrix-like" scenes. The bungee scene was simple to follow if you merely paid attention.
nce again the boat has left Taco on the docks swinging his monkey arms madly. I took my girlfriend and two pre-teen daughters to see this movie opening night for one reason. I wanted them to see women portrayed in a positive light... to be seen as heroes. Lara doesn't use her beauty to get what she wants, she doesn't sleep with everyone to get her way, she doesn't tease men with those large D-cups or those pouty lips. She's smart, cunning, well-trained and hard-working. Tell me these aren't traits that young women shouldn't see now-a-days? The girls loved the movie. They made comments throughout like "She's cool!" or "She's awesome!". I heard no pissing or whining like "The acting sucks! BOO HOO! The boobs are fake! BOO HOO! The plot is mindless! BOO HOO!" Stop portraying this movie like it's Super Mario Bros or Street Fighter. [rant] Lock yourself in your room with your DVD player and some pr0n the next time you feel like appending your banana-fueled monkey tales to the bottom of an already uninteresting Katz interview. [/rant]
What's with shatting on Swordfish last week but enjoying the "silliness" of Tomb Raider this week - I definitely felt *less* insulted while watching Swordfish...
I liked it well enough to slither, as the credits rolled, into an adjacent theater in my local cineplex for an instant (& free) repeat viewing. (Hey, I bought a 2nd soda.) This isn't Aguirre or Autumn Sonata (or even The Matrix). But as a feature film based on game mythology, it's a lot better than it could have been. One highlight: some great interiors, including Lara's "office" (check out the giant reflector telescope!), the curator's office at the clock auction house, etc.