Last night I saw a Thursday preview of Tomb Raider and, honestly, it was so much better than I expected it to be; in fact, I had a lot of fun watching it! Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West) has been missing for seven years until his daughter Lara (Alicia Vikander) finds a message left by him about a cursed queen called Himiko buried on an uninhabited island off the coast of Japan. A mysterious group known as Trinity wants to locate Himiko's tomb (the reasons why are a bit murky). Croft begs his daughter to destroy all of his research because opening the tomb will unleash a curse on the world but she uses it to try and locate him. Despite the fact that this is most definitely an action movie, and a pretty good one at that, it has an emotional core that really resonated with me. Lara's entire young adulthood has been influenced by her father's absence and she alternates between mourning him and being angry at him for abandoning her. Some of the dialogue is a bit cheesy but I enjoyed the interactions between Lara and her father as she ultimately forgives him and assumes his role (which sets up a sequel nicely). I really like Alicia Vikander as an actress and she does a nice job with this role. Not only does she give an incredibly physical performance in some great action sequences (we see her signature move of dangling by one arm several times) but she also gives the role a lot of pathos. She shows the fact that she is hurt and exhausted and there is one particular scene where she is devastated after killing someone who is attacking her that is really powerful. Of course, as I previously mentioned, the action sequences are fantastic. I especially liked a chase through the houseboats in the harbor in Hong Kong and the tomb scenes reminded me a lot of the Indiana Jones movies. This movie is very entertaining and I recommend it for a fun night out.
Note: This is not the first time that Dominic West has played Alicia Vikander's father (go here).
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