10 Films That Are As Bad As You've Heard

Lara Croft is basically a female James Bond who’s placed in peril during her Indiana Jones-style adventures, so how difficult can it be to create a fast, slick, entertaining movie based on her video game franchise?

Even at 100 minutes, with a lengthy end credits sequence, there’s a certain heaviness to this adaptation that a big summer movie ought not to have. The writing is flat, the direction is lifeless and the supporting cast all look like they’d rather be elsewhere. No movie where Angelina Jolie takes a lot of showers and Daniel Craig is the love interest should be this dispiriting.

Consider the way that Lara’s father (played by Jon Voight, Angelina’s real-life father) is brought into the story. Even though the source material doesn’t state that the character is dead, he’s established as such in the movie, so the filmmakers bring him back in the most unbelievable way possible, by having Lara communicate with him during a “crossing” of time and space. That’s the movie to a tee: it goes about everything in the most painful, convoluted fashion imaginable.