10 More Films Hollywood Needs To Apologize For

Now that the dust has settled on Tomb Raider and its flashy effects have lost their lustre, we can appreciate the film for what it is – a Roger Corman movie writ large.

Despite all the money being thrown around, the movie runs barely 100 minutes (with a lengthy end credits sequence) and with the exception of Angelina Jolie, most of the cast look like they’d rather be elsewhere. The writing is flat, the direction is lifeless and overall there’s a certain heaviness to the movie, a feeling of sturm und drang that a big summer movie ought not to have.

Lara Croft is basically a female James Bond who’s placed in peril during her Indiana Jones-style adventures, but instead of providing two hours of no-think escapism, the movie goes about everything in the most convoluted way possible.

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.