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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

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Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a film adaptation of the popular Tomb Raider video game series featuring the character Lara Croft. Directed by Simon West, it was released during the summer of 2001. Lara in the screen role was played by Angelina Jolie.

A sequel, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, was released in 2003.

Plot

The film opens with Lara Croft in an Egyptian tomb, she is seeking what appears to be a diamond on a display at one end of the chamber. As she approaches, however, she is suddenly attacked by a large robot. After an intense chase and battle with the robot, she manages to disable it by ripping out key motivational circuits. She then takes the diamond, which is actually a memory card labeled 'Lara's Party Mix,' and inserts it into a laptop computer inside the robot, whereupon it starts playing music. It is revealed that the scene took place in a practice arena in Lara's own home, and her assistant, Bryce, programmed the robot (nicknamed SIMON), to train and challenge her in combat.

The date is May 15, the day of the first phase of a planetary alignment, or syzygy, culminating in a solar eclipse on the Earth, which happens once every 5,000 years. In Venice, a secret order known as the Illuminati is searching for a key of great importance so that they can rejoin two halves of "the triangle," which they must do by the final phase of the alignment. Mr. Powell, a member of the Illuminati, assures that they are almost ready, but in reality he has no idea where to find the key.

Meanwhile, Lara's butler, Hillary, tries to interest her in several different projects, but she ignores them. May 15, as Hillary is aware, is the day that Lara's father disappeared many years earlier, and she has never recovered from his loss.

Later that night, Lara has a dream reminding her of what her father told her about the alignment, and an object linked to the it called the Triangle of Light. After waking up, she becomes aware of a clock ticking somewhere in the house, and discovers a secret chamber beneath the stairs, in which there is a carriage clock that had spontaneously begun ticking. Bryce probes into it and discovers a strange device hidden inside the clock.

Lara consults a friend of her father's, Mr. Wilson, an expert on clocks, since the device resembles and seems to behave like one. She believes it's connected to the "Triangle of Light," but Wilson disavows any knowledge of the clock or the Triangle. Lara encounters Alex West, a fellow tomb raider with unscrupulous methods. They are attracted to each other, but Lara cannot abide his for-profit attitude. That night, Lara is contacted by Mr. Wilson, who tells her that he gave her name to a man named Manfred Powell in regards of the clock. In reality, Mr. Wilson is also a member of the Illuminati.

The next day, Lara goes to see Mr. Powell in his home, and shows him photographs of the clock. That night, discussing it with Bryce, she points out that Powell was obviously lying about his knowledge. That night, armed commando troops invade the house and steal the clock despite Lara's attempts to fend them off.

The next morning, Lara receives a letter from her father, arranged to arrive after the beginning of the alignment, whereupon he explains that the clock she found is the key to retrieve two halves of the mystic Triangle of Light, which was split into two halves; one was hidden in a tomb in Cambodia, the other half in the ruined city itself, in modern-day Siberia. Her father urges her to find and destroy both halves before the Illuminati can find it.

In Cambodia, West figures out part of the puzzle on how to retrieve the triangle half, but Lara manages to successfully grab the piece and escape the temple after fighting off and destroying a huge six-armed Brahman guardian statue.

She and Powell arrange to meet in Venice, since each of them has what the other needs to finish the Triangle. Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle, and informs Lara that her father was a member of the Illuminati, which she vehemently denies. Though hesitant at first, she, along with Bryce, meets with Powell for the trip to Siberia. Inside the tomb, there is a giant model of the solar system, which activates as the alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the last half of the Triangle, but when Powell tries to complete it, the halves won’t fuse together. He realizes that Lara knows the solution to the puzzle, and kills West in order to induce her into completing the Triangle to save both West’s life and her father's. Lara reluctantly complies, and they then struggle for control of the Triangle, with Lara prevailing.

Lara then finds herself in a strange alternate existence facing her father. He explains that it is a “crossing” of time and space, and urges her to destroy the Triangle instead of using it to save his life. She leaves her father and returns to the chamber, where time is slowly running backwards from the point where Powell killed West. Lara takes the knife he threw into West’s chest and reverses it, then destroys the Triangle, which returns time to its normal flow and directs the knife into Powell’s shoulder. The chamber begins to self-destruct, Everyone turns to leave, but Powell tells Lara that he killed her father and retrieved his pocket watch. Lara fights him to retrieve it, killing him in the process and escaping as the chamber comes down around her.

The movie closes back at the mansion, where Hillary and Bryce have a reprogrammed SIMON, ready to challenge Lara once again.

Cast

Financing

  • Tele-München Gruppe: TMG is a German tax shelter. The tax law of Germany allowed investors to take an instant tax deduction even on non-German productions and even if the film has not gone into production. By selling them the copyright for $94 million and then buying it back for $83.8 million, Paramount Pictures made $10.2 million.
  • Lombard Bank: The copyright was sold again to this British investment group and a further $12 million was made. However to qualify for Section 48 tax relief, the production must include some UK filming and British actors, which was acceptable for a film partially set in England.
  • Presales to distributors in Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain made a further $65 million.
  • Showtime: $6.8 million for premium cable TV rights. (Showtime was a subsidiary of Paramount's parent company Viacom, until it became part of CBS Corporation at the end of 2005).

Total: $94 million.

The deal between Eidos, Tomb Raider's publisher, and Paramount Pictures was structured is such a way that Eidos received a single fee, but no royalties for the making of the film.

Source: Slate: How to finance a Hollywood blockbuster

Details

Producer/screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who wrote and directed the 1994 video game movie Street Fighter, penned an early draft of the Tomb Raider script in 1999, but it was rejected by Paramount. However, it was partially resuscitated for the 2003 sequel Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. In 1998, writer Brent V. Friedman had also written an unproduced Tomb Raider script. The year before, another video game movie, the hugely disappointing Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which was co-written by Friedman, was in theaters. Lara Croft's father, Richard Croft, is played by Jolie's real-life father, Jon Voight. Croft's canonical name was originally Henshingly, but it was retconned to Richard in the games. Tomb Raider marked the feature film debut of television actor Christopher Barrie (Hillary), who is best known for his role of "Arnold Rimmer" in the long-running BBC sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf. Iain Glen, a Scot, adopted an English accent as Powell, whilst English actor Daniel Craig adopts an American accent for the role of Alex West. Angelina, being American herself, takes on a British accent.

Box office

Tomb Raider delivered the largest non-holiday weekend of the year, opening at number one with a towering $47.7M, giving the studio its second-biggest debut ever. It was shown in 3,308 theaters with a gross of $14,430 each. The film also has the largest opening ever for a movie headlined by a woman, surpassing the $40.1M debut of Charlie's Angels. It is the most successful video game adaptation to date and it also ranks as the fourth best June opening and the fourth biggest debut of 2001.

References

Worldwide DVD Forums

External links



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