Review: Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
The Cradle of Life [on DVD]

Review by Dr. Grouchy, Ph.D.

So, I have to start off by saying I didn’t rent this myself. I found it in the parking lot while I was heaving up my dinner last night, after a round of heavy drinking with some Russians I met down by the river. Not that I wouldn’t have rented this, because I found a guilty pleasure in watching the first movie and pausing to look for computer generated artifacts from Angelina Jolie’s on-screen breast enhancements. In fact her breasts were so prominant in the first film, they both got screen credits and residuals. (I actually thought the first movie was about “Dr. Laura”… Oops!)

So, I am bored, after a day in bed “recovering” from last night, and I decide to pop in Tomb Raider 2. “What the hay?” I always say. And, it starts off and you know it is going to be like 50 percent computer effects. Very glitzy, and smooth with the credits and all. But, as an admirer of all archeology carried out by hot babes in spandex, I pick up on some problems with the plot.

First, this altar was “lost to the sea” in 300 BC, right? It must have been traumatic, sinking into the ocean, but it is none the worse for the wear. Even after the earthquake at the beginning of the movie, which was caused by someone at a fat Greek wedding turning up the stereo too loud, everything inside the temple is pretty much intact. Then Lara arrives, with a band of jet ski-riding grave robbers, and she whips out her arc-welding tools and starts to destroy the temple that was the most prized of all of Alexander the Great’s temples. She has absolutely no respect for antiquities, and being old myself, I take that personally. Then the “bad guys” show up. Why are they worse than the Tomb Raper? Because, they are Asian men. Well, that makes sense, actually. Then, there is a tiny aftershock from the earthquake and it totally rips the temple to shreds. Come on! My blind Uncle Ned could see the hole in that plot… but, I digress. Lara loses the glowing bowling ball that she was all a-titter about and she is now stranded undersea, with no way to get to the surface.

So, how does she escape this plight? She immediately realizes that her years of circus training will pay off and she swims off, with no air tank, and molests a shark. Well, not before some self-mutalation. I think her character has OCD. But, anyway, after she stops this 20 foot shark with one punch, it says, “Hey, I’m going to the surface, wanna come?” I think they stole this from Finding Nemo. Then, without any fear of the bends, she climbs 1000 feet, in 20 seconds, and pops out next to some wreckage and turns on her GPS satelite-beacon. Well, this was the beginning of The Bourne Identity, wasn’t it? I guess she doesn’t just steal from tombs, but also from last year’s blockbuster movies. Before I leave this chapter, can anyone tell me why the sharks, which were swarming and bloodthirsty, would leave her alone on the surface as she hung onto the splintered boat, with her gams dangling in the water?

Then there’s a little bit about the bad guy. Turns out he wants to find “Pandora’s Box”. He’s some badass, who creates killer viruses for fun and profit. He even kills a bad guy on the plane. This is a little hard to swallow, as the fellow dies, he is kind enough to spit up into a champagne glass.

Lara is shown at home next. Her mansion in England that she, no doubt, paid for with all her grave robbing. She practices trashing tombs, by destroying her own home. Then she gets recruited to beat the bad guy to Pandora’s Box, and steal it first. You can’t trust an evil genius, but you can certainly trust MI-6 or the CIA, right? They’re paragons of trustworthiness, aren’t they.

Anyhow, there was too much plot, and not enough of the twins, so I took this opportunity to hit the head and dry heave some more. I returned a couple minutes later with a Keystone Light, and there was Lara stealing off in the middle of the night with some criminal she’d freed from prision. Wasn’t I only gone 5 minutes? How did this happen?

Well, I started to drift off at this point. Too much contrived plot, too much clothing and I think the beer was starting to kick in. I would have turned it off, but if I moved, it would have made my head hurt too much. It was a bad hangover, after all. So, I left the DVD player running and nodded in and out of consciousness. All I remember were snippets. Something that looked like Planet of the Apes, where Marky Mark crash lands. But, out comes Lara and the prisoner, no scratches. There is some little old Chinese lady, who has a stockpile of Lara’s guns and high-tech toys. Does she just keep stockpiles of guns, bombs and expensive, new motorcycles in every corner of the globe? Where does she refuel with high-octane petrol? As she races along the Great Wall of China, I question how realistic the plot is. I mean, it was totally realistic up until now. Instead of this being a docudrama… maybe it is really a comedy. A bad comedy. I predict the next sequel will just be computer generated boobs on motorcycles.

Isn’t it amazing that I can’t get a fucking cell phone signal in the mall, next to the Verizon sales counter, but tiny cell phones work in some remote pirate hideaway in Outer Mongolia! Here is where I faded out again, as many more priceless artifacts and statues were being wantonly destroyed.

There’s more shooting and stunts and a helicopter and jumping from roof to roof. Have you ever felt you had to hold very still and “will” the hangover away. Like, if you don’t move, it won’t shoot painfully through your skull like some Nazi doctor driving a steal spike into your brain? Well, I’ve had bad hangovers before but this was so bad, I actually preferred to watch the pointless shiny movie, which at this point had turned into a blatent cell-phone commercial. I knew if I tried to follow the plot, I would hurl again, so I made up the plot and it was bearable. Why couldn’t Alias be on instead? There’s an hour of television that’s much superior to a feature-length Lara Croft movie.

More cell phones.

This was painful, but I’d made a commitment, and damned if I was going to give up now. Sort of like the United States and Viet Nam. Anyhow, I had to have something more to deaden the pain, so I forced myself out of my Easy Chair, and stumbled to the kitchen. I was out of beer and hard liquor. Remember that scene in Minority Report, where Tom Cruise gets new eyes? It must have been about as painful as my hangover. So, like Tom, I worked my way to the back of the refrigerator and grabbed what smelled like an old tuna sandwich and a carton of expired (but alcoholic) Egg Nog and returned to the movie. If it doesn’t come right back up, it can’t be that bad, right?

What the hell are they doing now? She has the glowing bowling ball, and just “happens” to find some kind of flying squirrel suits on the top of this skyscraper in Hong Kong. I guess that must be standard fare on skyscrapers in Hong Kong. As Lara spreads eagle, and dives from the skyscraper with only the webbing between her arms and legs to keep her from hurtling 100 stories to her death, I take a big swig on the lumpy egg nog.

OK. I like Angelina Jolie, so I perk up a little as the makeout scene with the prisoner. I even take a bite of the furry-tuna sandwich for energy. Then the scene ends. Damn! Just when it was getting good, it turns back into a cell phone commercial. Come on, now she’s got a satelite uplink with a a cell phone, a DirecTV dish and a magic, glowing bowling ball, and it’s projecting a 3-D hollagram with surround sound. Can you say Bullshit?

Off to Africa, a few hours later, and more magical cell phones and skydiving. I guess it’s time to trample nature under a Jeep and trash another priceless vault of antiquities, because she’s getting excited. It’s a good think that Keenen Ivory Wayans is there to translate as she negotiates with the warrior tribe. What? She speaks every other dialect on the planet, except this one? (The mixture of ripe egg nog, and tuna makes me see a vibrant psychodelic aura around each of the actors. I wonder… why do her cell phone batteries never die? Where does she get all those parachutes? Is she some kind of super-heroine who can shoot parachutes out of her ass? Is that her super power?)

Looks like they stole this scene directly from Congo.

Wait. How did they get from Kilimajaro to Mordor so quickly? Is Middle-Earth in Africa? This certainly looks like Mordor. I find myself yelling at the screen, “Frodo, throw the ring into the volcano!”

I wake up and the credits are rolling and the room is spinning. I have a strong urge to rush to the bathroom and hurl. Was it the movie? Was it the hangover? Was it the tuna? Who can tell? All I know is I am pouring the rest of the expired egg nog down the drain, and microwaving this DVD. Like Pandora’s Box, there is just too much of a chance this movie might unleash the ultimate evil on the world, and it must be destroyed.