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After a summer of bad boys, extraordinary gentlemen, killer robots and undead pirates, one wonders what Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life can add to the action factor. The answer is right there on the poster: an image of Angelina Jolie with a skin-tight costume and perfectly provocative posture.
That's enough to sell the movie, especially to video-game freaks who wore out their joysticks playing Tomb Raider, lusting on Internet sites for the cyberbabe Lara Croft. Those hormonal fans paid big money, $47.7-million the first weekend alone, to see their fantasy come to life. Many of them spent the next two years posting Internet messages about how dull the movie was, how it didn't do justice to the game and, of course, how hot Jolie looked.
Much has happened to Jolie since; a messy divorce from actor Billy Bob Thornton, an emotional split from her parents, plus seamy gossip about her personal life. Two movie projects (Original Sin, Life or Something Like It) tanked in theaters, unexpectedly leaving her career dependent upon the success of the Tomb Raider franchise. The Cradle of Life will make money this weekend, as most pop culture spinoffs do in the movies. But will it make enough, and be artistically satisfying enough, to preserve her star status?
The second film follows Lara on a mission to find Pandora's legendary box before it falls into the wrong hands. The assignment takes her from England to Kenya, China and Greece before the $90-million budget runs out and the movie needs to end. Expect lots of the sexy acrobatics and saucy remarks that made the first film appealing. To some folks, at least.
Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is directed by Jan de Bont, who made action films cool again with Speed in 1994, before he churned out examples of why they weren't for a while (Speed 2: Cruise Control, The Haunting, Twister).
The Cradle of Life was screened by Paramount Pictures too late for Weekend's deadline. See Friday's page 2-B for a full review.
- STEVE PERSALL, Times film critic