Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft
Directed by Jan de Bont
Written by Dean Geogaris
Other cast: Gerard Butler, Chris Barrie, Noah Taylor, Ciaran Hinds, Djimon Hounsou, Jon Bennett
Status: July 25th, 2003

Plot Summary:
Angelina Jolie once again plays Lara Croft, Badass Explorer Chick. This time, she finds a glowing orb submerged in the ocean, that she suspects as having once belonged to Alexander the Great. Chen Lo (Simon Yam), leader of a Bad Chinese Gang, followed her to the dive, and took the orb, which may be a key to the stuff of legend. And with that, she's on a race to find the mythical Pandora's Box before scientist [and bioterrorist! oh no, yellow alert!] Jonathan Reiss (Ciaran Hinds) finds it and sells it to the highest bidder. See, as legend tells it, he - or she - who opens the infamous Box can cause catastrophe such as the world has never known.

Lara reluctantly ("oh, well, now that I have Her Majesty's permission...") agrees to search for the Box inside The Cradle of Life [in the motherland; where else?], but insists on having the mysterious mercenary Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler) come with. Actually, there's no real mystery there: Sheridan is a known traitor to his country - and Lara's ex-lover.

Who'da thunk I'd be saying that Tomb Raider 2 is a sequel that for once is much better than its predecessor? That's faint praise, considering the sheer suckitude of the first Tomb, but I found that most of the things I hated about that icky flick, were absent (or at least not as prominent) in Tomb Raider 2.

Not the least of which were the former "writers" and "director"; this time around, writer Dean Geogaris seemed to have a much better grasp on the stuff that made the first and third Indiana Jones work (though director Jan de Bont might want to go back to Action Directing School for a wee bit longer). No, Tomb Raider 2 doesn't really compare to either of those, though at least it has risen above the level of The Temple Of Doom. Only once - ok, maybe twice - during Tomb Raider 2 did my eyes roll at the goofy MysticMumboJumbo (and by that time, I was already into the story, so I could live with the off-the-wall Mystical African Creatures).

A great deal of credit goes to Angelina Jolie and Gerard Butler for making Tomb Raider 2 work to the extent that it did. Theirs was an interesting, engaging pairing, one which I would've been happy to see extended to - dare I say it? - a Tomb Raider 3. Instead of filling the time with dumb background exposition, de Bont and Geogaris gave Croft and Sheridan a Real, True backstory, leaving supporting characters like manservant Hilary (Chris Barrie) and compugeek Bryce (Noah Taylor) to serve as light comic relief only as needed.

On the other hand, Ciaran Hinds (Jonathan Reiss) did a bad, bad impersonation of every weird James Bond villain known, to the point where I expected him to tell Lara "no, I expect you to die!". Djimon Hounsou played, well, Djimon Hounsou, Affable Hollywood African. I ain't mad at him, though; at least through him, the Africa that Hollywood sees these days isn't chock full of primitive, spearchucking, superstitious natives. Uh...hmm.

One thing I was glad to see less of was Lara's neato keen gadgets; though her trademark guns - and PerkyTits - were on the scene, they were just part and parcel of Lara's badass attitude about being a Badass SuperChick (and hey, with nipples like those, I bet she really could save the world. Or at least distract the bad guys for a bit). But though there were fewer Big!Stunts!, the ones that were present were, shall we say, laughably silly. If I never see another scene where no one except Our Heroes can shoot straight, I'll be a happy Bammer.

Unfortunately, the horror that was the first Tomb, seems to have played a part in toning the followup down to a quiet purr. Though I was glad to see a few very cool bits thrown in (including the skysailing sequence), Tomb Raider 2 feels less like a Big Sequel and more like a contract-driven obligation. In this, the summer of flat second- (and third-) time-arounds, Tomb Raider 2 will likely be yet another flick tossed onto the rubbish heap before too long.

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