TOMB RAIDER

Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander), heir to her missing father Richard Croft's (Dominic West) fortune, resists the attempts of his corporation's boss Anna (Kristen Scott Thomas) to declare her father dead. Instead, hell bent on finding her father alive, she decides to use information she's gleaned from her father's research to traverse the globe so she can discover his last known location. She comes up against the rather-dodgy-from-the-outset Vogel (Walton Goggins), who's looking for the same lost tomb of evil is-she-a-supernatural-creature-or-not Queen Himiko that her father was looking for. Given the heavy reliance on Father and child themes, the screenwriters dusted off the 'Indiana Jones and The last Crusade' script and incorporated many of the tropes from that films third act. Notably a 'puzzle temple' - and solving riddles deciphered from ancient script. There's even a partially comic scene where her father scolds her for not destroying the diaries lest they fall into the wrong hands. I was waiting for "I should have mailed it to the Marx bros.".

Is there a problem with being derivative of a much better film? No, not exactly - but if the execution is as doggedly roughshod and ill-thought out, as it is here, it's a BIG problem mainly because the audience will spend the whole time thinking "yeah - i LOVED 'Last Crusade' but THIS is nowhere near as good". 

In this age of 'woke-ness' and diversity of sexes in cinema, you'd think it was an ample opportunity to reclaim a teen masturbatory gaming icon and reboot her into a fleshed-out, fully-realised and heroic female adventurer. Instead, Vikander's Croft IS given a physicality makeover and her chops in MMA and ass-kicking are proven at the films beginning, it just never bothers to reboot her character - an Academy Award Winning actress is essentially left to twist in the wind as a hackneyed-when-it-was-a-2013-game-plot storyline plays out with leaden predictability. A shame for Vikander, who deserves better and for the rest of the cast who do their utmost under the circumstances. Still, Vikander establishes the character in fine form, so hopefully - maybe - she'll get another crack at proving Croft has some adventuring in her yet.

JARROD WALKER