Tomb Raider

On a wing and a prayer ...

Grade: C +

Director: Roar Uthaug

Starring: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, and Kristin Scott Thomas

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 58 min.

A reboot of an adaptation of a video game, Tomb Raider dials down the objectification in the Angelina Jolie-starring Lara Croft flicks. Yet just like Jolie, Alicia Vikander’s grab at the Lara Croft payday comes the year after winning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Vikander carries the chops and physique of an action star, and this reprise strips away the irksome kitsch of the Jolie films. But nothing of substance fills the void, and what’s left is a derivative, wayward bore that’s less Lara Croft and more Indiana Jane.

We first encounter Croft (Vikander) getting put to sleep during a mixed-martial arts sparring match, apt foreshadowing for several reasons. Four years since her archaeologist father Richard (Dominic West) disappeared, Croft isn’t ready to sign the papers declaring his death. Richard left bread crumbs leading to his secret basement of research, just so he can urge his daughter to torch the material. Sensing a mysterious box labeled “Himiko” might unlock answers about her dad’s fate, she dives into his diary and sets sail with drunken Hong Kong sea captain Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), bound for a mysterious island. Shipwrecked, both are captured by Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), a dastardly digger with plans to unlock the dangers inside the grave of an ancient shaman queen.

So much of Tomb Raider comprises Croft lacking the agency of an action heroine, regularly being on the receiving end of the machinations of men. She’s conscripted into service by Vogel, escapes thanks to Lu Ren, and stumbles onto her signature archery set thanks to dad and some onetime childhood deportment. Things happen, but rarely due to Croft’s will or ingenuity. She’s repeatedly battered and bedeviled, yet the only thing that conspicuously escapes much bruising is Vikander’s visage.

Her escape into the tropical forest, assault on Vogel’s encampment, and descent into Himiko’s tomb play like graduating levels of the source video game, with Croft as the avatar. Even Croft’s welcome wiseacre personality at the beginning of the film is swallowed by the plodding plot. All of Vikander’s spunk isn’t enough to invigorate the musty movie tropes or compensate for cringeworthy lines like, “You messed with the wrong family!”

It’s a pity coming from Norwegian director Roar Uthaug, making his English-language debut following the critical and box office success of his 2015 catastrophe drama The Wave. As it is, this Tomb Raider only succeeds at generic genre grave-robbing.

John Carter

Behold, the Mushroom of Souls

Grade: B –

Director: Andrew Stanton

Starring: Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds and Dominic West

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 12 min.

At one point in John Carter, the titular earthling-turned-interplanetary freedom fighter impales—using his entire body—a giant, snarling white ape-like beast. Emerging out the back of the monster, he stands before an audience of green humanoids gathered to watch the blood sport. As Carter, covered in the creature’s cobalt-colored entrails, begins to address the motion-capture, computer-generated crowd, the echoes of Avatar are drowned out only by the rousing call-to-arms Carter bellows in his role like a Martian William Wallace.

First appearing in a 1912 magazine serial, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars series has influenced generations of science-fiction, including Star Wars, Superman, Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. However, any earnest attempt to render a feature film adaptation of Burrough’s creation has floundered for nearly 80 years. The delay is particularly surprising considering the decades of big screen adapatations that Burroughs’ Tarzan character has enjoyed. Indeed, the path to bring this John Carter to fruition began in 2004 and traversed at least three directors before ending with Pixar’s Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo and WALL-E).

Carter (Taylor Kitsch, Friday Night Lights) is an ex-Confederate soldier from Virginia turned surely Arizona golf prospector circa 1868. Stumbling across a mystical medallion held by omnipotent extraterrestrial being, Carter finds himself teleported to Mars, called Barsoom by its natives. There, less gravity gives Carter superhuman strength and leaping ability, skills that are noticed by Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe via motion capture), leader of a race of quadruple-armed, horned humanoids called the Tharks.

Once elevated to warrior status by the Tharks, Carter embarks on a mission to quell the conquest aspirations of Sab Than (Dominic West), who aided by a species of all-seeing shape-shifters called the Therns (headed by Mark Strong). Moreover, Carter becomes smitten with Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), princess of a realm named Helium, and spends most of the film both saving her and trying to spare her from going through with a prearranged marriage to Sab.

But, the final, $250 million, 3-D special effects laden spectacle is, well, a mixed bag. Although adapted largely from A Princess of Mars, Burroughs’ first John Carter novel, Stanton plus screenwriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon draw elements from throughout Burroughs’ 11-part Barsoom book series. As a consequence, the plot—already saddled with a cavalcade of obtuse proper names—quickly becomes mired in its narrative muddle.

Kitsch is a capable lead, but while Texas native Collins is a suitable beauty, her acting is as uneven as the British accent that she and—for some mysterious reason—every English-speaking space race in the history of cinema speaks.

The best parts of John Carter are observing the hero’s discovery of both his alien surroundings and his otherworldly powers, along with the repeated flashes whimsy that show the film knows not to take itself too serious. Stanton confirms his skill behind the camera, but as an animated director his acumen in conjuring a digitized universe—which serves him well here for the most part—does not behoove fleshing out the flesh-and-blood characters and other live-action elements. The film’s broad, complicated canvas requires an accessible grandeur that few directors can channel.

The audience yearns for fleeting moments of recognition and clarity, such as a monologue from Strong’s Matai Shang in which he not only deciphers Carter’s home state from hearing his Southern accent but describes the Therns’ eons-long mission of meddling in the affairs of others beings. Otherwise, John Carter is handsome yet hectic, a standard-issue sword and sorcery flick set against an expensive, eye-popping backdrop. Although Burroughs’ stories might be the Rosetta Stone of modern-day sci-fi, the film is like Prince of Persia if it was written by L. Ron Hubbard.

Neil Morris

Johnny English Reborn

No, you can't put lipstick on a pig

Grade: D

Starring: Rowan Atkinson, Dominic West, Rosamund Pike, Gillian Anderson, and Daniel Kaluuya

MPAA Rating: PG

Running Time: 1 hr. 41 min.

So useless is Johnny English Reborn that it is unnecessary to rehash how the kitschy iconography of the James Bond movies is beyond parody (the same thing could be said about James Bond spoofs, for that matter).

Rowan Atkinson’s titular Clouseau clone is recalled from Asian exile to crack a plot to kill the Chinese premier. Director Oliver Parker once cut his teeth adapting Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde for the silver screen. Here, aside from a semi-watchable set piece or two, he foists a steady series of groin kicks, animal gags and reaction shots. Frankly, any actor’s presence in this unoriginal, utterly unfunny rubbish is a sign of their shaky career status – I’m looking at you, Gillian Anderson.

While the ineptness is expected, what’s surprising is the low-grade xenophobia that periodically rears its nasty head. A female Asian assassin masquerades as a cleaning lady – the sound of a vacuum cleaner precedes her recurring entrée  – while Johnny brands Tucker, an African immigrant and the spy’s new sidekick, a “clever boy” and, the first time they meet, “someone to carry my bag.”

As a spy sendup the film is unnecessary; as a comedy it’s the equivalent of being repeatedly kicked in the gonads, which is, not coincidentally, one of its frequent go-to gags. Simply put, Johnny English Reborn should have stayed dead and buried.

Neil Morris