Not a total letdown, but then I hardly had high hopes of ‘Tomb Raider’ - the movie, being any good in the first place. I mean, how good is a film based on a computer game going to _be_ exactly? It’s not as if it’s continuing a fine tradition. ‘Super Mario Bros’, ‘Streetfighter’ and ‘Mortal Kombat’ all tried and failed to successfully make the leap from monitor screen to silver screen (actually, I quite liked ‘Mortal Kombat’ but that‘s me).

So anyway then, for what it’s worth the, uh, eccentric Angelina Jolie makes an arresting Lara: buffed, oiled and athletic, the Oscar winning actress (oh yeah! A supporting gong for her turn in the Gen X, psycho-babble flick ‘Girl, Interrupted’) is the by far away the best thing in this piece of hokum, and thank God, it would be a disaster if she wasn’t. The film itself follows in the tradition of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and this, as a result, only highlights the movie’s failings: it’s an unoriginal, empty [headed] spectacle. And like ‘The Mummy Returns’ and ‘Pearl Harbor’ before it, it pummels you with a barrage of jump-cut editing which make the action sequences utterly baffling, leaving you of little idea of what the bloody hell is going on. Which, this being an action film an all, is a bit of a bad move really.

But Lara does her fair bit of running about here and there, through ancient temples and the like, blasting them to pieces, thus deliberately echoing the game. Which made me wonder why did I pay to see this when I could have just saved my money and played the game instead, thereby also being able to cut out all the boring movie exposition stuff and to get ON WITH IT. Unfortunately, unlike the game, you can’t control Lara, so it’s a bit like watching your mate play Tomb Raider, and would you pay a fiver to see that? I’m guessing no. It wouldn’t be so bad, but the game is actually far more engrossing, intelligent and entertaining than the film, so, unless you fancy watching Angelina Jolie race around in a tight fitting short and vest for a couple of hours (which is fair enough), stick with the game.