Mr. Floppy: 04.26.07: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Posted by Peter Bielik on 04.26.2008

A movie that went to business chest first.


Right from the start, I have to say I enjoyed the Tomb Raider games. It reminds of the time when I was younger, running busty Lara Croft through various locations and moving the camera around in order to get the best view of her tits. That's the funniest thing about the franchise. It's a well crafted action-adventure game, but does anybody think it'd be as huge if it had a handsome and manly guy as the main character? That just shows you the power of smart marketing. The smart marketing that is oriented on the saliva-inducing thoughts of pubescent boys. And turn that game into a movie! A big titted archeologist! That's obviously an interesting premise for many people since this week's film is a sequel to a very successful blockbuster. How hard can it be to pull off a movie like Tomb Raider? As it turns out, pretty hard, because they didn't get it right even the second time.



Year of the cock-up: 2003

Budget: $118,000,000

Domestic gross: $65,660,196

Foreign gross: $90,845,192

Worldwide gross: $156,505,388



Jan de Bont used to be quite a promising talent back in the day. First, he made Speed, which still stands as one of the best action movies of the 90s. It was also a big commercial success so de Bont had a big budget at his disposal for his second film. And he managed to capture lightning in the bottle for the second time, with Twister being even more successful than Speed. Commercially, that is. I remember that this particular film was actually quite overrated when it came out. I remembered it as being a thrilling film and when I caught it on TV recently, I was surprised how bad this has aged. I mean, the effects are still good, but people must have been really impressed by them back in 1996, because otherwise it's a pretty average movie.

Anyway, after Twister, de Bont was slated to make the sequel to his first hit and this is where his career spiraled down in spectacular fashion.

Speed 2: Cruise Control sucked. It's just that plain and simple. It's probably the worst sequel to a great film I've ever seen. There have been many bad sequels, but I can't remember a big budgeted one that was equally bad. Seriously. Jason Patric is a pretty fine actor (watch Narc), but here, he simply buried his career right out of the gate. Willem Dafoe is a downright parody of himself and the entire movie is so dumb, stupid and boring, it's almost unbelievable it was made by the same person that brought you Speed and Twister.

With his next project, de Bont had to prove he wasn't just a two trick pony, but failed miserably in his pitiful attempt at a horror movie with The Haunting. What followed was a three year lay-off, after which de Bont decided to give it one more shot and prove the nay-sayers wrong (and make some cash along the way) once and for all. He hopped in on the Lara Croft bandwagon.

There are very few people living in the world (well, at least in the civilized, video-game infected parts) that don't know Lara Croft. Even my father knows who she is. He just knows her as "that chick with big tits from that video game", but that's the beauty of cross-over appeal. Lara made it big and Hollywood once again smelled a chance to make some money. Angelina Jolie was cast as the big titted lady from the video game and although fan-boys were quite bitchy when this casting decision was announced, she turned out to be one of the few pluses the movie had going for itself. It was surprisingly boring and uneventful, but it made almost $280 million dollars worldwide. With a budget of cca $95 million, it was huge success and plans for a sequel started immediately. More money was to be spent on just about everything- visual effects, costumes, location shooting, Angelina and her bra padding. And someone somewhere decided to give Jan de Bont another shot. Big budget, good actors, sexy heroine, action filled plot—this had to work, right?

Before and during production, producers were unusually open with the press. They openly admitted the first film wasn't exactly a masterpiece and promised to improve all the failing aspects (which was just about everything except Angelina Jolie and beautiful locations).

The budget was generous enough for the production to go all out with the visuals. Filmmakers were able to shoot the film in several potentially very interesting places- Greece, Wales, China, Hong Kong, Kenya or Tanzania. The creators also had a good idea of combining the old with the new. You see, Lara's adventures always involve discovering some ancient artifact (this time around- The Pandora's Box), but our heroine uses and encounters plenty of modern technologies. They were aiming for this contrast even within the individual scenes- jumping between natural and urban environments.

That's all fine- it doesn't matter the plot is downright ridiculous (an evil billionaire wants to find the Pandora's Box, so he can sell it to people that want to possess its destructive power). And make no mistake about it, this film is full of many absurdities. In interviews promoting the movie, de Bont was saying something about deeper psychology and more realism, but I don't see a scene in which a shark growls (underwater!!) and a woman punches him out being in any way realistic. It was underwater, so I guess it was deep at least. But like I said- the plot can be as absurd as putting water in a basket, but if it's fun and it doesn't take itself too seriously, everything's fine.

That's a big mistake made by the director. He decided to treat this ludicrous plot with all seriousness and it's not very fitting for a movie that should have been just a fun action piece. The actors were fine. Gerard Butler (Leonidas from 300) as the requested Croft-boy, Ciarán Hinds as the evil billionaire and Christopher Barrie of Red Dwarf fame all do what they can, they've just been pushed in the wrong direction.

Because of the mixed reaction the first movie received, it was crucial the second one would actually end up good and have a good marketing campaign. As proven many times before and afterwards, good trailers can do wonders (the already mentioned 300 is a prime example of this). But just like with the rest of the production, it was just a routine job done without any sense of excitement.

That's the biggest problem of the second film. Yes, it's bigger. Yes, it has more locations. Yes, it's filled with more action. But whatever's happening, it's filmed in such a dull way one can't help, but become bored with the film eventually. All the varying scenes sound potentially interesting, but end up being just the opposite. A fine example is the motorcycle "chase" on the Great Wall of China. Now that sounds pretty exciting, if you ask me. It's ridiculous, but exciting. De Bont and co. even hyped the scene as being a chase scene like you've never seen before. Of course, not only was this advertising false, it wasn't even a chase at all. It was just Lara and her partner traveling on the wall to a different location. It was just a transition shot and it served only one purpose- to show us what cool and tough biscuits our heroes actually are, without providing anything entertaining. And the movie is filled with scenes like this, so it really is no surprise it gets boring after a while.

Without a good marketing campaign, mixed reactions (the most favorable reaction the movie got was along the lines of "slightly better than the first one") and bad word of mouth, the movie was a flop in North American cinemas. Overseas earnings helped somewhat, but the movie still didn't turn a profit due to its budget. The box office disappointment of this movie created something of a ripple effect that resulted in production of several similar movies being cancelled, most notably the James Bond spin-off from Die Another Day, which was tentatively titled Jinx and was to have starred Halle Berry. So come to think of it, it was probably good for everyone.

Cradle of Life was originally planned to be the second of three movies, but the harsh critical reception and poor box office performance resulted in the second sequel being scrapped by Paramount in early 2004.




Before we get to who's to blame for this failure, let's look at a fun piece of trivia:

- Jan de Bont's salary for directing this film was $5 million.


Now that's serious money when it comes to directors. Not many of them get paid millions of dollars. He had a chance to prove himself.

I firmly believe that if it was someone different directing this (you know, someone with actual talent), it might have been a pretty good popcorn flick.

With de Bont at the helm however, it's just an exposition of nice locations, nice art direction and nice design. But you can have all the beauty in the world, it's not going to mater if it's just a series of pictures uniterestingly stringed together. At the stage his career was in at the time, it was a put up or shut up time.

To me, de Bont proved he had what is best described as beginner's luck with his first two films (and like I said, I don't think Twister is anything out of the ordinary). No talented director would be able to make a movie so bad like Speed 2: Cruise Control. It just can't happen. That's as if David Fincher made xXx 2: State of the Union. Either that, or de Bont completely forgot how to make a good movie.

This film served as a nail in the career of Jan de Bont, the promising director. He will have to provide with something VERY special to be granted another chance.

Since Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life was a Jan de Bont vehicle, I hereby award him the title Mr. Floppy.


As as a sidenote, I'll add that Angelina Jolie looked better than ever in this film. If you're a girl though, this movie has literally nothing for you (maybe few shots of Gerard Butler). Then again, I don't think there are many female readers here on 411. :-)) I don't feel like posting a Jan de Bont Picture here, so instead I'll provide something for the remaining part of our readership.



I wanted to put a nude photo up, but I figured you'll all be able to find one yourself (just like you always do ;-)).

- Peter