This movie is terrible. Okay, that is a lie. Every movie has something good including this one.

It just happens that the worst things about the movie happen to be critical: the directing and the editing. There is something I can’t forgive in a movie and that is inconsistent tone. This doesn’t mean the movie can’t change its tone, it just can’t be ambivalent about it and this movie can’t find a its stride and keeps slowing down and speeding up for what seems to be mysterious reasons . This movie has totally unnecessary scenes. For example there is a scene where Lara Croft jumps from the Great Wall of China down to a road. Is she being pursued? No. Is there a reason for spending that much money on CG? No. Did the scene do anything for the movie, like add to the tempo, move it forward? No. So why is it there? Few films make me feel like I wasted my money at the box-office, even fewer make me feel like I lost my time watching it, this movie made me feel the latter. Which is really bad, because the first movie wasn’t nearly this bad. This movie has great stunts. But in post-Jackie Chan times, the old school of James Bond stunts don’t do it alone. The cinematography is sub-par with the actor being out of focus many times and the lighting completely unimaginative. Most annoyingly the camera is in constant movement in a bad, give you motion sickness kind of way. The production design is very good specially at the temple of the moon at the beginning, but it gets weaker at the end. I’m sorry, maybe I am a far more traveled person than the intended audience but I just can’t buy a tribe of African Natives that are dressed for combat every day. Though still better than made for TV films like Helen (everybody seems to be wearing machine cut cotton, brand new, clean and thin in ancient Greece!) they could have made that just a bit more like reality and less like old Hollywood (though I must admit it would have been funny if the tribe was entirely composed of white bodybuilders painted black). Unfortunately the script does not make it above a made for TV movie, with sudden turns in the plot that come out of left field. What is really sad, however, is that the acting is very, very good. I mean if the acting was bad, you’d knew you were watching a bad movie and get in that bad movie watching mood, but this movie had serious actors, acting seriously and still the director managed to make it mediocre.

So, Angelina perky nipples aside watch the rest of this film some other time. Maybe the DVD will have extras that will be good to watch. I must say I am curious how can you have so many good things going for you on the preproduction stage (sequel, Angelina, little story limitations, and money) and still miss. Maybe the studio got involved and started backseat driving on the director? Hmm that would be interesting. Or maybe the original director quit two seconds before the start of principal photography and they choose the producer’s brother to direct? Isn’t that cool? Or imagine if the director, Belgian, can’t speak a word of English and the whole crew is Chinese and can only speak Chinese or Haitian Patua due to an ancient curse. Now that would be a cool story. Who knows the making of this movie can be the like the Lost in la Mancha is to Don Quixote. I hope someone recorded it.

Angelina’s performance gets two thumbs up, a barbaric yelp, and fiver out of four stars.