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| Lara
Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life DVD Review |
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Order this DVD from Amazon.com
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Lara
Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
Special Collector's Edition
(Paramount Home Entertainment)
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| DVD
Release Date:
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November
18, 2003
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Length:
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117 mins.
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| Rated:
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PG-13
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| Format:
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Widescreen (2.35:1) Enhanced for 16x9 TVs
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Audio:
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Dolby Digital English 5.1 Surround, Dolby Digital French 5.1
Surround
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| Subtitles:
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English, Closed-Captioned
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| Extras:
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Commentary
by Director Jan de Bont, Deleted/Alternate Scenes (with optional
commentary), Featurettes, Gerard Butler's Screen Test, Music
Videos, Original Theatrical Website Archive,
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I didn't really have high expectations
for Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. This is probably due
to a couple of things - number one being that it didn't really do well
with the critics, and number two, it under performed at the box
office. In it's first weekend of release it place fourth - nothing to
brag about for a major summer release. In the end, it only earned $65
million, roughly half what Lara Croft: Tomb Raider made in 2001.
Surprisingly, although it was generally panned, it fared better with
critics than the original - at least according to Rotten Tomatoes.
Then, of course, there's also word of mouth - which wasn't that great
either. People I knew who saw it said parts of it were pretty
ridiculous - the whole shark scene came up with a few different
people. And finally, Angelina Jolie, who in general I can't stand.
But, I wanted to see it. What can I say? I have a soft spot for summer
blockbusters. So, what did I think? I would say that it was better
than the original - but that's not really saying much. But in the end,
it wasn't
as bad as everybody made it out to be.
In the Cradle of Life, Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) discovers an orb
which reveals the location of Pandora's Box which, when opened, will
unleash a plague that will wipe out millions. But, when the orb is
stolen, Lara sets out on a quest to find it before it's too late.
Along the way, she's aided by Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler), a former
boyfriend-turned-mercenary who is the only one who can help her. Fast
forward a little bit, and the orb falls into the hands of an evil
billionaire bent on selling the orb and its secrets to the highest
bidder. Lara finds the orb (again) and dumps her beau fearing that
he'll steal the orb from her and sell it himself. A couple of
adventures later, she brings the orb to the Cradle of Life, only to be
followed by our billionaire villain and, well, you can check it out
for yourself to see how it ends - although, you can pretty much guess.
As I mentioned earlier, I didn't really have high expectations - and
this is probably why I enjoyed the movie. I will say that I'm glad the
shark scene (by far the most ridiculous part) happened near the
beginning because I was able to get past it early on and enjoy the
rest of the film for what it was.
At first glance, the DVD didn't have too much to offer besides the
standard fare (commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes) but it
actually made good use of what it did offer.
First up, there was the commentary by director Jan de Bont, who
started his directing career strong with such classics as Speed and
Twister, but who ended up making Speed 2 and has never really
recovered. But, look at what else he's done, aside from his
directorial career, you have to give the guy credit. He's been around
and has worked on some solid films. For this reason alone, you gotta
believe that anything the guy has to say has the possibility of being
somewhat interesting - and listening to this commentary only supports
this. Although he tends to over-praise certain aspects of the movie,
if you're at all interested in filmmaking, it's an interesting listen.
In terms of featurettes, we're given five which cover several aspects
of the film. They include "Training" (focusing on the
Jolie's preparation and covering a number of different parts of the
film - notably the horseback riding and the stick fighting),
"Vehicles and Weapons" (a very brief look that really should
have been called just "Weapons"), "Stunts" (which,
although entertaining, didn't deal with her punching the shark),
"Visual Effects" (the underwater scene wasn't real?!? Not
surprisingly, we discover the shark was an effect!) and finally
"Scoring" (although this score wasn't that memorable, this
was interesting only because you don't usually see a lot of focus on
this subject). All in all, these featurettes were pretty good. You get
a lot of information on a lot of different subjects from a lot of
different people who worked on the film. What more could you want
really?
There are six deleted scenes and an alternate ending available, with
optional commentary. Watching the scenes alone, I couldn't help but
imagine seeing them as part of the movie, but after watching again
with the commentary, it's easy to see why they weren't. For the
alternate ending, it was half-decent, but didn't really follow where
the movie was headed. The actual ending was much better. One side note
- in one of the deleted scenes, which introduced Djimon Hounsou's
character earlier in the movie, de Bont said he cut it because he was
worried it would give away the part of the film where they visit
Africa. What?!? Like all the promotional materials didn't? Like the
trailer didn't give that part away?!? That didn't really make sense to
me...
Also included on the DVD were Gerard Butler's Screen Test, which for
me was a useless feature without any introduction or explanation as to
why it was included, and two music videos ("Did My Time" by
Korn and "Heart Go Faster" by The Davey Brothers) which were
nice additions for fans of the music. Somehow, I imagine Jolie being a
Korn fan...
Add to all these features some previews (although strangely none for
Jolie's other projects with Paramount) and a look at the official Tomb
Raider movie website as part of the disc's DVD-ROM features and you
have a pretty well-rounded DVD Package.
Looking at the movie now, it's difficult to understand why it wasn't
more successful. Maybe it's Angelina Jolie, who quite frankly, I think
turns off a lot of people just by being herself. Or maybe the fact
that so many people were disappointed with the original, they weren't
really interested in seeing a sequel. Or, sometimes, these things just
happen. Hopefully, people who shied away at the theaters this summer
will take the time to check out the DVD. It's really not as bad as you
might think.
| The Movie: |
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5.5/10 |
| The
Extras: |
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6.5/10 |
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did you think?
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Click here for more information on
The Cradle of Life
Liam Cullin -
Editor
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