Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Plot synopsis:
The film begins on Santorini island, Greece, during a wedding when it is interrupted by an earthquake. The earthquake uncovers the Luna Temple, built by Alexander the Great to house his most prized treasures. Among these treasures is a glowing orb with a pattern resembling a code etched into it. Lara finds this orb, as well as a strange medallion; but both are stolen by the crime lord Chen Lo (Simon Yam). Lara (Angelina Jolie) only just manages to escape as a subsequent earthquake causes the Luna Temple to collapse, while her two companions are killed by Chen's men. Lara is tasked by MI6 to find Pandora's Box, an object from ancient legends that supposedly contains a deadly plague, before Nobel Prize-winning scientist turned bio-terrorist Jonathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds) can get his hands on it. The key to finding the box, which is hidden in the mysterious Cradle of Life, is a magical luminous sphere that serves as a map, the one stolen by Chen Lo in Santorini, who plans to sell the sphere to Reiss. To help her track down Chen Lo and the ball, Lara recruits an old lover, Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler), a former mercenary and Royal Marine, who was in prison in the Republic of Kazakhstan.Among the action sequences that take place during this time are Lara and Terry's entry into China, a fight scene in suburban Shanghai, and a leap off the then-under-construction International Finance Centre skyscraper in Hong Kong, using special winged flight-suits that Terry had arranged for, landing on a ship out in the Kowloon Bay after taking the Orb from Reiss. It is revealed that the medallion Lara also recovered from Chen Lo shows how to unlock the information in the Orb; a certain arrangement of musical sounds. Meanwhile, Lara and Terry begin to fall in love again; but Lara starts to back away from him knowing that she could easily kill him if he betrays her. She seduces him one morning, then leaves him handcuffed to a bedpost, saying "I'm not leaving because I can't kill you; I'm leaving because I could."Lara finds her way to a floating houseboat where a Chinese family is watching SpongeBob SquarePants when Lara asks to use their satellite to communicate with Bryce (Noah Taylor). After some technical difficulties, Bryce sends Lara the file and she uses the sounds make the The Orb reveal the location of the Cradle of Life, which is revealed to be somewhere near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, thanks to an ancient hologram produced by the Orb. Lara sends this info to Bryce back at Croft Manor. After the transmission, it is revealed that Reiss and his men had infiltrated Croft Manor and captured Bryce and James "Hilly" Hillary (Chris Barrie).Lara meets up with Kosa (Djimon Hounsou), an African friend who serves as her translator as they obtain the information from a local tribe about the Cradle of Life. Kosa translates for the tribe's chieftain stating that the Cradle of Life is in a crater protected by the "Shadow Guardians" (humanoid creatures which kill immediately when they sense a movement and vanish into wet patches on dead trees). As the expedition sets out, Lara, Kosa, and the tribesmen with them are ambushed by Reiss' soldiers. More tribesmen are killed by Reiss' soldiers with some of the soldiers being killed by Lara in the fight. The fight ends with Lara surrendering to overwhelming odds as Reiss' helicopter started to land. Reiss and Sean (Til Schweiger) threaten to kill Bryce, Hillary, and Kosa unless Lara leads him and his soldiers to the Cradle of Life. Upon arrival at the crater, they encounter the Shadow Guardians with the wet patching on the dead trees being the blood of their victims. Sean and most of Reiss' soldiers are killed by the creatures. When Lara drops the Orb into the hole that opens the entrance to the Cradle of Life, the Shadow Guardians fall to pieces and both Lara and Reiss are drawn into the Cradle of Life, a labyrinthine cavern made of some strange crystalline substance, racked by bolts of energy where "'sky and earth are one, direction meaningless." Inside there is a pool of highly corrosive black acid (linking back to one of the myths about Pandora's Box) which holds the box and where the laws of physics do not apply, as Lara and Reiss are able to walk (upside down) along the ceiling of the cave. Terry arrives, frees Reiss' captives, and catches up to Lara.Following a climactic fistfight between Lara and Reiss, Reiss is knocked into the acid pool by Lara after he is distracted by Terry, killing and dissolving him. When the couple tries to leave, Terry attempts to take the box as compensation for finding it. But Lara staunchly refuses to let him, knowing the danger if the box were ever open. Despite her love for him, this results in Lara being forced to fatally shoot him in self-defense just after Terry draws his own gun preparing to shoot Lara. Lara is tempted to open the box herself, but realizes that some artifacts are not meant to be found. Placing the box back in the acid pool, she leaves, giving the medallion to the chieftain.Lara and Kosa leave the village along with Bryce and Hillary (who were unknowingly being prepared for a tribal wedding ceremony). The film ends with Lara driving the jeep away from the setting sun.

Tags: paranormal, cult, action, boring, violence

Review:
That is why I don't know why it has lower rating that the first Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movie...
Although Cradle of Life won't go down in movie history as an all-time classic, I am mystified at why so many critics and moviegoers hated it.In my opinion, this movie is much better than the first Tomb Raider film.
The first film was entertaining, make no mistake, but it still had too much of a comic book feel and 'Angelina Jolie' (qv) had not yet gotten a firm grasp of the Lara Croft role.
I was one of the many who protested when she was cast in the role; the first film left be unconvinced, but she finally won me over in her second outing.The story is also more interesting in the second film, with the whole Pandora's Box angle being something more worthy of Tomb Raider than the tired old "conspiracy out to take over the world" plot of the first film.There are some aspects of the second film that I didn't care for as much.
(Indeed, if Hollywood ever follows through with it's long-threatened female Bond film, they could do far worse than get Angelina Jolie for the role of Jane(?) Bond.)What appealed to me in Cradle of Life is how familiar Lara, her background, and her supporting characters have become with only one previous film under their belts.
This level of familiarity, of character comfort, is something I've only ever seen once before -- in the Bond series.Cradle of Life also features some most impressive set pieces that may not necessarily advance the story, but are great to watch, such as a zoom in from outer space on Lara riding a motorcycle, an incredible zoom-in shot THROUGH the window of Croft Manor, and a great scene of Lara shooting at targets while riding a horse -- sidesaddle!Sadly, the critical and box office failure of Cradle of Life probably guarantees no further entries in the series, and even if it does continue, Jolie looks ready to follow Audrey Hepburn's lead and put acting on the back burner in favor of humanitarian work so the role will probably go to another (possibly less talented) actress.
If this turns out to be the case, I believe the Lara Croft series looks set to be remembered as fondly as the Derek Flint films of the 1960s.Anyone who has been scared away by the bad reviews could do worse than to rent a copy from their local video store and check it out.
If you're a die hard Indiana Jones fan, or any of those movies that take you all over the world on a great treasure hunt, you will LOVE Tomb Raider!
The movie centers on Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie) who is assigned by the British Intelligence -MI6- to discover the Pandora box that the baddies (Ciaran Hinds and Til Schweiger) want to find with the purpose of ruling the world .
Angelina Jolie returns as a distaff Indiana Jones in "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life," an action/adventure film (based on a video game character) that is just goofy enough and inane enough to be almost entertaining.In this follow-up adventure - which is designed to give historians and social studies teachers a severe case of the heebie-jeebies - Lara, the world-famous archaeologist and adventurist, finds evidence that the mythical Pandora's Box is really no myth at all, but rather an actual object loaded with enough plague and pestilence to wipe the entire human race off the face of the planet.
Now, twenty-four centuries later, Lara has to try and prevent an evil billionaire capitalist from locating the container, prying open the lid, and bringing an end to civilization as we know it.Though the storyline is clearly not one to be conjured with, all that really matters in a movie such as this one is that the action move quickly and the stunts be sufficiently enterprising to engage the audience.
It is also the only part in the movie that feels like the tomb raider video game.
The main reason I think this might be because of my love to video-games, and I loved Resident Evil and the first Tomb Raider movie too.I wasn't really a fan when I saw the first movie, I'd never played a Tomb Raider game before, but I decided to give it a go as it looked really cool.I went to the cinema to watch it and after that time I'm a big Tomb Raider fan.
Tomb Raider fans happened to see their fantastic character finally materialized in a Hollywood star which matches most of the characteristics described in the original Lara Croft.
After seeing this film I ended up becoming a little fan of both: Lara Croft & Angelina Jolie.
Something that I couldn't feel on the first film.Some things that I believe are valuable to appreciate from this movie are: Jolie's professionalism to play scenes that are normally executed by stunts: Lara shooting from the horse, All martial arts fighting scenes, Playing those jetsky tricks, or doing the shooting when coming down from that rope, and when being elevated by the shark.
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is an improvement over the original as it delivers more action and adventure.
The plot sounds okay but the main reason someone would see this film is for the action scenes and Angelina Jolie.
Angelina Jolie does a good job of playing Lara Croft and she is also very breathtaking in the film.
The series has been re-energized with the new entry "The Cradle Of Life," a high-spirited, far-reaching film that doesn't quite succeed but is such an improvement on the originals that you're ready to overlook all that.Actually, this is a review of "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life", the sequel to 2001's abysmally dull video-game-based film "Tomb Raider." Angelina Jolie is back as sexy, gun-toting archeologist Lara Croft, and at first glance, it's easy to mistake her for Bond, Jane Bond.
And of course, time is running out.Jolie is excellent as Lara Croft, and there probably isn't an actress around who would be better cast in the role.
Butler is great to look at, but his performance is far too low-key and deadpan for a movie as bombastic as this one wants to be, especially when he's paired with Jolie, who enters each seen with a relishing look in her eyes.
Like 007, we always know the hero will prevail in the end, which robs some scenes of the tension needed to excite the audience.Despite some of these flaws, "The Cradle Of Life" is a fine movie and a good way to spend 2 hours on a summer afternoon.
I like Angelina Jolie playing the role of Lara Croft and I liked all the special effects they used to make this movie.
Seriously, this guy could be reading a description of Angelina's naked body and bore the hell out of me.I gave Lara Croft: Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life a two out of ten.
I never knew I could hate a film so much, until I saw Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life.After the medicore, but entertaining first Lara Croft movie, comes this just-plain-crap and boring sequel.
Now marginally good video games are recycled into incredibly bad movies, and third rate TV shows are now plundered for their core idea and turned into fifth rate films.If Hollywood is wondering why their profits are down and why people aren't going out to the movies anymore, its because they continue to make sheer festering piles of uselessness like "Lara Croft: Video Game Idea Raider".
Its not just because the economy is bad that we avoid these movies like death itself, its more because we know that an emotionless video game shoot-em-up is not likely to produce any greatness up on the big screen.The talent in the movie industry is now spread so thinly that its virtually undetectable.How about next summer instead of 20 unbelievably awful movies, how about they just make 1 good one..
Considering "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" was pretty good entertainment, this sequel was a disappointment.
As with most sequels, it just overdoes what was popular in the first film.In this case, that means the action is WAY overdone (since it was too much on the first film, to begin with); "Laura" becomes WAY too much of a feminist-macho icon and Jolie's British accent here is so phony it's embarrassing, and annoying to hear.On he good side, I enjoyed the exotic locales (Far East and Africa), it had very little profanity and some of the stunts were wild and fun to watch.
The plot/script does have room for some improvement.Angelina Jolie returns as Lara Croft, a sexy adventurer that you should not mess around with.
(no spoilers)I wonder if you can use the excuse of "this vapid excuse for a movie consumed valuable hours of my time" to get your money back.I usually try to find atleast one redeeming factor in every movie I see (well, maybe i'm just trying to justify the expenditure), but I can't find a much here save for the inclusion of the fellow who played Rimmer (who was extremely poorly utilised) and a view of Angelina Jolie in a skin tight wetsuit(which was not nearly revealing enough).You'd think they'd have a bit of a better budget to make the sequel better, no?
Am I glad I did...Angelina Jolie is back as our female Indiana Jones (though much less fun), computer game character Lara Croft.
But from the mandrills to the skydiving, this was waste of a lot of movie money, some good actors and a lot of potential.On the other hand, with all the cuttings from part 1 & 2, they must have enough to string together a whole third film with no need to reshoot anything.Maybe one day EIDOS will vet enough pre-production rushes, scripts and cinematography and give us something that matches the addictive pleasure of their game.
This time out, Lara Croft (Angelina Jolie), the closest thing Indiana Jones will ever have to a daughter, has to stop a crazed scientist, Johnathan Reiss (Ciarán Hinds) from finding Pandora's Box, as it will destroy the world if opened.
As Lara herself says, `Some things were not meant to be found.'  Ah, if only we were all so wise.I'm not exactly sure who will benefit from viewing "Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life."  The film looks splashy enough, but this is still mediocrity, albeit mediocrity served on a silver platter.
The males in the audience won't find much in the way of cleavage from Ms. Jolie, as she has even abandoned wearing any of the bra padding that the first film so prominently featured, and females can find better representations of girl power in "Charlie's Angels."  (What that says about the times we are in, I'm not quite sure.)  The thing that has always seemed funny to me is the fact that making it through a "Tomb Raider" video-game takes a fair amount of brain cells, due to the many puzzles and such that they contain, but watching either of the two films spawned from them takes almost none.
I have not seen the first 'Tomb Raider' movie, but if what people are saying is true -- if the sequel, 'The Cradle of Life,' is indeed BETTER than the first movie -- than thank goodness I did not have to subject myself to the original "adventure" of Lara Croft.
Seriously, there is an action sequence set in Shanghai that involves a pagoda, a helicopter, Lara Croft and some kind of orb, but I could not tell you for the life of me what exactly HAPPENS during that sequence.The only saving grace here is Angelina Jolie, who must be the acting equivalent of teflon -- the movie's sheer badness just slides off her as she floats through the film with as much good humor and aplomb as one could possibly be expected to muster.
It's possible that my having been the sole audience for this film at a recent showing in my local multiplex diminished my enjoyment of it, but I suspect that my lack of affection for this movie really stems from the lazy, ill-conceived script and appalling direction that the actors couldn't have broken out of if they'd wanted to.I'm not about to complain about any lack of fidelity to the official back-story, or even to the games themselves - it's a popcorn movie for heaven's sake - but I've been unable to figure out why you'd drop a character like Lara Croft into a Roger Moore-era Bond flick, much less one with any sense of humour forcibly removed.
This is a "Tomb Raider" film in name only - there is no significant part of the movie that would prevent it having been rolled out under a different franchise.Done with knowing humour and a little more affection for the genre, this could still have been a fun if parodic outing.
First, I have never seen the computer game, but last night I saw the previous Lara Croft movie.This one is much better.
Ideally the Tomb Raider movies would have been originated as a trilogy with a story arc circling Lara's parents to continue to flesh out her reasons for doing things and her entry to the game.
(Notice also that no women, children nor animals were hurt in this film...is that a bad thing?)So get off of the fact that you'd have liked to see a little nipple or the fact that Lara Croft seemed like a cartoon cut-out (what about James Bond, Spiderman, etc.)  I think that this movie, Cradle of Life TR2, shakes up the status quo and so what of it?
Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle Of Life was a putrid piece of film-making, it has only 1 single redeeming factor, Angelina is hot, and shes in full sex-appeal mode in this flick, other than that, i can not think of a single thing i enjoyed, it was THAT bad.
i mean, lets all be honest, it was the exact same story in tomb raider 1, which was also a pitiful excuse for a film, however i assumed that if they got enough money to do this movie, based on the first flick, that they must have gotten a great script, so i gave it a shot...let me save you the time and effort....skip it, its not even worth the 2 hours of your life thats wasted.
I liked the first Tomb Raider and I like Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft.
"Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" remains one of the many forgettable action movies,  relying on too much CGI, stunts and flashy editing.
There's nothing at all appealing about Lara Croft except that she looks good in a wetsuit.As you can see, I hated this movie.
I never liked the tomb raider games (actually I only ever tried one of them briefly, and decided to never do that again), and I really don't think the movies have improved on them at all.In this, the second instalment Lara Croft has to go off and rob some temples of everything shiny, after which she will blow them up and leave them in ruin (okay, it may not happen excactly like that, but it's better than the incomprehensible babble they try to pass off as a storyline).What really bugs me about this movie is the fact that Lara Croft is completely unable to relax, or at least it seems that way, because every five minutes there is some kind of action sequence, some of which are extremely silly.
I like Angelina Jolie in the movies, and not just for her looks, but she should definitely stay away from Lara Croft from now on.
the closing scenes are done to provide a reasonable amount of interest and if your a fan of either Angelina or Tomb Raider you will most likely enjoy if not love this film probably worth renting but don't pay large amounts of cash to own this one though..
The law of the movie world seems to be that the bigger the budget the more cheese and corn the script should contain, and the less narrative logic.I actually liked the first Tomb Raider movie a fair bit - it was great to see Lara Croft in an autonomous adventure, and Angelina Jolie fit the character perfectly - smart, sexy, athletic and tough.
The big Scottish guy wasn't bad at all, but the film would have been 5 times better if it'd just focussed on Lara raiding tombs and kicking ass.
Then, what is annoying is this nagging would-be deadpan humor which helps to mar the film and even the presence of a specialist in action film, Jan De Bont doesn't redeem at all this abysmal product from absolute wreckage.From the Pandhora box, everything baneful that can damage a film like "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: the Cradle of Life" got out and destroyed it.
The Cradle of Life actually does stand with those movies, dramatic with good characters.The story was fascinating, and Angelina was great as usual, as was every outfit she wore, especially the silver wet suit.
But when I watch `Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life', I certainly expect to laugh, to have a light entertainment and lots of fun.
So I didnt go into "Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life" with much expectation.
Well Angelina Jolie is a great actress and has make Lara Croft her own but the script didn't help her one bit.
it was very good the second movie of this 6 video games products.this movie have good action scenes and stunts,though the plot i did like it very much.but Angelina Jolie brings life to this video game character.
Lara Croft - Cradle of life, is one of those rare films, that is better than the original and then some.