Tomb
Raider
IMDb Rating
215K+
IMDb Votes
52%
Rotten Tomatoes
$274M
Box Office
Synopsis & Review
Directed by Norwegian filmmaker Roar Uthaug and produced by MGM and Warner Bros., Tomb Raider (2018) is a reboot of the long-running film series based on the iconic Square Enix video game franchise — and crucially, it draws its inspiration not from the campy Angelina Jolie films of the early 2000s, but from Crystal Dynamics' critically acclaimed 2013 game reboot of the same name. The film follows a young, un-wealthy Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander), working as a bicycle courier in London, who has refused to sign the papers that would declare her father Richard (Dominic West) legally dead after his disappearance seven years prior. When she finally opens his private office, she discovers he was investigating a mythical Japanese tomb — and an organization called Trinity, which is hunting the same site. Lara travels to Hong Kong to find the last person to see her father, a boat captain named Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), and together they sail to the mysterious island of Yamatai, where Trinity operative Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins) is already excavating the tomb of the ancient queen Himiko. What follows is a survival story: Lara fighting, bleeding, and improvising her way through jungle, ruin, and gunfight, not as a superhero but as a young woman discovering who she is under pressure.
The film's greatest asset is Alicia Vikander. The Swedish actress, who won an Academy Award for The Danish Girl just two years prior, brings an unusual credibility to the role — not through the kind of invincible physical confidence that defined Angelina Jolie's Lara, but through vulnerability and sheer determination. Vikander's Lara is a character who is visibly hurt, uncertain, and human, which is exactly what the 2013 game was going for and what most action films fail to deliver. She trained extensively for the role and it shows: the action sequences have physical weight because her body communicates genuine effort. Uthaug stages the set pieces with clarity and pace, particularly a spectacular sequence involving a decomposing plane balanced over a waterfall. The script, from Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons, lacks the depth to match its lead performance — the supporting characters are underwritten, and the mythology of Himiko is handled more mechanically than mysteriously. But as an origin story laying the foundation for a franchise, and as a demonstration of what a thoughtful, grounded performance can do for an action movie, Tomb Raider delivers more than its modest critical reception suggested. It is not a great film. It is, in the best way, a very good start.
Why Watch This Movie?
Alicia Vikander Redefines Lara Croft
Vikander's performance is the film's reason for being. Where previous portrayals of Lara Croft leaned on glamour and near-invincibility, Vikander plays her as a credible, flawed, and evolving human being. She commits entirely to the physicality of the role — spending months in combat and stunt training — and brings genuine dramatic weight to what could have been a straightforward action part. It is one of the most convincing portrayals of a video game character ever put on film, anchoring a franchise reboot on acting ability rather than spectacle alone.
Faithful to the 2013 Game Reboot
Rather than adapting the classic Lara Croft mythology, the filmmakers drew directly from Crystal Dynamics' 2013 game — one of the finest action-adventure games of its decade — which presented Lara as a young woman on her first true expedition, learning survival through pain and necessity. Fans of the game will recognize the tone, the island setting, the survival-horror aesthetic, and the character's emotional arc from naivety to competence. The film respects its source material, which is a rarer quality in game adaptations than it should be.
Grounded Action with Real Physical Stakes
In an era of CGI-saturated blockbusters where stakes feel weightless, Tomb Raider goes in the opposite direction. Lara bleeds. She falls. She improvises with whatever is at hand. The action is choreographed with a commitment to physical logic — when something hits her, she reacts like a person, not a superhero. The waterfall-plane sequence in particular is a genuinely thrilling piece of practical-first filmmaking that rivals anything in bigger-budget contemporaries. The film earns its tension by never allowing Lara to feel invulnerable.
Cast & Crew
Director
Roar Uthaug
Screenplay
Geneva Robertson-Dworet & Alastair Siddons
Based On
Square Enix's Tomb Raider franchise
Lara Croft
Alicia Vikander
Mathias Vogel
Walton Goggins
Lord Richard Croft
Dominic West
Lu Ren
Daniel Wu
Original Score
Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL)
Studios
MGM / Warner Bros.
Official Trailer
© MGM / Warner Bros. Pictures. Trailer embedded via YouTube.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why did the filmmakers base the 2018 film on the 2013 game rather than the classic Lara Croft?
The decision was largely a response to the failure of the Angelina Jolie films, which had leaned heavily into the original game's fantasy of an already-complete superhero. Crystal Dynamics' 2013 game reboot — which became a massive critical and commercial success — had already done the work of reimagining Lara as a believable young woman discovering her resilience for the first time, and had been widely praised for making the character feel genuinely human. The producers recognized that this was the version of Lara that contemporary audiences would find most compelling: not the polished, all-capable fantasy figure, but a person who earns her competence through suffering and determination. The 2013 game had also established a visual and tonal language — the island survival horror setting, the grounded action, the mythology-driven plot — that translated naturally to cinema. Adapting from the reboot rather than the originals also neatly sidestepped comparisons to the Jolie era, allowing the film to position itself as genuinely new.
How physically demanding was Alicia Vikander's preparation for the role?
Vikander underwent approximately a year of intensive physical training before and during production. Her regimen included rock climbing, boxing, swimming, and weight training, with a specific focus on building functional strength rather than purely aesthetic muscle — the kind of body that would believably pull itself up a waterfall or swing across a rope. She worked with a team of trainers and stunt coordinators to develop both the physical capability and the movement vocabulary of the character. Notably, Vikander performed a significant proportion of her own stunts, including many of the hand-to-hand combat sequences, which was important to both her and Uthaug as a way of ensuring the action felt inhabited rather than performed by a double. The result is visible on screen: her physicality in the role is one of its most convincing elements, and it represents a level of commitment to transformative preparation that is rarely seen outside the very highest tier of Hollywood productions.
Why was the sequel cancelled despite the film's profitable box office performance?
The sequel was actively in development for several years — a script was commissioned from Amy Jump — but ultimately collapsed due to a combination of factors unrelated to the quality of the original film. The primary issue was a complex legal and rights dispute between MGM and the Tomb Raider franchise's game publisher, which created uncertainty about who held film rights and on what terms. MGM itself went through a bankruptcy and subsequent sale to Amazon during this period, further complicating development. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted production timelines industry-wide. And without a sequel in production, the creative momentum that Vikander and the production team had built dissipated. By 2023, it was reported that Amazon and MGM were pursuing a complete franchise reboot rather than continuing from the 2018 film — a disappointing outcome given the quality of Vikander's work, but a common fate for IP that gets caught between competing corporate interests.
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