Lara Croft lines up her shot in this all-new pic for Tomb Raider, the high-profile video game movie headed up by Alicia Vikander and Norweigan director Roar Uthaug.
Best known for unleashing The Wave, a critically-acclaimed disaster movie told through the eyes of a Norwegian geologist, Tomb Raider heralds a marked step up for Uthaug. By venturing over to Hollywood’s blockbuster territory, he’ll become the latest filmmaker to have a crack at the tricky conundrum that is the video game movie. Resident Evil notwithstanding, over the years we’ve witnessed scores of adaptations fall prey to mediocrity – Super Mario Bros., DOOM, and Assassin’s Creed, to name but three – but when it comes to Tomb Raider, there’s reason to be hopeful.
Not only does it star an Oscar-winner in Alicia Vikander, but Warner Bros. and Uthaug have gone on record about their desire to deliver an origin story that’s loosely based on the Crystal Dynamics video game series, which has drawn praise for its handling of Lara Croft’s rise from rookie archaeologist to bona fide Tomb Raider. Perhaps a trip back to Yamatai is on the cards?
For Alicia Vikander, that heralds an opportunity to relocate Ms. Croft into a modern-day setting and, ultimately, portray Lara as a human being, one who ditches college in order to search for her missing father. It’s an adventure that leads her to a remote island off the coast of Japan. And that’s where Roar Uthaug’s origin story begins.
On the topic of approaching the title character, Vikander told Empire:
We asked, ‘What are the famous traits of this person? How can we demonstrate them in the story, but make her feel like a young woman in 2018?’
Also starring Walton Goggins, Daniel Wu, Dominic West and Ready Player One actress Hannah John-Kamen, the real question is whether TR can side-step the sins of former video game movies. We’ll find out one way or another when Tomb Raider opens on March 16th, 2018.