Tomb Raider Blu-ray delivers truly amazing video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now 21, and working as a London bike courier, Lara is driven to solve the puzzle of her father's mysterious death. Leaving behind everything she knows, she searches for her father’s last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan.
For more about Tomb Raider and the Tomb Raider Blu-ray release, see Tomb Raider Blu-ray Review published by Michael Reuben on June 13, 2018 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.5 out of 5.
Tomb Raider is a franchise in search of a movie. With the 2013 reboot of the videogame series, a
film version was probably inevitable, despite the mixed results of the earlier attempts starring
Angelina Jolie. (The first film was a success;
the sequel was not.) As
before, the film's lead is a
rising young star who had just won an Oscar, the stunts are elaborate and the effects are first-class. The director, Roar Uthaug, had proven his ability
to wrangle a technically complicated
production with his Norwegian disaster film, The
Wave. All the right elements seemed to have
been assembled for an exciting adventure film—but someone forgot to include interesting
characters or a minimally credible story.
Returning to a familiar icon's origins worked to restart the James Bond franchise, so why
not Lara Croft? The new Tomb Raider finds Lara (Alicia Vikander) before she becomes the
athletic heroine of legend, working as a bicycle messenger in London and perpetually broke, even
though she's heir to a Bruce Wayne-size industrial fortune and a palatial country estate. But Lara
refuses to have anything to do with her family's wealth, because doing so would require her to
acknowledge that her explorer dad, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), is never returning from
the expedition on which he departed seven years ago. The psychology of this behavior—"I won't
take family money because Daddy left me behind"—doesn't bear close scrutiny, which is
probably why the film hurries over issues of character and motivation and immediately plunges
Lara into extraneous action sequences, starting with a hazardous bike race through busy London
streets.
Eventually Lara is persuaded to sit down with her guardian, Ana (Kristin Scott Thomas), and the
Croft family lawyer (Derek Jacobi), from whom she receives a puzzle box that reveals her father's secret
passion: the investigation of the paranormal, with specific focus on Himiko, a legendary Japanese
queen of enormous power who was entombed on an uncharted Pacific island, Yamatai. Richard
Croft believed he had located Yamatai, and Lara immediately departs for Hong Kong to retrace
her father's footsteps. After yet another superfluous action sequence involving a chase through
Hong Kong harbor, Lara finds Lu Ren (Daniel Wu), the son of the sea captain who disappeared with her
father, and persuades him to embark on the same journey. (Why would Lu Ren undertake a
voyage that he assures Lara will end in shipwreck and death? Don't ask; the film doesn't tell.)
Of course, Lara is not the only one looking for Himiko's tomb. When she and Lu Ren
miraculously reach the island, they encounter Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins), who represents a
nefarious organization known only as Trinity and who has spent seven years doggedly
dynamiting sites on Yamatai looking for Himiko's tomb. Lara's arrival is Vogel's salvation,
because she's carrying with her the very thing that finally leads him to the right spot on the
island: her father's diary, which Lord Croft left strict instructions for Lara to destroy, lest it fall
into the wrong hands. Quicker than you can say Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the
entire group is descending into extended underground caverns loaded with intricate booby traps
leading to Himiko's last resting place. By that point, we're supposed to have learned a great deal
about this ancient witch from Lord Croft, who has been spitting out reams of exposition in
voiceover, video tapes and dictaphone recordings, but it barely sinks in, because Dominic West
races through his monologues like there's someone standing off camera holding a stopwatch.
Eventually we do get a scene reminiscent of the opening of the Ark of the Covenant in the
original Raiders, and
the bad guys suffer an analogous fate, though by less spiritual means.
(Indeed, once the true nature of Queen Himiko's evil power is revealed, much of what follows
doesn't make any sense, but I can't elaborate without major spoilers.)
There's nothing in Tomb Raider that hasn't been lifted from Indiana Jones or subsequent
imitators like The Mummy
series. But where those films had a sense of humor to complement
their zest for adventure, Lara Croft's latest outing is a joyless affair, with a perpetually sullen
heroine, a one-note villain and a remote father figure whose alleged love for his daughter feels
less credible with each passing moment. It's a sad comment on a big-budget popcorn
entertainment that the most entertaining sequences aren't the action set pieces but two brief
scenes featuring married pawnbrokers played by Nick Frost (uncredited) and Jaime Winstone.
They look like they're having fun.
Tomb Raider was photographed digitally by George Richmond, the cinematographer of the
Kingsman films, on a variety of Arri
Alexa cameras, if IMDb is to be believed. Also according to
IMDb, the film was finished on a digital intermediate at 4K, which would make Warner's
1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray a down-conversion from the master source. Whatever the
provenance, the disc looks superb, with richly saturated primary colors—the island forest greens
and browns are especially striking—consistently excellent detail and remarkable sharpness and
clarity even in dark effects-laden scenes like the storm that wrecks Lu Ren's boat (ironically
dubbed Endurance). When you get bored by the paper-thin plot, you can entertain yourself
admiring the detailed production design, both practical and digital, in the re-creation of Hong
Kong's harbor, the rocky shoals of Yamatai or the expansive catacombs that comprise Queen
Himiko's tomb. Blacks are deep and solid when they occur, although Tomb Raider often
follows the familiar visual strategy of tinting dark sequences blue to improve visibility, both at night and in the catacombs. Scenes set in Lara's past
have the desaturated palette typically used for flashbacks in
modern cinematography (probably because it's easy to create in post-production).
Returning to bad habits, Warner has mastered Tomb Raider with an average bitrate of 24.01
Mbps, leaving almost 20 GB of space unused on the BD-50. The encoding appears to be capable,
but there's no excuse for such a low rate when so much space is available.
Tomb Raider arrives with Warner's now-familiar audio choice between Dolby Atmos (with a
Dolby TrueHD 7.1 core, for those who can't yet play Atmos) and a redundant DTS-HD MA 5.1
track. The disc defaults to the latter; so be sure to choose the Atmos track from the "Audio"
menu before you hit "play".
The Atmos track is every bit as robust, aggressive and active as one would expect from a
contemporary adventure tentpole film. The storm that wrecks the Endurance on the rocks of
Yamatai is alive with crashing waves, buckling metal, lashing rain and pounding thunder. Lara's
leap into the perilous rapids of an island river, followed by her even more perilous struggle to
escape by climbing the wreckage of a downed World War II aircraft, is a symphony of racing
currents, crumbling rusted structures and tumbling debris. The traps in Queen Himiko's tomb strike
from all directions, and the soundtrack tracks them precisely. Even Lara's archery provides a
distinctive sonic impression, with arrows traveling audibly through the listening space. The
Atmos track displays the format's usual virtues at optimizing one's system to place sounds in
distinct locations throughout the room. If sound effects editing were enough on its own
to carry a movie, Tomb Raider would be a great film.
The dialogue is clearly rendered and properly localized. Tom Holkenborg a/k/a "Junkie XL"
(Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice) provided the grandiose score.
Tomb Raider: Uncovered (1080p; 1.78:1; 7:06): This is a typically polished studio-produced EPK with an
array of participants that includes director Roar Urthaug,
producers Graham King and Patrick McCormick, and actors Alicia Vikander ("Lara"),
Daniel Wu ("Lu Ren"), Walton Goggins ("Mathias Vogel") and Dominic West ("Richard
Croft").
Croft Training (1080p; 1.78:1; 6:06): A look at Vikander's rigorous training regimen,
which began three months before principal photography.
Breaking Down the Rapids (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:34): A closer look at one of the film's
most elaborate stunt sequences.
Lara Croft: Evolution of an Icon (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:53): A history of Lara Croft in the
gaming world.
Introductory Trailers: The film's trailer is not included. At startup, the disc plays
trailers for Tag and The Meg.
The final scenes of Tomb Raider confidently set up its sequel, as Lara identifies her true enemy
and first picks up her trademark pair of pistols. It's a great moment, because Vikander finally flashes
some of the cheerful grit that makes Lara Croft an appealing heroine—but then the end credits
roll and we're left hanging, waiting for a continuation of the story that, given the film's weak box
office, is unlikely to arrive. If you're going to make an origin story, it needs to offer something
more than a loudly busy but instantly forgettable two-hour prologue. Not recommended.
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Tomb Raider. You can also suggest completely new similar titles to Tomb Raider in the search box below.
For the week that ended on June 23rd, Universal Studios Home Entertainment's Pacific Rim: Uprising debuted at the top spot on the Blu-ray-only and overall package-media charts. A sequel to Guillermo Del Toro's cult 2013 monster movie, Uprising also didn't immediately ...
For the week that ended on June 16th, Lionsgate Home Entertainment's I Can Only Imagine debuted at the top spot on the Blu-ray-only and overall package-media charts. This faith-based melodrama - which looks at the story behind the crossover pop hit of the same ...
For the week of June 11th, Warner and MGM Home Entertainment are bringing the video-game adaptation Tomb Raider to Blu-ray. Other titles include 4K remasters of Forrest Gump, Terminator Genisys, and Darkest Hour, as well as new reprintings of Trading Places and ...
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Use the thumbs up and thumbs down icons to agree or disagree that the title is similar to Tomb Raider. You can also suggest completely new similar titles to Tomb Raider in the search box below.
