Lara Croft: Tomb Raider


Lara Croft: Tomb Raider is a 2001 action adventure film based on the Tomb Raider video game series featuring the character Lara Croft, portrayed by Angelina Jolie. An international co-production between the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan and Germany, it was directed by Simon West and revolves around Lara Croft trying to obtain ancient artifacts in competition with the Illuminati.
The film was released on June 15, 2001, to mostly negative reviews from critics, although Jolie was praised for her performance. It grossed $274.7 million worldwide, making it one of the highest-grossing video game adaptations. A sequel, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – The Cradle of Life, was released in 2003.

Plot

Adventurer Lara Croft defeats a robot in an Egyptian tomb, revealed to be a training exercise arena in her family manor, where she lives with her technical assistant Bryce and butler Hillary. In Venice, as the first phase of a planetary alignment begins, the Illuminati search for a key to rejoin halves of a mysterious artifact, "the Triangle," which must be completed by the final phase, a solar eclipse. Manfred Powell assures the cabal that the artifact is almost ready, but has no real idea of its location.
Lara's father Lord Richard Croft, long missing and presumed dead, appears to her in a dream. Lara awakens to a mysterious ticking, and finds a strange clock hidden inside the manor. On her way to consult a friend of her father's, Wilson, Lara crosses paths with Alex West, an American associate and fellow adventurer. Lara shows Wilson the clock, and he puts her in touch with Powell. Lara shows Powell photographs of the clock, which he claims not to recognize.
That night, armed commandos invade the house and steal the clock, bringing it to Powell. The next morning, a prearranged letter from Lara's father arrives, explaining that the clock is the key to retrieving the halves of the Triangle of Light, an ancient object with the power to control time. After misuse of its power destroyed an entire city, the Triangle was separated: one half was hidden in a tomb at Angkor, Cambodia, and the other in the ruined city located at Ukok Plateau, Siberia. Her father tasks her to find and destroy both pieces before the Illuminati can exploit the Triangle's power.
Image:Temple Facade-Angkor.jpg|thumb|left|150px|Ta Keo at Angkor
In Cambodia, Lara finds Powell, who has hired West, and his commandos already at the temple. West solves part of the temple's puzzle, and Powell prepares to insert the clock at the moment of alignment. Lara, realizing they made a mistake, finds the correct keyhole; with only seconds left, Lara persuades Powell to throw her the clock. She unlocks the first piece of the Triangle, and the statues of the temple come to life and attack the intruders. West, Powell, and his remaining men flee with the clock, leaving Lara to defeat an enormous six-armed guardian statue. She escapes with the first piece; recovering at a Buddhist monastery, she arranges a meeting with Powell.
In Venice, Italy, Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle, and informs Lara that her father was a member of the Illuminati, and offers to use the Triangle's power to resurrect him; though reluctant, she agrees to join forces. Lara and Bryce travel with Powell, West, and the leader of the Illuminati to Siberia. Entering the tomb, they discover a giant orrery, which activates as the alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the second half of the Triangle, and Powell kills the Illuminati's leader to restore the Triangle himself, but the halves will not fuse. Realizing Lara knows the solution, Powell kills West to persuade her to complete the Triangle to restore West's and her father's lives. Lara complies, but seizes the Triangle herself.
In a "crossing" of time, Lara faces her father, who urges her to destroy the Triangle for good rather than save his life. Returning to the tomb, Lara manipulates time to save West and stab Powell, and destroys the Triangle. The tomb begins to collapse, and all flee but the wounded Powell, who reveals to Lara that he murdered her father. After a hand-to-hand fight, she kills Powell, retrieves her father's pocket watch, and escapes the tomb.
Back in her manor, Lara visits her father's memorial and finds that Bryce has reprogrammed the robot, and Hillary presents her with her pistols, which she takes with a smile.

Cast

  • Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, a British adventurer and archaeologist
  • * Rachel Appleton as young Lara
  • Iain Glen as Manfred Powell, leader of the Illuminati
  • Jon Voight as Lord Richard Croft, Lara's father
  • Daniel Craig as Alex West, a former acquaintance of Lara and rival treasure hunter who teams with Powell for financial gain
  • Noah Taylor as Bryce, Lara's tech expert
  • Richard Johnson as the Distinguished Gentleman
  • Chris Barrie as Hillary, Lara's butler
  • Julian Rhind-Tutt as Mr Pimms
  • Leslie Phillips as Wilson

    Production

Development

acquired the film rights to the Tomb Raider video game franchise in early 1998, and announced Lawrence Gordon and Lloyd Levin as the prospective film's producers.
Tomb Raider went through many drafts and several writers, which resulted in production delays. In 1998, writer Brent V. Friedman, who had co-written Mortal Kombat Annihilation the year before, penned an unproduced Tomb Raider script. Producer and screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, who wrote and directed the 1994 video game film Street Fighter, penned an early draft of the Tomb Raider script in 1999, which was rejected by Paramount. The final draft of the script was attributed to five writers, including director Simon West. West reverted to the original writers after he replaced Stephen Herek as director.

Financing

Lara Croft was financed through Tele München Gruppe, a German tax shelter. The tax law of Germany allowed investors to take an instant tax deduction even on non-German productions and even if the film has not gone into production. By selling them the copyright for $94 million and then buying it back for $83.8 million, Paramount Pictures made $10.2 million. The copyright was then sold again to Lombard Bank, a British investment group and a further $12 million was made. However, to qualify for Section 48 tax relief, the production must include some UK filming and British actors, which was acceptable for a film partially set in the United Kingdom. Presales to distributors in Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain made a further $65 million. Showtime paid $6.8 million for premium cable television rights. In total, $94 million was put together.

Casting

The announcement of the film generated significant discussion about who would be cast to play Lara Croft. Numerous actresses were rumored to be on the shortlist, most notably Rhona Mitra, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Famke Janssen, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Hurley, Ashley Judd, Sandra Bullock, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Diane Lane, Demi Moore and Denise Richards.
The casting of Jolie was controversial among many fans of the Tomb Raider series, with complaints about an American actress being hired to play a British character; others cited Jolie's tattoos and well-publicized controversial personal life. Director Simon West dismissed these concerns and said, in reference to Jolie's penchant for sexual knife play, "it was always Angelina. I mean, Lara sleeps with knives and doesn't take shit from anybody. That's down to a tee." Jolie wore a padded bra to increase her bust size when playing Lara. As she explained to NY Rock in June 2001: "C'mon, I'm not so flat chested to begin with. When I wear a tight T-shirt, I look a certain way. So it wasn't like we had to completely change me. You know, we just had to enhance me a little. I'm a 36C. Lara, she's a 36D. And in the game, she's a double D, so we took her down some. But we did give her a bit of padding there. For me, it was simply one size. So it was like having a padded bra. But no, I am not flat chested anyway. So we still made it Lara Croft, but we didn't go to any extremes. And Lara doesn't apologize for herself, and for having that, you know, recognizable shape. So I'm not going to apologize for her either."
The film marked the feature film debut of television actor Chris Barrie, known for his role of Arnold Rimmer in the BBC science fiction comedy series Red Dwarf. English actor Daniel Craig adopts an American accent for the role of Alex West whilst Jolie takes on an English accent. Jon Voight, Angelina Jolie's father, plays Richard Croft, Lara's father in the film.

Filming

Principal photography for Lara Croft: Tomb Raider took place from July 30 to November 30, 2000. Portions of the film were shot on location at the Ta Prohm temple, located in Angkor, Siem Reap Province, Cambodia. The film was the first major motion picture to be shot in Cambodia since Lord Jim in 1964, following the country's occupation by the Khmer Rouge regime. In addition to on-location shooting, a majority of the film's production also took place on the 007 Stage at Pinewood Studios. Hatfield House in Hertfordshire was used as Croft's home in the film.

Post-production

Simon West's first director's cut of the film was 130 minutes long, before it went through re-shoots some time later after principal photography was finished. West was removed from working on the film in post-production, however he did return to work on re-shoots. Editor Stuart Baird was brought in by Paramount to re-edit the film. Baird was promised the job of directing Star Trek: Nemesis by Paramount in exchange for re-editing original 130-minute cut of this film and John Woo's original 210-minute cut of Mission: Impossible 2.
Due to post-production taking longer than expected, some major effects were left unfinished by the time the film was released in theaters. Baird re-edited the film down to 88 minutes. One of the bigger cuts on the film was changing the original score. Originally, Nathan McCree was hired to compose the score, as he had composed the music for the first three Tomb Raider games. Greg Hale Jones started to work on the score with Peter Afterman in November 2000, after production was finished, and Danny Elfman composed the main theme for the film. Jones later said how once West was fired from the film, his score and Elfman's theme were shelved. Michael Kamen was then hired and submitted demos, and composed a full score which was rejected once the film was re-edited by Baird. Graeme Revell was then brought in and he had to compose sixty minutes of music inside ten days. Jerry Goldsmith was also attached to score the film, but he couldn't due to health problems at the time.
Despite the fact that a large amount of the film was cut, only four deleted scenes, seven minutes long in total, were included as extras on the film's DVD and Blu-Ray releases. Trailers for the film showed more deleted scenes. In July 2001, Simon West stated that he had prepared an alternate version of the film for a DVD release which would include deleted scenes, but this version was never released. Angelina Jolie's nude scenes were also cut out for a PG-13 rating.
Some of the earlier scripts for the film included more scenes focusing on Lara's sex appeal, like Lara flashing her breasts to some villains as a distraction, using her breasts to crush a giant millipede. Jolie later stated that she was disappointed with how Lara's sexual appeal was scaled down, and how she thought Lara wasn't sexy enough in the final film.