Thursday, November 28, 2013

"Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" (2001)

Plot is ho-hum.  Nothing much worth mentioning there.  The fight sequences are a lot of fun; those are the main reasons to watch.  The plot just provides the reason to watch the fights.  Having a female lead was also kind of fun.  Other than one or two "notes" (descending vocals) choices, the end credit music worked.

SPOILER ALERT:  So, the first fight is in her pajamas--or close enough to pajamas.  Hmm.  Somebody analyze that to pieces.  I like the line, "I just found my car keys."  Of course, the context makes the line.  The premise to the character Lara's attitude towards fights--practice and real--is appealing ... but is it appealing just to me or is it the smoothness of attitude a something that appeals to all genders?  It's an escapist empowerment that says, "If I could do everything, it would look like that.  That's how I'd imagine it would go."  And weirdly, seems to mimic what I do to counteract the occasional nightmare--empowering what I imagine to take over the nightmare and make it my own slow-motion, in-control victory.

(yeah, still spoilin' here...) And then there are the watches.  The fight for an all-powerful "watch", with a watch for a key, finally destroyed, and topped with an icing-on-the-cake fight for an emotional watch--after giving up a bigger emotion.  That's begging to be analyzed, too.

I suppose the fight in pajamas was to say, "Because I can."

And, of course, if a movie is going to have any quest for an ancient artifact, you have to be sure to destroy the entire temple/city in the process (c.f. Indiana Jones movies).  What kind of ancient artifact action movie would it be without that?  : /

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