On a visual level, 'Tomb Raider' looks great. The film starts promisingly on a gritty note and the action is exciting and energetically choreographed, with some jaw-dropping stunts and extravagant and not over-used or abused special effects that looked like a lot of time and effort went into them. There is fun and intrigue, and also a taut pace. It does what it said on the tin, knew what it wanted to be and who to aim it for and kept me entertained and engaged throughout, even with its issues.

However, 'Tomb Raider' is far from a bad film. The father-daughter relationship and story does have heart, and the closest thing to development, but for instance Daniel Wu's character didn't fit very well, out of place actually, and Wu didn't look very comfortable. Characters tend to be one-dimensional and too neatly black and white. The ending is not really a surprise at all, actually as predictable as one would expect. Mostly am not one to criticise a film for having plot holes, find it to be a very lazy and unfair reason to criticise a film for (especially when it is the only thing that some reviews for certain films mention), but will briefly mention without spoilers that they are there and they are pretty big. It is not an original one, some of it even is pretty derivative, and it is not always logical. Again, a long way from a disaster as it was taut and fun and kept me engaged with some nice clever nods to the games. Too much of it though is clunky, especially in the more exposition-oriented parts that are not as interesting or resonant as ought generally and veer on the banal. It's not terrible, it does intrigue and the tone at least is clear. Will agree with anybody who didn't find the script great. Another case of liking it more than the critics did, while seeing where they're coming from. 'Tomb Raider' (2018), while far from perfect or one of the year's best films (far from being one of the worst too), turned out to be worth the while. Remember quite liking the first, while also not caring for the second and being pleasantly surprised by Jolie. Although it has also been years since seeing them, am familiar with the two 'Tomb Raider' films with Angelina Jolie.

Saw 'Tomb Raider', despite some apprehension because the critical reception was fairly lukewarm and so were the reactions from friends (whose opinions are ones that are always respected and often agreed with), as someone who likes Alicia Vikander and although it's been years as someone with fond memories of the games. From those seen, it is not surprising that they generally have not been well received and that as a films-based-on-video-games group the reputation is dubious.

The general reputation for films based on video games is not a good one.

Tomb raider movie metacritic