After a long time, I have finally gone and seen the sequel to the first Lara Croft film. The first one wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute so this one really tried to add in as much action as possible. The Cradle of Life shows many glimpses of a world where it could actually have been a solid film, but these glimpses are simply too brief and the film is ultimately plagued by a few negatives.

As for the plot, Lara Croft has finally met a challenge that is too much for her. To get to Pandora’s Box, she will need to get into villainous territory. Her two assistants are already out of the picture thanks to the enemies so Lara is forced to free an associate from prison. This man is there for a reason so this is a pretty big gamble, but the two characters have a long history between them. Now that we’ve got the drama in place, the adventure can really start!

The actual plot isn’t bad and Lara is essentially just embarking on a new quest. Unfortunately, bringing someone along was definitely not a good move as the guy drags down the film. His name is Terry and he’s definitely not a good character. For starters, he’s a total criminal who clearly has not reformed in his ways. He talks tough right from the start, but he still gets beat up a few times and Lara also tricks him on more than one occasion. It becomes very evident as to why the two of them ended up parting ways. They definitely can’t trust each other and both prefer riches to companionship. Terry goes off the deep end rather unexpectedly at one point although I didn’t care for him anyway.

He also gives us the worst scene in the film as he and Lara decide to see if they’re still meant for each other. The long romance scene is an example of a very poorly developed plot and one that is completely unnecessary. After not seeing each other for years and parting on bad terms, I find it hard to believe that they would get back together so quickly. If so, the characters are definitely too easy and it hurts any chances that they had of being likable.

Likewise, the scene also hurts Lara’s character and I definitely don’t care for her here. She’s a character who tries to get in as many one liners and burns as possible, but that also means that they don’t all work. While she claims to be a professional, she nearly dies by staying in a crumbling ruins for too long and her banter quickly dies down when held at gunpoint. She’s a decent adventurer, but she’s hardly a great fighter. (Although, she’s good enough to beat her partners at Kendo) Using her feminine wiles to get through the adventure was really the last straw for her character.

As such, there weren’t many likable characters to be found in the film. I actually didn’t mind one of her partners as he was really petty. In the kendo match, he finally got a hit towards the end of their bout and started celebrating a lot. It’s like fighting on For Glory in Smash Bros where the opponent will taunt numerous times after finally getting an elusive KO. The other member is fairly weak and doesn’t add much to the story. He does try to warn Lara about the fact that the villains are on to him, but she is evidently not the sharpest tool in the shed and misses all of the warnings that he gives.

I need to quickly take this time to mention the fact that it’s not really wise for a treasure hunter to have a very well known mansion in the middle of such a big landscape. Lara doesn’t have any real defenses so any villain organization can just bust in as we saw in this film. She really needs to think about adding some much needed security to make the place a little tougher to break into.

The film was surprisingly a little more violent than I had expected it to be. One of the scenes in the climax involves a man burning to death with surprising detail as he melts. Another scene, which I found to be more intense involved a guy who was poisoned. From the way that the scene played out, it started to look like he was literally spitting out his guts. That likely wasn’t what was happening….likely, but it sure looked like that, which was pretty gruesome.

Let’s quickly look at a nice positive for the film, which is the fact that there are monsters to be found. Towards the end of the film, we find out that there are monster guardians which watch over Pandora’s Box. They can phase through objects and their speed isn’t too shabby. It almost goes without saying that there physical strength is very good. Watching them take down the group of humans was like watching the Raptors take everyone down in Jurassic World. The monsters take their time and methodically take everyone down one at a time. It’s very impressive to watch and it was a fun scene as monsters are just what we needed. They were a little too powerful so we never get to see Lara fight one of them, but the plot hax would have likely been too immense so I suppose that it’s fine.

Some of the special effects don’t quite hold up here though. One scene in particular comes to mind as Lara glides across a city. It clearly looks like she is just being held by a string with a background picture that is moving in the background. That definitely looks fake, but I suppose that we can’t have too many films with good effects right? On the bright side, it’s bad in a bit of a campy way so I wouldn’t call it a huge issue. Just something that it fun to note.

It’s really too bad that the film crumbled as it went along because I did find it to be interesting. For example, the opening scene was fun as Lara infiltrated an underwater temple and the plot began. That was the film’s first missed opportunity as Lara should have fought the villains. A nice fight scene at the beginning of the film is always a fun way to start off. We got a fight later on between Lara and another villain that was fun though. Even if the collateral damage did end up destroying the guy’s “priceless” statues. A film just needs more good qualities if it wants to be good. The plot isn’t enough, you need good writing, good characters, and more. This film couldn’t really pull off any of that as I’d call the writing decent at best. Even the final scene’s humor is a plot that’s probably been overdone a little at this point. You will feel a little bad for the two assistants…but very little.

Overall, The Cradle of Life is definitely not going to be the film to give video game adaptions a good name. It had a fairly interesting plot and the monsters at the end were cool, but that wasn’t enough to make it a good film. Making the poison scene a little less graphic and cutting out the make out scene between Lara and Terry would have helped the film a lot and that probably would have put the film in the clear with a 2 star boost. That being said, the could have/should have case can be applied to just about any film. So, when it all boils down to it, The Cradle of Life simply couldn’t stay afloat and Pandora’s Box just wasn’t meant to be found. If you’re looking for a good adventure film, then you should probably watch Indiana Jones…although I haven’t seen those in a while. Be on the lookout for the CGI ants! As for Lara Croft, we’ll have to wait a long while before we get a film that does the classic games justice.

Overall 4/10