2001, 1 hr 40 min., Rated PG-13.�Dir: Simon West. Cast: Angelina Jolie (Lady Lara Croft), Iain Glen (Manfred Powell), Jon Voight (Lord Richard Croft), Daniel Craig (Alex Cross), Noah Taylor (Bryce), Chris Barrie (Hillary).

Since I'm trying to catch up with my summer movie reviews, I don't have a whole lot of time to write this review. Besides, when it comes to a film like Tomb Raider I can go back in time to pull anecdotes from Indiana Jones, of which this one is a major rip-off. So let's not waste time...

Now, just because I brought up Mr. Jones and his adventures doesn't mean that I can't put aside my love of that trilogy and see Miss Croft as a separate entity. She's got wits, sex appeal and kicks some serious booty, so Angelina Jolie's not entirely lacking as an action hero. Where the two films part ways, however, is personality and heart, meaning that Jones has it, Croft doesn't.

But, that's okay, if you're just blowing time and want to see a summer popcorn flick full of quirky sidekicks and evil baddies, where ancient prophecies end up producing some serious gunfire (how did our ancestors ever hold back these things before gunpowder?) and our hero is confronted with a moral dilemma of which we know she'll always do the 'right' thing.

PLOT: Based on a popular video game, heroine Lara Croft is a wealthy adventuress - with HUGE tracts of land - and tomb raider, with an affinity for antiquities (another difference: Croft does it for kicks, Jones for science, which in part affects why the latter has more heart). Croft must save the world from falling into the hands of Manfred Powers and the Illuminati because the planets are about to line up while the sun is eclipsed, for the first time in 5,000 years. If they have two important pieces, then these baddies will control time, and thus the fate of all mankind.

I'm not much of a Jolie fan, so it's quite something for me to say that she's fairly capable in the role. In fact, as I think of it, she's about the only known actress nowadays that could even pull off the popular game character (known as much for her figure as her abilities). Those breasts alone could wipe out half the armies in the world.

The rest of the cast is pretty much unkown, save Jolie's daddy Jon Voight in a small part as, whaddya know, Croft's deceased papa. The sidekicks are funny, the bad guys appropriately evil, so no complaints there.

The action is frequent and rockin', keeping it interesting enough so that the slow bits don't get in the way for too long. Of course, director Simon West may have been going a tad too far with the action when he starts using slow-motion effects that were entirely unnecessary. It takes the audience out of the flow of action and has us think, "hey, it's in slow-mo now." Keep it rolling, Simon, we don't need no distractions from Jolie's big guns (you may take that any way you please).

The verdict:

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