Discussion YMMV / TombRaider2018

This entire page read like it was written by somebody that had a serious grudge against this movie, and who exaggerated any issues to make it seem worse than it really is. As such, I've pulled the following examples and altered a few others, and I'll explain my reasoning for each.

• Ass Pull: Vikander-Lara changing her hairstyle to the one Jolie-Lara was known for isn't implausible, but then the epilogue makes a big deal of Lara picking up a pair of customized pistols with obvious glee. Vikander-Lara never even touched a firearm in the entire movie although she had plenty of opportunities to do so, which makes this sudden change of heart both very jarring to watch and very obvious about what it's meant to invoke.

Pulled. Lara wore her hair in a braid and dual-wielded pistols in the classic games too, so it's more likely to be a Shout-Out / Easter Egg to those than the Angelina Jolie movies. Furthermore, this is really exaggerating things; Lara is shown to be a skilled archer, which is why she wields a bow-and-arrow and not a gun throughout the movie, not some aversion to guns like this entry implies. This also makes it sound like Lara's giddy over the pistols, when really she just smirks when she picks them up, hardly what I'd call "obvious glee". If anything, this is Pandering to the Base, but even that I think is overstating things. It's just a harmless reference.

• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The movie's plot is Lara attempting to finish her father's work in an attempt to reconnect with him in some way. This is the same basic plot as the Angelina Jolie Tomb Raider movie and was a major plot point in a number of other games in the series, and many fans are getting tired of it now.

Pulled. Tomb Raider hasn't reached Spider-Man or Batman levels of watching the same origin story over and over again, so it doesn't count. Not to mention that the most common criticism of this movie from fans is that it's not the same as the game it's based on.

• Minor Major Character: Lara has very little impact on the plot in the grand scheme of things, with the only real impact of note is her finding her fathers research, getting captured by Trinity twice and having to stop Vogel from getting away with Himiko's thumb. In fact, Lara makes the situations around her worse, by not doing what her father tells her to do, and only helps when she finally does what she is told by her father at the end of the film.

Pulled. Lara's actions result in Himiko's tomb being uncovered and ultimately destroyed, thus stopping Mathias and Trinity. Minor Major Character is also more of a world-building issue than a protagonist one, the correct trope for this example would've been Pinball Protagonist.

• Narm: Lara being able to solve one puzzle after another when such a big deal was made about how they've stumped everyone who's tried for centuries, coming off like she looked up a walkthrough on GameFAQs.

Pulled. I don't recall anything about the puzzles stumping people for centuries, that would be strange considering that no one was able to reach them at all since the door was buried and Mathias only just uncovered it.

• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Sam is adapted out of this film with all her contributions given to Richard Croft. Many fans of the game were hoping that the film would focus on Lara and Sam's relationship as it is still incredibly rare for a core relationship of a film, or even many games, to be about two women regardless of whether they are romantic or platonic.

Combined with They Changed It, Now It Sucks!. Considering that Sam isn't in this movie at all, They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character is not accurate.

• Took the Bad Film Seriously: It's very clear that Alicia Vikander is the only person who actually cares about the movie she's in. VERY clear.

Pulled. This movie is nothing groundbreaking but it's not a bad movie, and everybody gives good performances. Vikander is hardly a Large Ham.

• Unfortunate Implications: The film removes fan favorite Samantha Nishimura, a half-Japanese, half-Portuguese friend of Lara's from Tomb Raider (2013), and makes the emotional core of the movie about Lara's relationship with her father, instead of trying to do both. Not helping matters is that Lara and Sam remains a popular fan ship.

I'm leaving this mostly intact because it is an issue people had with this movie, but I want to point out that the filmmakers didn't specifically target Sam for removal and otherwise left the story intact. The entire supporting cast from the game (that's seven characters) was removed, not just Sam. I did remove the bit about shipping though, because that's irrelevant.

• Unintentionally Sympathetic: The audience is presumably meant to cheer for the death of Mathias Vogel, but while he's certainly a merciless killer, his motivations are very relatable. In fact, he's not dissimilar to Richard: abandoned on an island, desperate to return home and see his family. He comes across as a weary, frustrated man who's purposefully blinded himself to the possible ramifications of his actions because he's just that eager to return home.

Pulled. This ignores the fact that Mathias enslaves people, and kills them as soon as they are no longer useful to him (Having killed one person in cold blood on-screen, and at least one other off-screen). Mathias has the same motivation in the game, but nobody claims this about him over there.

• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: A mild example but we are clearly meant to root for Lara and see her as a strong independent woman who does what she believes is right. However, her choosing to go against her father's wishes results in Trinity getting what they need to find and open Himiko's Tomb. She does it again after meeting up with her father, who turns out to be alive in this version and tells her not to go to Trinity's camp; she does exactly that, resulting in the capture of her and her father and ultimately ending in her father's actual death after he comes in contact with Himiko.

Pulled. As I said above, Lara's actions ultimately stopped Mathias and Trinity from achieving their goals. It was only a matter of time until Trinity found the tomb.

• Video Game Movies Suck: Sort of. The film has a 49% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is much better than what this trope's page image shows as the highest rated video game movie on that site. On the other hand, 49% is still 'rotten' so the trope largely applies.

Removed the last sentence, it's just more petty complaining.

• Idiot Ball: In the film Lara finds a recording of her father who tells her of Trinity and that they require his research to locate Himiko's tomb which will endanger thousands of lives, and that she must destroy all his research on Himiko and Yamatai. You'd expect Lara to do as her father asked and destroy all his research and thus prevent Trinity from finding Himiko's tomb. Instead she doesn't, and instead uses it to find Yamatai and brings all her father's research with her. The result is Trinity gets what it needs to find Himiko's tomb and nearly gets Lara and the captain she hired killed.
  • Much later in the film, Richard Croft tells Lara to stay away from Trinity's camp as it is to dangerous to go there. Lara disobeys her father yet again, and goes to Trinity's camp to get her father's research back. Predictably, this backfires, as Lara and Richard both get captured, and Vogel has Lara open Himiko's tomb which leads to Richards death when he comes into contact with Himiko's corpse, as well as Vogel almost getting off Yamatai with Himiko's thumb.

Pulled. Lara didn't believe any of the conspiracy stuff that her father was spouting, and she had no reason to, she just thought he was being paranoid. And again, while Lara's actions did uncover Himiko's tomb for Trinity, they also resulted in said tomb being destroyed, thereby stopping Trinity permanently.