REVIEW ROUNDUP: Critics Weigh in on TOMB RAIDER

Set for release on March 16, 2018, the film will be distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, a Warner Bros. Entertainment Company, and in select territories by MGM. Lara Croft is the fiercely independent daughter of an eccentric adventurer who vanished when she was scarcely a teen. Now a young woman of 21 without any real focus or purpose, Lara navigates the chaotic streets of trendy East London as a bike courier, barely making the rent. Determined to forge her own path, she refuses to take the reins of her father's global EMPIRE just as staunchly as she rejects the idea that he's truly gone. Advised to face the facts and move forward after seven years without him, even Lara can't understand what drives her to finally solve the puzzle of his mysterious death.

Leaving everything she knows behind, Lara goes in search of her dad's last-known destination: a fabled tomb on a mythical island that might be somewhere off the coast of Japan. But her mission will not be an easy one; just reaching the island will be extremely treacherous. Suddenly, the STAKES couldn't be higher for Lara, who-against the odds and armed with only her sharp mind, blind faith and inherently stubborn spirit-must learn to push herself BEYOND her limits as she journeys into the unknown. If she survives this perilous adventure, it could be the making of her, earning her the name tomb raider.

From Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, "Tomb Raider" is the story that will set a young and resolute Lara Croft on a path toward becoming a global hero. The film stars Oscar winner Alicia Vikander ("Ex Machina," "The Danish Girl") in the lead role, under the direction of Roar Uthaug ("The Wave"), with Oscar-winner Graham King ("The Departed") producing under his GK Films banner. The executive producers are Patrick McCormick, Denis O'Sullivan and Noah Hughes.

Warner Bros. Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures present, a Square Enix production, a GK Films production, "Tomb Raider."

See what the critics are saying below!

Owen Gleiberman, Variety: "The exciting surprise of the new "Tomb Raider," directed by the Norwegian genre specialist Roar Uthaug, is that it doesn't tamp down Vikander's inner flame, or the three-dimensionality of her talent; it doesn't fold and insert her into an overly gymnastic and CGI-happy thrill ride. The movie is full of vine-swinging, bow-and-arrow-shooting, ancient-spirit-meeting action, but most of it is staged on a convincing human scale, one that's been expertly tailored to its star's understated directness."

Mara Reinstein, US Weekly: "Lara fends for herself in these unforgiving surroundings via a series of RELENTLESS stunts and obvious CGI effects. I counted six chase sequences, two of which take place before Lara meets the bad guy. Despite the exotic location, the various set pieces generally lack suspense. Escaping from a fragile, skeletal airplane about to disintegrate over a waterfall is a doozy; running and leaping in a single bound is a snooze. And after four Hunger Games movies, I do believe it's time to retire the shot of a heroine using a bow and ARROW to dispatch heartless enemies in the chest."

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter: "Spurred by the successful videogame reboot in 2013, the revival of the brand's big-screen profile offered the opportunity to sharpen the reborn franchise's edge, a notion encouraged by the recruitment of Norwegian director Roar Uthang (The Wave). But after a pacy early scene in which courier Lara leads a wild bike chase through East London, the action reverts to the tried-and-true as the narrative focuses once again on tomb raiding, ruthless mercenaries, mad races through the jungle, much hanging from precipices, secret chambers being penetrated and dormant curses being unleashed after two thousand years."

Pete Bradshaw, The Guardian: "This Lara is notably more serious and sensitive, and unlike Angelina, or the figure in the 90s video game - or indeed Karen Gillan in the new Jumanji movie - she doesn't have to wear cute shorts or revealing clothes, which is fair enough. But she does an awful lot of very pathetic and borderline creepy daddy-daughter pining for that all-important man in her life. It's a fantastically lacklustre appearance from Dominic West as the stately parent from a stately home, the daring anthropologist "Lord Richard Croft" (the son of a duke or earl, perhaps?)."

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