On October 10, Netflix released an adventure animated series «Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft», where the iconic heroine got the voice known from Marvel movies and the last part franchises «Mission Impossible» by actress Hayley Atwell. The story is related to the Tomb Raider game series and is a continuation of the reboot that began in 2013 and grew into a trilogy. In the review below, we will tell you what adventures await the fearless adventurer this time and how interesting it is to watch these adventures.
Pluses:
good technical performance — the picture is pleasantly pleasing to the eye, and the voice acting is good; some of the adventures are quite interesting; comfortable timing of the episodes;
Minuses:
local adventures look secondary and strongly resemble typical superheroics; often long dialogues slow down the dynamic pace of the narrative; it is far from clear that, unlike movies, a neutral viewer who is not familiar with games needs this animated series at all;
«Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft»
Genre action adventure, animation
Showrunner Tasha Huo
The roles were voiced by Hayley Atwell, Richard Armitage, Allen Maldonado, Earl Baylon, Zoe Boyle, Roxanne Ortega, Nolan North, Stan Walker, Mara Juneau, Karen Fukuhara
Premiere Netflix
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb
Three years ago, in Chile, Lara Croft managed to get hold of a mysterious artifact from Chinese mythology. But now the heroine has decided to give up her adventures and, to let go of her painful past, sell off all the treasures in her father’s estate. However, an unfortunate incident occurs at the auction: one of the guests steals a Chinese treasure from Chile, and Lara decides to find out for what purpose.
During this investigation, Croft is joined by her loyal friends Jonah Maiava and tech expert Zip, and they soon learn that a mysterious man named Charles Devereaux is trying to collect other artifacts that will give him truly limitless possibilities. But if he does, the balance of the world will be upset, leading to an inevitable apocalypse. Of course, Lara, and her allies cannot let this happen.
The story of the irrepressible adventurer Lara Croft began back in 1996, when the first Tomb Raider was released and became a huge success. Since then, the game series has grown into a media franchise with more than two dozen games, comics, books, theme park attractions, and feature films, and the character herself has gained cult status.
For the first time, Lara Croft emerged in front of the public as part of a feature film in 2001, and Angelina Jolie was entrusted to bring it to life on the screen. Then there was an unsuccessful sequel «The Cradle of Life», but in general, the beautiful Jolie fit perfectly into the role. And how not to mention her participation in the video Korn — Did My Time; yes, those films were vivid representatives of their era and could afford such tough guys as the fathers of nu-metal on the soundtrack.
Game fans had to wait 15 long years for the next movie, but here again, something went wrong with the filmmakers. Alicia Vikander — an actress who is clearly not a regular in the action genre, was chosen for the title role. But the problem was neither in her nor in the fact that some picky gamers complained about, let’s say, the discrepancy between the character’s canonical forms. After all, along with the heroine’s more modest bust, there was a critical component — the poor imagination of the screenwriters.
The newest, animated «Lara Croft» from Netflix, bridges the gap between the «Survivor» game trilogy («Tomb Raider»; «Rise of the Tomb Raider»; «Shadow of the Tomb Raider») and the original series from the 90s. The format also allows the scriptwriters to go all out in terms of the sci-fi/fantasy/mystical component, which was still limited in the films for obvious reasons — here you have ancient Chinese spirits, a slant into horror in episode 4, and whole dinosaurs as the final boss.
It’s a pity that the proposed adventures don’t go beyond the clichés of classic superhero movies, but are diluted by a set of boring cutscenes that are clearly too long.
The problem is that the next conditional «eternity stones» that a stenciled and uninteresting villain is trying to collect — it’s not even funny anymore. Neither is the insidious trickster Loki in «The Avengers», he uses his newly acquired power to «zap» neutral NPCs in his favor, as well as some of the protagonist’s accomplices, as happened with the same Hawkeye.
The only difference is that Marvel’s Thanos ultimately sought to restore the necessary balance in the universe, while the actions of the small-town antagonist will lead to the opposite — loss of balance and, as a result, global catastrophe. At the same time, in the conventional world of animation, Lara can have truly superheroic abilities that are impossible in films a priori.
The animation in the series is quite good, and Lara herself looks good, so there should be no complaints about the picture. Due to the absence of Ukrainian dubbing, you have time to notice how pleasant the voice of actress Hayley Atwell, who is directly related to the aforementioned Marvel and played a significant role there, is. Her voice makes the title character even more attractive.
The series itself cannot be called overtly childish, because it contains quite bloody scenes, and it is designed for longtime fans of games who are definitely not children. However, after watching the show, one gets the strong impression that this show is unlikely to be interesting for anyone else.
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