With E3 being the talk of the town, I’ve decided that in addition to reflecting on the massive gaming convention, I finally check out Tomb Raider’s 2018 movie reboot. Along with that, I review another movie I’ve missed in theaters called “Love, Simon”. How do either of these movies fair? We shall find out!
Love, Simon (Directed By Greg Berlanti)
Love, Simon is a romantic teen drama about a 17-year-old high school kid named Simon Spier (played by Nick Robinson), specifically, his secret that he’s afraid to share with anyone. One of Simon’s best friends, Leah Bruke (played by Katherine Langford), tells him about an online anonymous user by codename “Blue”, talking about their gay confessions. Simon uses this opportunity to privately share the secret with Blue that our main man too is gay.
Simon struggles to let his friends & family know that he’s gay, unaware of how life will react to his sexuality. While going through school, he sets himself on this quest to find out who Blue could be. For the most part, this film here is a sweet love story that explores modern teen life in a way that doesn’t seem hammered with pop culture or meme jokes. Modern technology, believe it or not, is actually serving a reasonable purpose to the story.
Seeing how teen life has changed today has both a sincere and dangerous impact today. Being this is a teen love story, you will be getting plenty of teenage drama. In another movie, this would be abused, portrayed as the reason to feel sympathy for your main character, without developing them. Thankfully, Simon is someone you just want to give a hug and hang with.
He, and most of his peers, is super sweet nerds, just wanting to have a happy love story. The chemistry between these kids and their parents feels genuine and there’s plenty of suspense later on, making you worries for some of these people, especially Simon, who looks like he’s going through depression in parts of this movie.
My other favorite stand-out would be Abby Suso (played by Alexandra Shipp), an enthusiastically spirited lady who is wanting Simon to embrace who he is. I love seeing Abby’s comradery with the other teens in this high school. The cinematography plays up to the narrative and comedic moments of this film very nicely. However, not everything works.
There are plenty of great jokes in here, humanizing our kids & adults, but once in a while, I’ll get a super cringy gag that will take me out of the narrative’s quality authenticity. We’ll get a safe happy ending, along with drama that doesn’t feel warranted, much of which requires spoilers to explain.
At the end of the day, I gained a nice smile out of Love, Simon, from these charming characters, but mostly the theme of acceptance in sexuality, without obsessing over its materials. I can’t give the highest recommendation with some of those awkward jokes and the predictable finale, but this is a “Good” watch, whether you are renting or buying the released digital/physical copy.
Most importantly, this film needs to be shared with high school kids and the LGBT community for I believe there’s something special about Simon’s story.
Tomb Raider Movie 2018 (Directed By Roar Uthaug)
Lara Croft (played by Alicia Vikander) gets into a bike accident one day while on the job as a bike courier. This is followed up later by an associate of her missing father, Ana Miller (played by Kristin Scott Thomas) tells her that if she chooses not to claim her inheritance. Her father’s estate will be sold off to someone else.
After agreeing, Lara discovers a puzzle box and a pre-recorded video message, indicating that her father may still be alive out on the island of Yamatai, examining Himiko’s history. Well it turns out; an organization called Trinity is looking to harness the power of Yamatai for evil reasons. Lara must make her way over there, save her father and stop Trinity before it’s too late.
Having extensive playtime with both the Tomb Raider reboot and its sequel, Rise Of The Tomb Raider, I easily grasp the perspective of both general audience and fans (includes myself as of the second installment). When I saw the trailers for this, I was undoubtedly rough considering the lack of willingness to fully commit with its source material.
Tomb Raider 2013 was bold to make a Teen-rated franchise into a Mature reboot with gritty violence that indicates what Lara has to go through in surviving on her own in a deadly island. Even though the survival elements wasn’t quite fleshed out for until the second entry, this movie wants to get the teenagers coming in by making the film PG-13 and instead, mixing in plot elements from both the reboot and its sequel, executed in a way where it’s a hero’s tale more than a survivor’s.
Of course, Lara isn’t one to be a complete jerk, just an unstable archeologist who’s seen enough to know trust is not easy, despite always wanting to do the right thing. I came in, pulling back on the cynicism and hoping a decent movie comes from this. For the first half-hour, what I got was a dumb brat obsessing about her dad gone. This is where we get into teen drama that doesn’t work.
We need to be reintroduced to Lara Croft if at all we are to grant her support as a strong character and be emotionally invested like the film wants us to. This is a massive issue in story-telling so many dark action movies fail to work their way around. Since I’m not invested, all I see is a bland, somewhat irritating character.
By having this first act that had nothing to do with its source material, behave as a supposed build-up, when all there is amends to a lady who can’t stop complaining about her father’s disappearance, even with his money & belongings up for grabs, it’s difficult to care.
Once we get to the actual game representation, though still mainly from influence on father disappearing, not as an intelligent archeologist, they’ve captured shots & scenes from the game, despite being PG-13. You’ll see the shipwreck, the island, some of the set pieces, Lara using her bow, etc. If the only thing you wanted to see was some stuff from the games recreated in live-action form, you will love the second half of this movie.
My issue is…so what? Watching Lara survive through a destroyed plane, barely hanging across a waterfall was more engaging in the game since you feared for Lara’s life while interacting with said scene. I don’t know or care about this Lara enough to be on the edge of my seat with her surviving through a CG’d tumble.
Why does the video game Lara seem more real than the live-action Lara I will never understand? It doesn’t help that every character around Lara is worse. In the first reboot game, the characters around Lara were weak, but the ones in this movie are something else. She has a sidekick named Lu Ren (played by Daniel Wu), nothing more than a barely-present sidekick who will hit on Lara.
Our villain, Mathias Vogel (played by Walton Goggins), is a Rick Grimes impersonator who cannot act in this movie. Once we finally get to the father (played by Dominic West), he is wasted to the point of questioning his purpose, other than his daughter being thrilled, then upset again.
The film ends with a cliffhanger, hinting at the cinematic universe and sequels that have been floating around the studio. I’m not saying this movie is bad just for clicks. I actually liked the performance of Alicia Vikander and saw that this could have worked, had there been a better team that understood this property the way Alicia had.
Instead, this a hot mess only saved from a “worst of” entry due to Alicia Vikander’s charms and decent cinematography. You’ll get action in the last act, but there’s so many similar films out there where you will receive the same thing on a larger scale. Still, if you want to get into Tomb Raider without playing the games, watch a string of cutscenes on YouTube. they will be far more interesting than what is in this movie.
“Avoid” this one pretty please, but considering its domestic performance, I’ll assume you already did.
Pond's Press 