Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft review

I was ready to walk away from Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft after the first episode. Not because Netflix’s latest animated video game adaptation is that bad, mind you. But the 35-minute premiere – which introduces us to Lara and many of the characters we’ve come to know from the more recent Tomb Raider games developed by Crystal Dynamics – just wasn’t that compelling. And the seven episodes that follow never get better. The story didn’t immediately grab me (and only gets more ridiculous), the animation is both generic and minimalist, most attempts at humor fail, and the writers don’t give the cast much to work with. It’s okay – there’s a lot of globetrotting and some fun action – but if there’s a season 2, I don’t think I’ll be tuning in.

The Legend of Lara Croft doesn’t so much establish Lara’s legend as her emotional burden. While we meet her here (as everyone has once played by Hayley Atwell, aka the MCU’s Peggy Carter), she has been on many an archaeological adventure with her friends, but remains headstrong in her search for ancient artifacts and keeps her best friends. at emotional arm’s length. She never really lets them in to see the real Lara, who is tortured not only by her father’s death before the series, but also by that of her surrogate father and mentor, Roth, who dies in Lara’s arms in a flashback sequence – and whose death she blames. on itself.

We also meet Jonah (Earl Baylon, reprising his role from the Games), her right-hand man in the field and the voice of reason; Zip (Allen Maldonado), her tech guru who is the guiding voice in her ear and her eye in the sky; Sam Nishimura (Karen Fukuhara), her estranged best friend; and Camilla Roth (Zoe Boyle), her other estranged best friend. It doesn’t take long before the villain enters the picture: Charles Devereaux, a caricature of ‘what if Lara had gone bad’. He’s voiced by Richard Armitage, aka Trevor Belmont from Netflix’s great Castlevania series – so it’s a bit strange to hear him as the antagonist here. Obsessed with avenging his own father’s death, Devereaux searches for a collection of mythological stones that promise great power as a means of taking revenge on those who took his father from him. But his quest quickly veers into comic book camp levels, which seemed at odds with the supernatural, but otherwise fairly serious tone of this show.

Lara’s eight-episode chase from Devereaux and the Stones does what you’d expect from Tomb Raider, taking us to many locations around the world, from the Croft Manor that Lara doesn’t seem to want to move to to a nearby British museum. but also further afield places like China, Paris, Pasargadae, Mongolia and more. Eagle-eyed fans of Tomb Raider games might even recognize one or two, which is an appreciated nod to this show’s source material. Each episode takes us to a new place, allowing the series to avoid monotony from a visual perspective. And yes, graves are plundered and adventures are had. There’s decent action and the occasional dash of humor, much of which is missing (one notable exception: in episode six, when Lara hilariously tries to get past a family of tourists at a theme park).

But the aforementioned animation isn’t able to make it all look so interesting. Many of the backgrounds are still art, which would be forgivable if Tomb Raider focused more on a ’70s or ’80s animation aesthetic. Instead, the show looks cheap and rushed, with a few obvious 3D animated shots that seem out of place compared to everything around them. Furthermore, aside from Jonah, Lara’s friends aren’t given much to do, nor much chance to break out of their general sidekick roles.

The worst offense, however, is the story. The plot quickly becomes so nonsensical that I probably wouldn’t have minded as a kid watching Tomb Raider on a Saturday morning, but I’m not – and this is certainly not an animated series for children, due to the copious, shrug-off, killing on screen that earned this show a TV-14 rating. Frankly, a nonsensical plot is a criticism that could also be leveled at many of the Tomb Raider games from all eras – perhaps it’s no coincidence that my favorite is 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider, which keeps things just as grounded if the franchise ever did. Perhaps fittingly, the inevitable showdown with the big bad plays out as if it emerged from a video game boss battle. But not a good one.

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