Here’s a fun fact: did you know that it was Angelina Jolie who changed the nature of celebrity appearances at Comic-Con? Before she masterminded a huge appearance at the 2002 Comic-Con to promote Lara Croft, most celebrities went out of their way to avoid Comic-Con appearances. Jolie leaned into it though, and she bought herself and the film thousands of dollars’ worth of free media. After her appearance, there was a fundamental shift in how celebrities promoted their comic-book or video-game-based movies.
All of which to say… I sort of liked Angelina as Lara Croft, and I didn’t hate those films either. The plots made little to no sense and much of the CGI work has not aged well. But I still associate Lara Croft with Jolie, and I still think Angelina benefits overall from the popularity of the character. But Jolie left Lara behind years ago, and of course Hollywood wanted to reboot the franchise with someone younger and… um, smaller and less busty. OG Lara was quite curvy. But I guess the video game Lara has been rebooted too, and New Lara is smaller and less curvy. Enter Alicia Vikander! Vikander chose to become the New Lara immediately following her Oscar win for The Danish Girl. They filmed it last year and here are the “first images.”
In these first-look images, see Alicia Vikander take on the role made famous first in the video-game series and then in the two films starring Angelina Jolie. But this version of Lara comes with a new backstory, and a new motivation for her adventures: seven years after the disappearance of her father, 21-year-old Lara has refused to take the reins of his global business empire, instead working as a bike courier in London while taking college classes. Eventually she becomes inspired to investigate her father’s disappearance and travels to his last-known location: a tomb on an island somewhere off the coast of Japan.
As the official plot description puts it, “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.”
“When I was asked to take on this role I got really excited—Lara Croft is a truly iconic character,“ Vikander told Vanity Fair via e-mail. “I think people can identify with her for lots of different reasons, but for me I very much see her as a model for many young women. She’s trying to carve out her place in the world and connect her future with her past. She also has a fantastic mix of traits—tough, smart, vulnerable, plus she’s kick ass! She is also uniquely different to other characters I have taken on previously. It’s a lot of fun trying to get into Lara’s head and the challenge of getting to grips with such a physical role is an element of this project that I find an absolute thrill.”
I get that they’re trying to go for an “origin story” for this reboot, but really? She works as a bike courier? Lara Croft is, like, a rich hipster who inherited a stately English estate but chooses to fake-slum-it as a bike courier in denial about all of her daddy’s secrets? Ugh. Also, I consistently find it interesting that Angelina Jolie was just 25 years old when she filmed the first Lara Croft, and she played her as that age or a little bit older. Alicia is 28, playing a 21-year-old. Hm. Last thing: I don’t think Lara’s British accent will be a problem because Alicia speaks English with a very posh – almost Queen Elizabeth-like – British accent.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Warner Bros & MGM.
i love alicia, but i’m so not excited about this project.
Neither am I. AJ will always be the best LC to me. Maybe I’m being bias but I don’t care, Alicia does nothing for me and she doesn’t fit the character. AJ today could still pull off LC if she wanted to.
I love Angie, but I think she’s too frail looking now to pull off that role today. While still slender, she had noticeably more meat on her bones when she was younger. By the time she did “Salt,” she looked too frail to be convincing in the role in my opinion. I find it really disturbing to see these emaciated looking women (also see Zoe Saldana in “Columbiana”) playing action heroes. We expect male action heroes to look buff, but for some reason it’s believable that underweight women can pull off these fight scenes and stunts. Alicia doesn’t look emaciated, but she does look quite petite, and once again, I question if a petite male would be cast as an action hero.
@wtw – Absolutely. Look at Tom Cruise.
The only good thing is that they did not cast a 16 year old to play 21 year old and rather went for someone actualy older. How often does that happen?
True, though Alicia looks very young. She looks younger than the 25 year old Angelina did playing Lara Croft.
I’m excited she wearing pants and not boots shorts
It really does seem unlikely that a wealthy upper class girl would work as a bike courier.
Actually that sounds very Trustafarian, Brooklyn/Queens Hipster to me. I know several people who have tons of family money but work at cafes or pottery studios while they work on their novels, or something.
If Oliver Sacks did someting like it, why wouldn’t she?
I studied with rich hipsters who worked at bars, cafes, etc. Doesn’t seem too farfetched.
I do not have high hopes for this at all. It sounds lazy and rushed plot wise.
Yeah, for me the plot description is more of a red flag than the casting (the new Lara in the games looks a lot like Alicia IMO)
That’s literally the plot from the 2013 video game.
Except it isn’t the plot from the 2013 game. The only thing that’s remotely similar is the fact that she’s going to Japan but nothing else indicates that they’re following the 2013 game and that’s a mistake.
well said
This is a mistake. No one can fill this role like Angelina and they should have thought about that. Especially since Alicia does not have a strong presence like Angelina. She rem j nd s me more of like one of the power ranger girls. Angelina was beautiful, strong, smart and has a strong screen presence. Why so many remakes when the original is so strong.
Agree. I loved the originals and thought Angie should have stayed with the franchise – it was a great idea and gave women something – they all want to be her – and guys – they all wanted to be with her. As a woman, seeing Alicia makes me go meh, I certainly don’t feel like emulating or wanting to be her. I just find her tepid and uninspiring. I liked the hip retro Man from U.N.C.L.E and she was the only boring person in it. I could not care about her character, I liked the villainess much better – she had presence! So it will be interesting to see how it does at the box office – I would LOVE a strong kick-ass female hero, whether she is a spy, an adventurer, an archaeologist or any other combination. But it really requires someone like Angie. Smart, sassy, strong, athletic looking and who can smolder. This one just falls flat.
Angelina has always been the trendsetter so not surprised about the ComicCon.
Although Angelina was Lara and Lara was Angelina, I am still going to watch this movie.
I will always support women oriented movies and would rather give my money to help women in Hollywood than those male superhero ones.
I support this effort and agree with Maya to a certain degree. I love action movies, whether there are super heroes or not. I enjoy big bold adventure stories. Willing to give this a chance.
They’re still filming this movie. Filming just started in January and they have another month or so of filming in London to do.
I don’t have high hopes for this movie. Angelina just had IT in the other ones. She just has the kick ass vibe naturally and for me Vikander always looks like she’s about to cry. Aside from that it has a lot working against it; writers, director, cast, release date, interest.
Just saw her in the newest Jason Bourne movie. You’re right, I kept thinking she was about to cry, when I think she was supposed to look deep in thought!
The new games were quite successful,so I wouldn’t say there’s no interest. Uthaug’s The Wave is 83% on RT and nobody has seen this writer’s work. She’s also writing the new Sherlock Holmes and the all-female DC project “Gotham City Sirens”.
Quite successful video game sales do not always translate into ticket sales, especially with a 5 year gap between the video game and movie release. RT score for one movie means absolutely nothing in terms of this movie. Nobody has seen the writer’s work? So it could go either way.
She has three faces: like she is about to cry, already crying or confused constipation. I want to support kickass female characters and female writers, but I can’t get over how overrated and micast (see comments below) AV is. The whole annoying cool hipster girl twist doesn’t help either.
LOL at “AV”. Typical of Fassbender’s tumblr stans who think that even typing her name is insulting. I suspect the real reason why *some* people in every Vikander-related thread can’t get over her overrated acting skills is not her face.
And here I present you the reason why I actively started disliking her. If you say something against her, no matter what it is, fans like @lisa will immediately jump in and call you a Fassbender stan. I’m not into Fassbender, I still think she’s overrated, deal with it.
I know this sounds rather size-ist of me, but Alicia just doesn’t look like she’s physically capable of all the things that Lara can do. To me, Angelina was the perfect Lara. Charming, fit, smart, poised, and sexy as hell. How can this film possibly hope to compare?
All of this, so much. Alicia is severely miscast for this role. I fell in love with Angie as LC. Alicia has very little charisma and leaves me just blah about this new film.
Alicia looks like her only physical exercise is applying tanning lotion, but we are supposed to buy that she can use a bow and fight men and drag herself up ruins? It’s a shame how women aren’t allowed to be strong and muscular, not even when they play action heroes, and I wish feminists would speak up more about this and protest the casting instead of being happy this Lara has smaller chest as if that solved everything sexism wise.
its hard to be inclusive of all body types, when the ones supported as desirable by typical culture are the one promoted as being able to ‘do all the things’.
i’m having a hard time pointing out the favouritism of this body type, the sexualized ‘coltish’ and therefore typically teen body type, without verging into shaming of one particular type of body. It seems that discussing thinness is even more incendiary than discussing large vs small breasts.
The younger action female characters were far from skinny: Katniss and Trish (? from Divergent). I like that she looks frail but is, in fact, strong. One of my colleagues is a kickass thai boxing nut, she could probably break me in two and is skinnier than Alicia – and older.
@detritus- when it comes to body acceptance and diversity, whether they are skinny, average or overweight – women are always weak and soft, never visibly hard and muscular. Like, Serena has traditionally feminine curves, she’s all made of breasts and hips but she has muscles too and that disqualifies her. Even tho somebody with her body type would have made a far better fighter/adventure character than skinny chicks we see running around in their lacy underwear and shooting a gun at the same time.
@Hikaru, this is how I feel as well. Women aren’t allowed to be badasses and hard and jacked, that’s why we end up with milquetoast instead of heroes.
Athletes almost all have muscle mass and tone, there are few that do not, but even ballet dancers (prized for being slender) are visibly muscular. If you do a lot of running/jumping/fighting you will be firm and muscley. Even if you have a naturally slender frame (Which many people do not).
I think the part that frustrates me the most is as you described, slender and soft women are always presented as the tough girl, when actual athletic body types are not shown. Like, 1 out of 100 athletes has a body like Alicia, but that’s the body shown most frequently. The one that is associated most with active teens.
I feel like the obsession with this type of body by Hollywood/fashion propagates the rampant sexualization of teens/tweens we see. it often seems another way to judge female bodies, and place one at the top.
@slowsnow, there is no dearth of female characters following that archetype though. And when it comes to MMA/Muay Thai/Boxing/ wrestling, height and weight matter, you are put into controlled weight categories. Dropping a category can be a huge gain, or a huge detriment because you are fighting weaker opponents, but the calorie deficit or water loss required to drop a weight category can impact your performance more than it is worth.
Even in these weight conscious sports, weight loss is associated and known to produce lesser performace.
LOL Really? She has trained for the role and it’s noticeable in other pics from the set. Her legs have always been muscular because she was a ballet dancer.
“Alicia looks like her only physical exercise is applying tanning lotion”
LOL. So true!
as to the new LC movie, I have no interest in it whatsoever.
Hi @detritus, my colleague does not compete professionally and you seem much more knowledgeable than me in that department. I think it’s worse: there aren’t many films about badass women at all. The recent ones set the tone differently though. I’m happy that my kids’ generation will have Katniss as opposed to Hermione. The new Sheeran clip has a black muscled beautiful woman who saved him – as opposed to, say the Maroon 5 douchey videoclips. So did one of the Kanye ones. I feel things are changing, slowly.
@slowsnow, your colleague would most likely know more than I, but I bet she would confirm some (maybe not all) of the weight/muscle paradox.
It’s a very delicate balance because you are trying to maximize strength to weight ratios, not just increase strength as you would in other sports. Your point that slender and petite women can still be hard AF is for sure truth. This is the part that is difficult to discuss without shaming. It’s the over representation of those body types. When all badass women are presented as very slim, it seems that only very slim women can be badass, when really they are a very tiny minority.
I truly do hope we are making in roads. I worry that the same patterns are present from 30 years ago, and that there is no actual movement forward.
Remember when Terminator 2 came out and Linda Hamilton and her epic guns instantly became a role model for a million girls?
I miss those days.
I was not a fan of the original movies. Jolie’s inconsistent accent drove me crazy. Not sure about the reboot. Probably watch it on cable.
Love when actors cant keep an accent through out a movie. It’s hilarious! Love sophie turner, but girl is the same way in x-men…hilarious!
I liked Angelina’s version of Lara, I hope Alicia can pull it off too. She was good in ex-machina but she doesn’t exactly scream Lara, though. Any good female superhero movies are a good idea in this climate. Hopeful! Eek
Would have loved Ruby Rose in this.
This movie is based on the game Tomb Raider (2013) and it’s really good, so I’ll be watching.
Over the past two years I have always say that Alicia Vikander is a smug, stuck up with no personality what so ever, and I have been called bitter because supposedly my “boyfriend” has been taken from her. So much crap….. which I will tell you I DON’T CARE ABOUT HER OR MICHAEL FASSBENDER PERIOD.
That being said, I still think she is a stuck up her ass actress with no personality and the “proof is in the pudding” with these photo shots about Lara Croft. I don’t know about her acting, (although I think her acting is “meh”) these photo ops are less impressive. This woman can’t model and she should (she’s an actress for Christ sakes) and the compositions are terrible.
After seeing these photos, this movie doesn’t look good to me at all.
Lol. I was hoping you would show up.
I don’t know how this movie will do (the current release date is highly competitive iirc) She’s the biggest name attached to it, which means she will be carrying the press for it. Watching her previous interviews unless she gets media training it won’t be good. She can’t just go on Fallon and play drinking games.
I’ve only ever seen AV in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Hated everything about it.
I really hated it too and she looked like a child. And everybody mumbled.
OMG. Me too! The only good thing about the whole movie was Elizabeth Debicki.
Tomb raider is not about the story,people just want to see Lara Croft as live action character and they already got that fulfilled by Angelina Jolie, so theres no point in making this unwanted reboot
Angelina was FANTASTIC as Lara Croft- an academy award winning dramatic actor doing a fun action film- that was truly groundbreaking. I was blown away how great she was in George Wallace & Girl Interrupted and recall being puzzled that she was doing a video game movie next. In fact, many people mocked her HARD (what else is new) for doing an action film since she was a serious actor (& a SHE- girls CAN NOT be action stars, they get rescued by action stars!)- and now they all (inc men) try to be action stars. Yeah, the first one is almost 20 years old, but it’s a great, fun girl power film that is hard not watch when it pops up on TV.
Urgh…she was SO GOOD in Girl, Interrupted. One of my favourite movies and she played that part perfectly!! I had such a crush on Lisa (probably says a LOT about me!).
I love the two reboot games. The old ones were ok but nothing more. The Jolie movies were terrible.
That Lara works a job ist actually plausible. She didn’t have her money in the first game. She had to live in a little flat.
Spoiler
New Lara is an orphan, mother died in a plane crash and her disgraced father was killed by the big evil guys (it was staged as a suicide. Lara found him). Lara was underage at this time so her maternal uncle was made the executor of the Croft Estate (falling into pieces at this point) and Lara’s money… He refused to give his niece money until she stops with her researches. She of course didn’t stop and later got her heritage.
I think she is an overrated actress, Academy Award or not.
I am not going to watch this. The stills are even painful to look at.
This backstory does nothing for me…the production sounds confused. Are they appealing to fan boys, or feminists? I don’t get it
I guess we can hope they’re going to pull a Max Max Fury Road and make a kickass hyper-adrenalised feminist action movie.
This backstory does nothing for me…the production sounds confused. Are they appealing to fan boys, or feminists? I don’t get it
It sounds like they’ve based the movie plot on the reboot of the game from a few years ago which had an origins story. But there was no running from her wealth/courier angle, she was an untried archeologist looking for an island. It was a really good story actually, even though I’m ambivalent to Alicia as an actress.
Looks interesting and Alicia is a decent actress.
There’s not much for female lead video game or comic book movies, so when hollyweird decides to make one, the movie will have my support.
Wish this project wasn’t happening.
I can’t explain it further without having a thunderous migraine.
Jolie is/was the perfect casting for Lara Croft, even if the script and direction was meh.
I’m not even going to bother with this reboot.
I love Tomb Raider (2013) and think Alicia looks fantastic as Lara. I hope the movie is good, because the game is great.
So tired of super thin women got parts in action movies. Please, with those noodle legs, can you believe she can kick ass? Why dont cast a actress with a toned body and muscles? Linda Hamilton, Sigorney Weaver, Angelina Jolie and even Scarlett Johansen look strong. And Yes, Vikander with her fraud Oscar (it had to go to Kate Winslet or Jennifer Jason Leigh) always looks like she’s about to cry or stoned, looks like a not very pretty teen, it is not likeable, not charm. This movie will flop hard.
In the rebooted game (2013) Lara works several small jobs, including being a bartender. She distances herself from the wealth of the family and chooses to go to London’s college instead of Cambridge (where her Dad went). The whole point of the game is that she resent her father’s crazy antics and doesn’t believe in supernatural things until she lands on Yamatai. So it actually makes sense they’d make her a bike courier in the movie. I’m more skeptical about the reason behind her going to Japan though, the game’s plot was more interesting.
I grew up playing Tomb Raider games and loved all of them even the bad ones.
As for the movies I thought the first one was great and fun but the second one was horrible!
But when I played Tomb Raider (2013) I thought it was phenomenal and It should be adopted into a movie , the story is amazing and it needs to be told on the big screen
While Angelina had a very charismatic presence that I doubt Vikander will bring
Nevertheless I hope she kicks ass for the sake of my inner fanboy
I frankly feel bad for Alicia at this point. I feel like she has been trying for years to get out of Art House films/roles and really make it big in Hollywood but she keeps getting/accepting crap projects like this one. She isn’t a box office draw and combined with the lackluster cast, director and writers I can’t help but feel like this film will be the death knell of her attempted block buster career. I don’t doubt she’ll keep getting parts in tearjerker historical dramas but her A-list star power potential just doesn’t look like it’s going to take off like many people thought it would three + years ago…
The first TR film was on TV last night. As a big fan of the franchise, I thought I’d watch for old times’ sake. And it actually wasn’t half bad. Crappy cgi, cheesy as hell, but it was fun and didn’t take itself too seriously. And I think Jolie threw herself into the role and did a great job.
Having played the latest games, I think Vikander’s a good choice for the current Lara. That said, game to film seldom ends well. I hope they don’t f*ck it up and tarnish the brand the reboot did so well at rejuvenating.
laura croft = angelina jolie FOREVA