Episode #149 – Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003)

By the time we arrived at Episode #149 of Fear and Loathing in Cinema Podcast, Gerarduary, the sacred month in which we collectively reflect on the brawny altar of Gerard Butler was breathing its final, heroic breaths, we chose to close it out not with subtlety or restraint, but with Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003). This is a movie whose title alone sounds like it was generated by shaking a box of rejected Dan Brown novels. This is not to be confused with Cradle 2 the Grave, a distinction worth making if only to reassure listeners that Jet Li will not be drop-kicking anyone through a stained-glass window.

The film marks Angelina Jolie’s last outing as Lara Croft and, allegedly, Jan de Bont’s last turn behind the camera. The studio interference finally broke the spirit of the man who once directed Speed. Speed, for God’s sake. If you can orchestrate a city bus that can’t drop below fifty miles an hour and make it feel like Shakespeare, you’ve earned the right to punch a few cinematic sharks. Let the man cook, I say. Let him flambé.

Bryan, Dan, Preston, and Chelsea lace up our metaphorical forest boots and set off into a movie that contains everything except, perhaps, a coherent sense of narrative proportion. This is less Indiana Jones and more Indiana Jones’ storage unit. There are shootouts, supernatural monsters, flying billion-dollar planes that crash with the casual indifference of paper airplanes, Pandora’s Box (naturally), and a love story between Butler and Jolie that appears, disappears, and reappears again with the emotional logic of a light switch in a haunted house.

On the show, we try earnestly and foolishly to make sense of it all. We debate the physics of shark punching. We marvel at the confidence it takes to stack set piece upon set piece and simply trust that charisma will do the heavy lifting. And somehow, miraculously, it does. Gerard Butler barrels through the film like a man who knows exactly what movie he’s in, and Angelina Jolie forgot she was in the film with her eyebrow arched, boots planted, ready for combat or romance at a moment’s notice.

It’s ridiculous. It’s exhausting. It’s kind of wonderful. And it’s one hell of a way to end Gerarduary. Listen everywhere for the laughs, the danger, and, of course, the Gerard.