The upcoming Tomb Raider movie which stars Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft has received its first trailer.
The film looks to be about Lara returning from some form of walkabout (possibly a gap year?) as she decides to inherit her father's legacy of hunting for treasure and/or saving the world. It's always nice when these things coincide, eh?
Like Crystal Dynamics' recent 2013 reboot, the film will strand Lara on an island for the bulk of its adventure, as opposed to some earlier games and films that saw her globe-trotting. If nothing else Vikander looks the part, which is more than we can say of the film's poster, which saw Lara sporting a bizarrely photoshopped elongated neck.
The team at Crystal Dynamics got a lot right with Tomb Raider before players had even tried out a line of their code; before they'd contemplated their first ledge jump, fired off their first grapple hook, or investigated their first crumbling temple wedged deep behind the shimmering folds of a hidden waterfall.
The team got the voice right. Keeley Hawes finally gave Lara Croft a wry, charming, light sense of personality, wiping away years in which Eidos' heroine sounded like a local radio continuity announcer juggling six children, a failing marriage and a heavy migraine. Hawes brought a little warmth and wit to the pencil-thin construction, and fleshed out the character in a way that the – guess what? – tragic back-story never could.
Now I sound like a weirdo. Luckily, casting isn't the only thing the new developer worked wonders with, because the games themselves aren't half bad, either. Tomb Raider Trilogy gives you a chance to look at the full sweep of them. While Crystal Dynamics readies its latest reboot – this one will shove Croft back into her early twenties and tip her out onto a mysterious island filled with complex nut-jobs – PlayStation 3 types get to see Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld all on one disk.
