To the teenage dumbass...
...who went to see Lara Croft: Cradle of Life last night at the same time Bonnie and I did:
Flashing your little laser pointer at the screen during the movie is not a clever act of social disruption. It's irritating. It marks you as an inconsiderate and rather stupid malcontent. You and your friends may have gotten a little giggle out of pointing out where Lara's tits and ass were, though I assure you that no one else in the theater had any trouble finding them without your assistance.
And when one patron ended up getting the manager to put an end to your hijinks, it wasn't The Man trying to put you down. It was a socially acceptable alternative to what most of us wanted to do: Throttle your scrawny little neck until your eyes popped out of their sockets then shove that laser pointer as far up your ass as we could reach.
As far as the movie itself was concerned, it was okay. Not the best action movie I've ever seen, but a step above a lot of others. Better than the first, probably, except for a few excrutiatingly awkward moments of stock footage. (Lara's in the African savannah ... which looks disturbingly like a Hollywood backlot ... reaction shot, LARA ... stock footage of an elephant thundering away ... reaction shot, LARA ... stock footage of monkeys playing in trees, etc). Jan De Bont certainly didn't butcher it like I expected him to, after the disaster that was Speed 2.
Fleshing out a relationship between Lara and good guy turned bad Terry Sheridan (Scottish actor Gerard Butler) helped to build some character development, which is more than the first movie had, but there was still tons of sometimes improbable action sequences mixed with the posturing and posing we've come to expect of Angelina Jolie in this particular vehicle. But the fact is, this is a popcorn movie in its purest form, designed for teenagers. If you go expecting high art, you'll be bitterly disappointed.
I was also happy to see Chris Barrie (Hillary, Lara's faithful butler and majordomo ... Rimmer of Red Dwarf fame) and Noah Taylor (Bryce, Lara's resident tech wizard) get more screentime than before. You know, Taylor in particular is a pretty heavy hitter -- he played Hitler in "Max." If they're going to do a third movie in this franchise, it'd be nice to see him given even more to do.