TOMB RAIDER (Rated PG-13)

The sexy Angelina Jolie, wearing short shorts, started the Lara Croft film franchise and now “Tomb Raider” introduces Swedish actress Alicia Vikander as a younger Lara Croft in an origin story of a fiercely independent daughter eager to find her missing father.

You would hardly know that streetwise Lara is the heiress to the vast fortune and business empire left by her eccentric adventurer father Richard Croft (Dominic West), now missing for seven years and ready to be declared legally dead.

Lara’s toughness is explained by the fact that she survives as a reckless bike courier willing to engage in dangerous street races in London. She also trains in boxing at a local gym. Obviously she has physical skills belied by her average frame.

Refusing to accept that her loving father is never coming back, the ever resourceful Lara becomes aware of a trail of clues left behind that explain what may have possessed the billionaire patriarch to not return from one of his many overseas business trips.

Locating the secret study inside a family crypt, Lara discovers that her father was in search of the mysterious island of Yamatai off the coast of Japan where the tomb of Himiko, an ancient sorceress, could unleash supernatural powers that must not fall into the wrong hands.

In Hong Kong, Lara secures the services of boozy boat captain Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) to find the mythical island, but just getting there is extremely treacherous and the pair barely survives an extremely turbulent storm that causes them to be shipwrecked.

Armed only with her sharp mind, inherently stubborn spirit and archery skills, Lara sets out on a perilous journey that involves confronting the stock villain in the form of treasure hunter Vogel (Walton Goggins), the cruel overseer of workers trying to find Himiko’s tomb.

Granted the action is laughably preposterous, as the legend of Lara Croft would have us believe that this youthful adventurer has the combined physical skills of an Indiana Jones, a swashbuckler swinging on vines and a touch of nearly superhuman powers.

The original Lara Croft realized by Angelina Jolie packed a pistol in each hand, whereas the Vikander style takes a different tack, until she ends up in a pawn shop excitedly holding two handguns at the end of her journey.

Regardless of any newfound affinity for lethal weapons, the primary conclusion to be had is that there are likely more “Tomb Raider” adventures on the horizon even if the new Lara Croft is more relatable in many ways than the original gun-toting sex symbol version.

On the whole, Alicia Vikander’s Lara Croft is fun to watch performing unbelievable feats of superhuman heroics but “Tomb Raider” suffers from too many action picture tropes, unremarkable dialogue and a sense of possibly having seen these exploits done better elsewhere.



‘HARD SUN’ ON HULU

The Hulu network has done a masterful job with some of its original programming, but the British import of “Hard Sun” leaves something to be desired on many fronts, not the least being the grim picture of the planet facing extinction.

The premise of “Hard Sun” is solid in the sense that two London police detectives stumble upon information on a flash drive that reveals a government conspiracy to cover up the fact that planet Earth has five years to survive until the sun blows up or something.

It appears that the show’s apocalyptic vision was inspired by the David Bowie song “Five Years.” Maybe the British singer-songwriter envisioned this dystopian TV series about four decades ago when penning the bleak lyrics about the earth really dying.

Whatever the case may be, “Hard Sun” paints an ugly picture straight out of the box even before the opening credits roll. A woman is violently attacked and beaten in her own apartment by an assailant that douses her with gasoline before setting a match to the premises.

Talk about starting off with a huge punch to the gut. It turns out the victim is police detective Elaine Renko (Agyness Deyn), who miraculously survives the assault and escapes just in time before her place blows up.

At the London police department she becomes the new partner to notorious loner Charlie Hicks (Jim Sturgess), an inspector with a shady past who may or may not have been involved with the murder of his former partner.

Suspicion about whether Hicks is corrupt causes Officer Renko to be uneasy with her assignment to keep tabs on his actions. Of course, the fact that Hicks, supposedly a good family man, is having an affair with his dead partner’s wife is troubling, to say the least.

Meanwhile, when Renko and Hicks come to possess the flash drive with the timeline for Earth’s demise, they not only have to deal with nefarious individuals (are they government spies or mercenaries?) chasing them, but also have to track vicious serial killers.

In the first two episodes, there are enough brutal murder scenes that are really disturbing that the thought of continuing to watch “Hard Sun” proved to be a bridge too far.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.