Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft review

Since the franchise's inception in 1996, the Tomb Raider the series has seen numerous adaptations over the years, namely big screen incarnations led by Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander as the iconic video game adventurer. However, it hasn't received proper treatment on the small screen until now, with the 2007 film being the only exception. Corrected with Minnie Driver voicing the role in five- to seven-minute episodes. Now, fortunately, everything is gaining momentum Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croftwhich proves to be an exciting and stylish adaptation, despite some of its flaws.

Developed by The Witcher: Blood OriginTasha Huo, the Netflix anime is a sequel to Crystal Dynamics' reboot trilogy, and it continues with Lara finally returning home after abandoning her friends when the adventure ends in the death of someone she cares about. To reconnect with her friends and forget the past, Lara prepares to get rid of everything at Croft Manor, only for a cunning thief to take an ancient Chinese artifact that holds a mysterious power. Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft he quickly sends her on a race around the world to get him back.

The Legend of Lara Croft It gives her the best adaptation yet

We finally have a reason to care about Lara

One of the biggest problems faced not only by the so-called Tomb Raider franchise, but many similar treasure hunting adventures are where so much effort is put into developing the plot and scenarios that the main character gets lost in the mix. Lara Croft is often the unfortunate victim of this genre. Jolie Tomb Raider cinemas were a case of style and over-sexualization of the adventurer, while the Vikander reboot was supposed to be more in line with the reboot games' story about her search for her father, only to have it sidelined.

WITH Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Crofthowever, Huo finally gave us a reason to invest in the story by describing how this new adventure takes its toll on the titular character. Given that the series was a continuation of a trilogy of reboot games, it would have been understandable if the showrunner had simply skipped forward to the time when she was an officially recognized adventurer, but I appreciated that she tried to keep Lara as a young and burgeoning explorer.

Part of what made the newer games so engaging was the fact that Lara was not an infallible character, but someone who, even with her skills, was capable of making mistakes. This was nowhere more evident than in the way she was portrayed during the grave robbery, such as at the end Shadow of Tomb Raidershe realized that some ancient secrets were better left in hidden houses than revealed to the world, in case the legends of the artifacts' power turned out to be true.

Perhaps the best example of this character work is a parallel The Legend of Lara Croft centers between Hayley Atwell's title character and Richard Armitage's Charles Devereaux. The villain and Lara are shown as two sides of the same coin, with the latter's development in the games carrying over nicely into the series as she tries to convince him that revenge is never worth it because she experienced it herself, defeating Trinity for her father's death. Still, the show needs to keep Lara's empathetic nature intact as she herself is on the verge of descending into villainy.

Powerhouse animation fits perfectly into the world of Tomb Raider

The action is appropriately stylish and the tombs are beautifully rendered

In addition to Netflix continuing its activities in the video game adaptation genre such as Secret AND Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft also sees the streaming platform re-team with Powerhouse Animation to bring the source material to life, and it remains one of the top studios in the genre. Ahead of the new show, Powerhouse brought its unique style of anime Both Castlevania and its continuation Nocturneas well as the Monsterverse spinoff Skull Island and the continuation of the Kevin Smith show Masters of the Universe.

For The Legend of Lara CroftThe studio's style really adds to the exciting nature of the show's action, with everything from car chases to battles with supernatural creatures proving to be as exciting as the games. Powerhouse also does a wonderful job of highlighting the splendor of some of the places Lara visits throughout the series, with the opening tomb in particular feeling like it was straight out of the games, not only for its vibrant colors and visuals, but also for sticking to its puzzling nature source material.

One of Powerhouse's best animation decisions is the subtly different styles used to portray some of the show's more supernatural elements. With each connection of powerful relics throughout the series' history, we see glimpses of a different kind of hand-drawn animation that is entirely reminiscent of ancient Chinese artwork, and as such fits the cultural aesthetic of the main adventure. While it's unclear whether the show will have future seasons, this one choice alone intrigues me as to how Powerhouse would handle similar subtle depictions of ancient works of art from other cultures.

The Legend of Lara Croft's story still has too much influence on the franchise formula

Even with some significant stakes, it proves predictable

While the animation may be stunning and the character development better than in previous installments, Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft ultimately hampered by the fact that it's too safe for the series as a whole, following a familiar formula. The introduction of the power-hungry villain does have some impact as we learn more about his benevolent motivations and backstory, as does the apparent death of several familiar faces, but as the show progresses and Devereaux's powers grow, it ultimately begins to feel distantly too predictable as Lara ultimately finds him will stop and save the world.

Despite not being completely different from previous versions, it's ultimately encouraging to see the iconic game series finally getting a comprehensive adaptation thanks to Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. There's no denying that it would be nice to see less adherence to the franchise formula; could have stayed true to some of the stakes it set up since its initial death, but given that previous films rarely included Lara's character development, one can hope for future adaptations including Phoebe Waller-Bridge Tomb Raider show on Prime Video finds a similar balance between fresh and familiar storytelling.

Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft iis now streaming on Netflix. The series consists of 8 episodes.