Tomb Raider: The Legend Of Lara Croft is an animated series based on the wildly popular video game. You have to live in a very remote area for the last 2 decades not to have heard of Lara Croft or Tomb Raider. In this video game franchise, you take on the role of a young archaeologist who fights against people and organizations that do not have the best interests of humanity at heart and who want to use certain relics or ancient objects for this purpose. While ‘globe trotting’ you shoot and jump your way through countless locations that are often littered with dangerous creatures and deadly booby traps.
Lara Croft is in fact a female Indiana Jones, but with an arsenal of firearms instead of a whip. There have been several film adaptations over the years, starring Angelina Jolie (Unscripted) and Alicia Vikander (Irma Vep). So it’s time for an animated series after all that live action stuff, right?
In this series we are reacquainted with Lara Croft (Hayley Atwell, Agent Carter), a young, spirited archaeologist who absolutely does not shy away from adventure. After a tragic event in which she lost a loved one, she has been away for a long time. However, after a request from one of her good friends, she returns home to start over at her father's gigantic country house.
After the first episode, it's clear that this series is going for an extremely modernized version of its main character.
Once there, she receives support from her two good friends Zip (Allen Maldonado, Heels) and Jonah (Earl Baylon, Arcane). She decides to hold a large auction of all kinds of historical artefacts and treasures that she has collected over the years. However, it does not take long before the peace is disturbed by a charismatic man named Devereaux (Richard Armitage, Obsession). He manages to steal a special artefact that is hidden in the country house. After a spectacular chase scene, he narrowly escapes, leaving Lara behind in the night.
After the first episode it is clear that this series is going for an extremely modernized version of the main character. Lara Croft has been greatly masculinized in this series and that alone does not make the whole thing any better. Well, Lara Croft was not exactly a housewife in the games either, we know that. But she still had a certain charm and looked very pleasant. With this new metamorphosis there is hardly any femininity and that makes it quite a serious adjustment for people who mainly know her from the games.
Not only does she seem more masculine than ever on the outside, there also seems to be no room for any feminine charm on the inside, which makes her seem more like an unleashed workaholic and adrenaline junkie than a thoughtful but adventurous personality. That is a shame, because it makes her seem extremely egocentric and even a bit narcissistic. The so-called sidekicks do not make it any better. Zip and Jonah blindly follow her and risk their lives without a second thought for every assumption the main character makes. They mainly serve to show Lara how good, strong and special she is.
The antagonist Deveraux is actually a lot better developed because his background at least makes clear why he does what he does. He also made it quite difficult for Lara a few times, which gave the story some exciting moments. The cat-and-mouse game between Lara and Devereaux is what keeps this series going.
Graphically it is a bit hit and miss. In some scenes the backgrounds are truly breathtaking and with an astonishing eye for detail. But the characters themselves are much flatter, which sometimes makes the contrast in detail and style too great. The locations the story takes us to are nicely depicted and the so-called tombs our heroes end up in are also quite entertaining and with a certain creative touch.
The ending of this series is a bit disappointing. The denouement with the antagonist was a bit of an anticlimax and instead of rounding off the story there was still a full episode to show once again how great Miss Croft has been in all her doings.
That says it all. Is it recommended? It can pass as a not too demanding action series. Due to the overly modernized version of the main character, or let's just say the woke content, this series does not last long.
About the writer, Karzal
Mike (1995) has been a member of MySeries since 2016 and is mainly active on the English version of the site. Since 2018, he has been actively translating news articles, columns, reviews and basically everything that ends up on the Dutch site. The original articles, columns and reviews were actually written by others. During the week Mike can be found at IKEA, where he is a national systems specialist and occasionally also in the classroom to teach an English lesson. In addition, Mike logically enjoys watching series and has actually been spoon-fed this from an early age. The genre doesn't matter, there is a place for everything in the otherwise busy life.
I totally agree with your review Dries. There are a number of predictable plot twists in the story, and I also found that the last episode adds little to nothing. A second season has already been announced by Netflix, but whether I will watch it is doubtful and if not, I will first wait for the reactions to the second season.
Yes, there will indeed be a second season (I didn't put it in the review). After watching the first season, I doubt whether it will get better. But who knows. :)
