Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

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Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

Directed by	Jan De Bont
Produced by	Lloyd Levin Lawrence Gordon
Written by	Dean Georgaris
Starring	Angelina Jolie Gerard Butler Ciarán Hinds Chris Barrie Noah Taylor Til Schweiger
Music by	Alan Silvestri
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures Mutual Film Company
Release date(s)	July 25, 2003
Running time	117 min.
Language	English
Budget	$118,000,000 (estimated)
Preceded by	Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
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Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (a.k.a. Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life and Tomb Raider 2) is a 2003 action film directed by Jan de Bont, starring actress Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft. It is the second film based on the famous Tomb Raider video game series, the first being Lara Croft: Tomb Raider.

1 Plot Summary
2 Box office and Critical response
3 Filming locations
4 Budget
5 Tomb Raider III
6 External links
7 Trivia

[edit] Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Lara Croft returns in the sequel to the original video game based movie. This time, she is tasked to find Pandora's Box by agents from MI6, the object from ancient legends which supposedly contains one of the deadliest plagues on Earth, before evil Nobel Prize-winning scientist Jonathan Reiss can get his hands on it.

The key to finding the Box, which is hidden in the mysterious Cradle of Life, is a magical luminous orb that is supposed to be some type of a map. While exploring the submerged Luna Temple off Grece, she comes across the orb. However, it is stolen by Reiss' henchman and so she recruits an old friend, Terry Sheridan, a former mercenary and Royal Marine who had spend his last couple of years in prison in Kazakhstan, to help her.

Lara and Terry embark together on an adventure that spans continents in an attempt to regain the orb. Their adventure takes them to Shanghai and Hong Kong where Reiss is engaging in shady dealings with criminal lord Chang Lo. Among the white-knuckle action sequences that take place during this time are the duo's entry by spaceplane, an intense fight scene in downtown Shanghai and the dramatic leap off the then-under-construction International Finance Centre skyscraper.

Clues unveiled lead the pair on separate paths to the Kilimanjaro in Africa where they meet to continue the final lap of the journey. Soon they face perils such as a forest full of monsters that kill immediately when they sense movement and black acid that can destroy anything. At the end of the film, Terry attempts to take Pandora's box as a prize for helping Lara find it. This results in Lara being forced to kill him.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Box office and Critical response

Despite its over-$100 million budget, Cradle of Life grossed only $65 million in the U.S. The box office disappointment of this movie, and other female-led action vehicles released around the same time, created something of a ripple effect that resulted in production of several similar movies being cancelled, most notably the James Bond spin-off from Die Another Day (2002), which was tentatively titled Jinx and was to have starred Halle Berry.

Overall, 2003 was not a good year for the Tomb Raider franchise. Paramount blamed the failure of Cradle of Life on the poor performance of the then-latest installment of the video game series, Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. After numerous delays, Angel of Darkness was rushed to shelves just over a month before the release of the movie, despite the final product being unfinished and loaded with glitches. It spawned mediocre sales while garnering less-than-favorable reviews from critics.

Cradle of Life was originally planned to be the second in the line of three movies, but the harsh reviews from critics coupled with its poor box office performance resulted in a planned second sequel being scrapped by Paramount in early 2004. Jolie (after some initial reservation), stated that she was willing to do a third movie.

[edit] Filming locations

Hong Kong - see List of movies set in Hong Kong
Greece - Several scenes were shot on the Greek island Santorini
North Wales, United Kingdom
Kenya, scenes at Amboseli and Hell's Gate

[edit] Budget

Story rights and screenplay: $4 million
Producers: $4 million
Director (Jan de Bont): $5 million
Cast: $17.25 million
- Angelina Jolie: $12 million
- Extras: $250,000
- Other (inc. Angelina's perks): $5 million
Production costs: $67 million
- Set design and construction: $17.8 million
Visual Effects: $13 million
Music: $3.3 million
Editing: $3 million
Post Production costs: $1.5 million

Total: $118 million

Source: [1]

[edit] Tomb Raider III

Despite the box office failure of Cradle of Life, gaming website IGN reported in April 2006 that Tomb Raider III is on the drawing board, with Angelina Jolie reprising her role once again as Lara Croft.

In the article, Ian Livingstone, co-founder of Eidos and creator of Tomb Raider, is quoted in British tabloid The Daily Express, "Paramount has optioned Tomb Raider III and Angelina has agreed to star in the third movie." A source tells The Daily Express that "Angelina is already in training to make sure she gets rid of her post-pregnancy bulge," and that she "wants to be in tip-top shape and look better in Lara's outfit than ever."

However, nothing has been confirmed by Paramount since the appearance of the article, and there is no set date for production to begin on Tomb Raider III. (Source: Tomb Raider III Possible - Jolie may return as Lara Croft after all. - April 20th, 2006)

[edit] External links

[edit] Trivia

Jolie wore a padded bra in the first Tomb Raider film, in order to imitate the large breast size of the fictional Lara Croft. In Cradle of Life, it is gone, making her look more natural.

Despite being filmed in Hong Kong, the final movie was banned in China (except in Hong Kong and Macau) after the government complained that it portrayed their country as having "secret societies" (a scene in the movie did take place in Shanghai, but it was shot on a set and not on location).

The scene with the underwater scooters was shot dry-for-wet, as test shots with the actual scooters underwater proved unsuccessful.

Shahin Badar's vocals can be heard in this film's theatrical trailer.

The Masai tribe in the African sequence of the film was a real tribe.

Director Jan de Bont was not allowed on the Luna Temple set by insurance because he had injured his knee just weeks earlier, and they were afraid that he might slip and fall.

During the Luna Temple sequence, one of the thieves is wearing a SOLA wetsuit, seen in the Tomb Raider II videogame.

An alternate ending was filmed, for fear that the studios would find Lara's killing of Terry too "un-hollywood".

In order to shoot the Santorini scenes, all the equipment had to brought up by staircase, and artificial rocks were attached to the cliff face so nothing was actually damaged during the earthquake scene.