|
By WAYNE KLEIN
Some things we were not
meant to know. What, for example, Lara Croft finds
at the conclusion of "The Cradle of Life" and what
all the participants were thinking when they made
this sequel. To be fair, Croft has a number of
marvelous set pieces, but focusing on those is
akin to focusing on one or two dazzling moves in a
game of chess; it's all about style over
substance. Given the crop of summer releases this
past year, "Cradle" is no better or worse than the
bulk of what Hollywood coughed out. But there's
not one original or worthwhile moment of suspense
generated here. It's an example of an action film
that never aspired to do more than crawl. The best
moments are all derivative of some other movie,
and the worst, well, they belong uniquely to
"Cradle."
Director Jan De Bont ("Speed," "Speed 2," "The
Haunting" and "Twister") knows a thing or two
about style. Visually, to say the least, his films
are stunning. It's also clear from looking at his
previous work that he knows little about
substance. An action film like "Raiders of the
Lost Arc" (or even the knock off "Romancing the
Stone") focuses as much on the characters and plot
as it does on the action sequences. De Bont has
Croft (Angelina Jolie) race across the Great Wall
of China on a motorcycle and using a new body suit
skydives from a skyscraper. We, as the audience,
can't really care because there's no depth to any
of the protagonists to involve us. "Cradle" may
look stunning and the action moves faster than the
flying cow in "Twister." But if you were allowed
to stop long enough and think about the plot,
you'd see the film suddenly fall apart.
The story focuses on Croft's attempt to prevent a
nasty villain Jonathan Reiss (Ciaran Hinds) from
obtaining and opening the mythological Pandora's
Box. He believes that there's a nasty viral plague
that could potentially destroy humanity and since
he's a biological arms dealer, it's only logical
that he should seek it out for profit. Croft has
to rely on Terry Sheridan (Gerard Butler) a former
lover for help. Sheridan is in prison after
committing a crime and she has him released in the
hope that whatever bond is left between them will
enable her to use his skills to help her retrieve
an orb that shows the location of the Pandora's
Box.
The image is wonderful and the sound stunning. The
film is packed with five featurettes, including
one on the stunts. There are also 6 deleted scenes
and a running audio commentary by De Bont, music
videos by Korn and The Davey Brothers and the
original website archived as a DVD-ROM feature.
It's ironic that in the digital age every film --
regardless of worth -- is loaded with extra
footage, documentaries and featurettes. Meanwhile,
more worthwhile, older (and even newer) films are
released with minimal or no special features. |
