“Tomb Raider”
Think a female “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
Oscar winner (“The Danish Girl”) Alicia Vikander (wife of Oscar winner Michael Fassbender) is the latest Lara Croft- 17 years after Angelina Jolie originated the role. Alicia plays the 21 year old daughter of the now departed original Lara, who goes off to a remote island to find her eccentric adventuring gazzillionaire dad (Dominic West of “The Affair”) who disappeared when she was a teen. Kristin Scott Thomas has a small role but I’m sure it’ll be much bigger in the sequel.
Vikander is fine as Lara but…in this era of female heroes, she pales in comparison. Probably because the story is lacking and the been-there-done-that CGI. It’s just a meh movie. Now, had they killed off the dad and now mom Angelina Jolie- THAT would be a movie worth seeing. This one gets 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. Clocking in at 2 hours, I was bored.
2 stars
“Love, Simon”
What took so long to make this movie??? This is a coming of age comedy about a gay teenager. It’s funny, heartwarming and completely satisfying ‘til the come-on-that-would-never-happen-ending.
Nick Robinson (“Jurassic World”) stars with Jennifer Garner and Josh Duhamel as his loving, understanding parents. Katherine Langford of “13 Reasons Why” co-stars. I just loved this movie, which, while it’s groundbreaking, doesn’t feel that way because it normalizes the teen coming out process. Like I said, only the ending rings false. Props to director Greg Berlanti. He based this on his own coming out. The writing team comes to us by way of “This Is Us”. It gets 82% on Rotten Tomatoes.
3-and-a-half stars