Lara Croft and the “Tomb Raider” franchise have been a fixture in video games for the last 20 years. As a protagonist, Croft serves as the female equivalent of Indiana Jones and has helped to recruit legions of female gamers, especially in the new millennium.

In 2013, Croft’s story was reimagined by game developers, and the simply-titled “Tomb Raider” was released on the major consoles. This reimagining injected a brutally physical and brutally realistic approach to chronicling the litany of perils faced by Croft in her journeys.

It is with this spirit that director Roar Uthaug adapted the game’s story for the big screen. The film’s major roadblock is that it feels too much like a retread of a series of films starring a particular fedora-wearing archaeologist.

Lara (Alicia Vikander) is working as a courier when she is arrested for causing an accident during an impromptu bicycle race. Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas), business partner of her father, Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), bails her out of jail.

Miller compels Lara to come to her father’s company headquarters to sign papers declaring him officially dead. Richard went missing on an expedition seven years ago, the same time Lara left the family estate and struck out on her own.

As a result, Lara is bequeathed with several of her father’s items including a Japanese puzzle box. She discovers a key inside and uses it to unlock her father’s hidden research area, guised as his tomb. Lara finds a camcorder tape which details that Richard’s expedition was to locate the tomb of a Japanese empress, Himiko, on the isolated island of Yamatai.

In the tape, Richard warns Lara that if the wrong person opens Himiko’s tomb, destruction will be unleashed on the entire world. Lara resolves to find Yamatai, ensure the tomb is not opened and to discover what happened to her father.

The spectacular action sequences are where the film really shines. Climbing through a rusted warplane as it teeters on the edge of a waterfall and rushing to escape a collapsing cavern are two examples that should resonate with avid gamers.

These are the same gamers who can envision similar sequences during the game’s playthrough, whose button-mashing is dependent on guiding Lara to safety at times.

“Tomb Raider” is undone by a combination of underdeveloped plot and characters, as well as its evident reliance on similar films preceding it. The action sequences seem to be the crutch holding up the film, which does not delve deep enough into the character relationships, such as that between Lara and her father.

Additionally, “Tomb Raider” feels too derived from the “Indiana Jones” films. The father/sibling relationship and solving three tests to find the “treasure” from “The Last Crusade” and the utilization of prisoner labor from “The Temple of Doom” are just a few of the ways that the film breaks no new ground.

“Tomb Raider” does capture the “everyday hero” essence from its video game source material of the same name, but its preoccupation with projecting that aspect creates a chasm for content.
Stick to checking out the exciting exploits of Lara Croft on the small screen of your own TV.