Train Like the World Depends On It – Tomb Raider (2018), March 18, 2018

If you’re a woman who has taken any sort of self defense class, you’ve likely been taught 3 things.

1. Stay low.
2. Use your environment.
3. Fight dirty.

You stay low because most of your power and leverage is going to come from your legs. Most men have women beat on the upper body, so it behooves you to use your lower body to eke out any advantage you can get.

Your assailant is likely stronger than you, but if you can use your environment to your advantage, you can be smarter than them (finding something that can be used as a weapon, screaming for attention, utilizing any moment of distraction, etc.)

Finally, fight dirty. There are no rules in the real world, no ref to break up an unfair hold, no clock to hold out against. Your attacker doesn’t have to play fair and neither do you.

All this to tell you, dear reader, that we here at MWMD, inc. have a bone to pick with action movies starring women. Black Widow-esque fight scenes where a 115 lb Scarlett Johanson takes down a trained military guard without breaking a sweat is just not realistic. A tiny woman can actually win a fight with someone bigger than her, but not in straight hand to hand combat with a bigger opponent, but she has to use her strengths, which isn’t brute force.

Enter: the new and improved Lara Croft. My girl is able to kick ass while using each and every technique that a self defense teacher worth their salt uses. She doesn’t just effortlessly slice through enemies like some arcade game, every battle is a struggle. Her opponents are stronger, well armed, and cruel, but with some tenacity and a little bit of luck, she manages to fight and win. It’s established early in the movie that she can take a punch. She does MMA as a hobby and serves as a punching bag to her gym’s toughest fighter in the initial scene. Alicia Vikander gained 12 pounds of muscle for this role and it shows. She’s a strong woman and likely fully capable of doing every single stunt we saw her doing.

She isn’t a powerhouse, but that’s why she serves as a great protagonist. We meet our heroine struggling to make ends meet in her subpar London flat. Her father, a wealthy businessman went missing 8 years previous and despite any evidence to the contrary, she refuses to sign the paperwork that would declare him dead in absentia. After a rather embarrassing, but exciting, run in with the police during a failed moneymaking “opportunity”, including a bike, a pail of green paint, and a pack of bike couriers, she decides to give in and have her father declared dead. It’s during that meeting with her father’s lawyer that she gets a key clue to her father’s whereabouts – and his true nature.

And looking like a total badass while doing it

Lara then sets off to find what happened to her father and so begins a rolicking adventure that combines all the best parts of Indiana Jones and Bourne Identity while maintaining a completely unique perspective on both genres.

We have also noticed a trend in modern scripts that both humanizes and realistically depicts antagonists. Gone are the Bond-esque chaotic evil baddies who want to see the world burn, now are the days where you can genuinely empathize with a villain. I’m not talking about the ol’ “Aw he had a hard childhood” trope, I’m talking about the kind of chaotic neutral villain that you can’t genuinely say that put in the same circumstances, you wouldn’t do the same thing.

Hey auntie…

This is a trope that we’d love to see more often. There’s nothing more intriguing to an audience member than a villain you can see yourself in. Heath Ledger was compelling in The Dark Knight, but it’s because he was enigmatic.  Walton Goggins plays a put-upon company man. He’s spent 7 years away from his family searching for an ancient queen’s tomb on behalf of a shadowy corporation and he only wants to get home. The only issue is that in order to see his daughters again and leave the godforsaken island he’s stuck on, he has to bend to the will of his mysterious boss.

What father wouldn’t do everything in his power to get home to his family?

This movie was an enjoyable, well paced ride start to finish. The script is well written and still pays homage to the eponymous video games with subtle points. We are absolutely looking forward to the continued success of this series.

We’re giving this movie 5 ice picks out of 5. (⛏️⛏️⛏️⛏️⛏️)