Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 2001

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Its heavily mined narrative throws all sorts of ridiculous twists into the mix in order to put Croft through her punishing paces. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: The dialogue is hackneyed and heavy-handed, with cheesy puns that might have been lifted from an old-time college fraternity skit. Read more

Bruce Newman, San Jose Mercury News: Jolie gives Lara an upper class British accent, but it's so denatured that she sounds like one of those British techno-pop goddesses on a Valium drip. Read more

Elvis Mitchell, New York Times: As much fun as watching someone else play a video game. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: The verdict on the big-screen Lara Croft: Angelina Jolie, hot. Tomb Raider, not. Read more

Melanie McFarland, Seattle Times: So deep was the concern that Jolie fully realize the role of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider that the story got lost in the jungle. Read more

David Edelstein, Slate: [Jolie's] glittering, libidinous impudence gives this packaged piece of corporate schlock a strange integrity -- perhaps even a soul. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Tomb Raider's preoccupation with time is puzzling, given the movie's leisurely pace. Read more

Bob Longino, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: They've taken a mega-popular video game and turned it into a mega-void. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Almost completely lacking in genuine thrills. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: [A] movie based on a video game that's unafraid to look absurd but lacks the self-conviction needed to come off as camp. Read more

Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle: See summer films such as Tomb Raider, Swordfish and Pearl Harbor over and over again, as young people are wont to do, and your mind is liable to atrophy from lack of use. Read more

Paul Tatara, CNN.com: Character shadings take a back seat to confusing exposition and feeble mysticism. Read more

Steven Rosen, Denver Post: It's yet another movie where you frequently have no idea what's going on or why. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: The movie never summons the slightest pretense that there is anything at stake for the audience. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: The movie credits five separate persons for the story and screenplay, a quintet of scribes who might better consider a career shift into acting -- they've clearly done a splendid job of impersonating monkeys at a typewriter. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: Highly anticipated adaptation of the popular computer game is uneven, sometimes awkward, but Angelina Jolie makes the title character a virtual icon of female competence and coolth. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Of all this summer's mindless blockbusters, this is arguably the most fun. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Here is a movie so monumentally silly, yet so wondrous to look at, that only a churl could find fault. Read more

Charles Taylor, Salon.com: A movie for young boys and slightly older boys. For the rest of us, it's so inept it doesn't even provide an opportunity to ogle Angelina Jolie properly. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: The herald of a cold, heartless, soul-dead cinema for a numbed audience with no interest in human emotion, just a craving to have its synapses jolted. Read more

Time Out: A jerky, fragmented tale that jumps from one exotic location to the next without any explanation or flow. Read more

Susan Wloszczyna, USA Today: If only the story that surrounds this watchable heroine were as well-stacked. Read more

Michael Atkinson, Village Voice: So pandering and pebble-brained you'd guess it had been test-screened on barnyard animals. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: For a modestly budgeted project -- this movie's well-done and watchable, even occasionally elegant. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: Loud, banal, empty, frenzied, plasticized, flavorless, drab, violent in a bloodless way and sexy in a sexless way. Read more