As one of the biggest and most recognizable video games of all time, with two movies starring Angelina Jolie already in the bank, it should come as no surprise we’re getting a Tomb Raider reboot already. The first trailer dropped today, and it hopes to reboot the franchise’s movie chops much the same way the game inspiring it did the video game series.
Tomb Raider looks to reboot the story as well, taking us back to the origin of Lara Croft and her tomb raiding adventures. After finding a hidden message from her missing father about an apocalyptic threat, Lara travels to stop the threat and solve the mystery of her father’s disappearance. This leads to her ship wrecking at a mysterious island and battling a group already there.
So basically, Tomb Raider 2013. Watch the trailer, and you’ll see that’s hopefully a very good thing.
Alicia Vikander’s Lara Croft looks good, the action looks sharp, and I absolutely love how much influence the movie takes from the best of the Tomb Raider games. Walton Goggins is amazing and should make for a quality villain. All the pieces are in place to finally give us a good movie based on a video game. Tomb Raider being the franchise to break the crap streak would certainly be fitting.
After so many promising failures, however, it’s hard to get my hopes up. After all, this movie apparently adapts Tomb Raider 2013, but I see no Sam Nishimura anywhere. Big mistake, movie. You don’t make something inspired by Tomb Raider 2013 without including the mountains of subtext between Lara and Sam. Hopefully they just kept it out of the trailer.
Here’s hoping for the best. There’s a decent amount to inspire optimism here, even without a Sam around for Lara to gal pal around with.

Just gals being pals.
Tomb Raider is scheduled for release on March 16, 2018. Along with Vikander and Goggins, the film stars Daniel Wu, Dominic West, Hannah John-Kamen, Antonio Aakeel, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Nick Frost.