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The film opens with Lara Croft in what appears to be an Egyptian tomb. In the opening moments, it is apparent that she is
seeking what appears to be a computer chip on a display at one end of the chamber. As she approaches, however, she is suddenly
attacked by a large robot intent on killing her. After an intense chase and battle with the robot, she manages to disable
it by ripping out key motivational circuits, whereupon it deactivates. She then goes to retrieve the chip, but as she does
so the robot reboots and begins again, but she yells "Stop!" and the robot immediately ceases its attack. She then
takes the chip, labeled 'Lara's Party Mix,' and inserts it into the robot, whereupon it starts playing music. She then drags
the robot out of the chamber and into an adjoining one to meet her associate, Bryce. The entire situation took place in a
practice arena in Lara's own home and Bryce programmed the robot, SIMON, to train and challenge her in combat.
The date is May 15, the day of the first phase of a planetary alignment, or syzygy, of the planets of the solar system
culminating in a solar eclipse on the Earth, an astronomical occurrence that only happens once every 5,000 years. In Venice,
the secret order known as the Iluminati is searching for a key of great importance so that they can rejoin two halves of "the
triangle," which they must do by the final phase of the alignment, in one week's time. Mr. Powell, a member of the Illuminati,
assures the Council that they are almost ready but in reality he has no idea where to find the key.
Meanwhile, in Lara's mansion, she is sitting rather morosely in her father's office while her butler, Hilary, tries to
interest her in several different projects. May 15, as Hilary is aware, is the day that Lara's father disappeared in the field
several years before, and as she says, "That is never a good day." She has never recovered from his loss.
Later that night, Lara is sleeping when she has a dream reminding her of what her father told her about the alignment,
and about an object linked to the alignment called the Triangle of Light. After waking up from the dream, she becomes aware
of a clock ticking somewhere in the house, and after a search opens a secret chamber beneath the stairs, in which there is
a carriage clock that had spontaneously begun ticking. She wakes Bryce before dawn, who probes into it and discovers a strange
device hidden inside the clock.
At daybreak, Lara motorcycles to an auction house to speak to a friend of her father's, Mr. Wilson, an experts on clocks,
since the device resembles and seems to behave like one. She believes it's connected to the "Triangle of Light,"
but Wilson disavows any knowledge of the clock or the Triangle. While there, Lara also encounters Alex West, a fellow tomb
raider with unscrupulous methods. They are attracted to each other, but Lara cannot abide his for-profit attitude. That night,
Lara is contacted by Mr. Wilson, who tells her that he gave her name to a man named Manfred Powell in regards of the clock.
In reality, Mr. Wilson is also a member of the Illuminati.
The next day, Lara goes to see Mr. Powell in his lavish home, but instead of showing him the clock she shows photos instead.
That night, discussing it with Bryce, she points out that Powell was obviously lying about his knowledge. Before bed, Lara
partakes in a "bungee ballet" to relax her, but while she is doing this, commando troops invade the house, imprisoning
Bryce in his motor home on the premises, attacking Lara, and destroying a great deal of the house in the process. Lara manages
to incapacitate most of the commandos but they still succeed in stealing the clock.
The next morning while cleaning up the mess, Lara receives a letter from her father, arranged to arrive after the beginning
of the alignment, whereupon he explains that the clock she found is the key to retrieve two halves of the mystic Triangle
of Light, forged from metal from a meteorite that fell during the final phase of the last planetary alignment 5,000 years
earlier. Misusing the Triangle destroyed the city where it was kept, and to prevent its further misuse it was split into two
halves. One half was hidden in a chamber in Cambodia, the other half in the ruined city itself, in modern-day Siberia. In
the letter, her father urges her to find and destroy both halves of the Triangle before the Illuminati can find it.
In order to get to Cambodia in the short time they have left before the final phase, Lara calls in a favor to a military
unit she worked with in the past, who deliver her to the temple, which she enters just as Mr. Powell and Alex West enter.
West figures out part of the puzzle of how to retrieve the Triangle half, but Lara realizes that they are about to put the
clock-key into the wrong lock, and convinces them to give it to her to put in the right one next to her. They do so, but this
simply releases a suspended log, which must pierce the urn of the chamber's giant multi-armed statue, which in turn releases
the half of the Triangle from a hiding place in front of Powell. Before Powell can retrieve it, however, Lara grabs the half
and gets herself to a safe distance away.
Before she can escape, however, the statue and the stone guardians of the temple come to life and begin attacking everyone
in the chamber. Powell, West, and many of the men escape with the key, but Lara is left to fight the statue, which she destroys
by driving the still-swinging log into it. She then escapes the temple and Powell's men outside by running through the forest
and diving from a waterfall. West tries to stop her, but though she is an easy shot he lets her go. Lara phones Powell from
Angkor Wat and they arrange to meet in Venice, since each of them has what the other needs to finish the Triangle.
In Venice, they meet in the base of the Illuminati, where Powell proposes a partnership to find the Triangle. He also
tells Lara that her father was also a member of the Illuminati, in the seat Powell now occupies. She doesn't immediately commit
to helping him, but eventually Lara and Bryce meet with Powell and proceed to Siberia to the lost city.
Once inside the city, they discover a large chamber set up as a giant model of the solar system, which activates as the
alignment nears completion. Lara retrieves the last half of the Triangle inside the model’s sun, but when Powell
tries to complete the Triangle, it won’t fuse together. He realizes that Lara knows the solution to the puzzle,
and to induce her to complete it he kills West and induces her to complete the Triangle to save both West's life and the life
of her father. Lara retrieves the final fragment of the Triangle, hidden inside the key, and the Triangle fuses together.
Lara and Powell then struggle for control of the Triangle, with Lara prevailing.
Lara then finds herself in a strange alternate existence facing her father. He explains that it is a "crossing"
of time and space, and urges her to destroy the Triangle instead of using it to save his life. She leaves her father and returns
to the chamber, where time is slowly running backwards from the point where Powell killed West. Lara takes the knife he threw
into West's chest and reverses it, then destroys the Triangle with a gunshot, which returns time to its normal flow and directs
the knife into Powell's shoulder.
The chamber begins to self-destruct. Everyone turns to leave, but Powell taunts Lara by telling her that he killed her
father and retrieved his pocket watch. Lara fights him in a vicious street-style fight to retrieve it, killing him in the
process and escaping as the chamber comes down around her.
Back at the mansion, Hilary is about to serve breakfast when Lara enters wearing a dress and hat "like a lady,"
unlike her usual self. After paying her respects at her father's memorial site, she returns to the house, where Bryce and
Hilary have a surprise for her: a rebuilt and reprogrammed SIMON, ready for combat. She takes the guns they offer her and
prepares for battle.
Main cast
* Angelina Jolie - Lara Croft
* Jon Voight - Lord Richard Croft
* Iain Glen - Manfred Powell
* Noah Taylor - Bryce
* Daniel Craig - Alex West
* Richard Johnson - Distinguished Gentleman
* Chris Barrie - Hillary
* Julian Rhind-Tutt - Mr. Pimms
* Leslie Phillips - Wilson
Cradle Of Life
Lara Croft returns in the sequel to the original video game based movie. This time, she is tasked to find Pandora's Box by
agents from MI6, the object from ancient legends which supposedly contains one of the deadliest plagues on Earth, before evil
Nobel Prize-winning scientist Jonathan Reiss can get his hands on it.
The key to finding the Box, which is hidden in the mysterious Cradle of Life, is a magical luminous orb that is supposed
to be some type of a map. While exploring the submerged Luna Temple off Greece, she comes across the orb. However, it is stolen
by Reiss' henchman and so she recruits an old friend, Terry Sheridan, a former mercenary and Royal Marine who had spend his
last couple of years in prison in Kazahstan, to help her.
Lara and Terry embark together on an adventure that spans continents in an attempt to regain the orb. Their adventure
takes them to Shangai and Hong Kong where Reiss is engaging in shady dealings with criminal lord Chang Lo. Among the white-knuckle
action sequences that take place during this time are the duo's entry by spaceplane, an intense fight scene in downtown Shanghai
and the dramatic leap off the then-under-construction International Finance Center skyscraper in Hong Kong.
Clues unveiled lead the pair on separate paths to the Kilimanjaro in Africa where they meet to continue the final lap
of the journey. Soon they face perils such as a forest full of monsters that kill immediately when they sense movement and
black acid that can destroy anything. At the end of the film, Terry attempts to take Pandora's box as a prize for helping
Lara find it. This results in Lara being forced to kill him. An alternate ending was filmed, for fear that the studios would
find Lara's killing of Terry too "un-hollywood".
Main cast
* Angelina Jolie ... Lara Croft
* Gerard Butler ... Terry Sheridan
* Ciaran Hinds ... Jonathan Reiss
* Chris Barrie ... Hillary
* Noah Taylor ... Bryce
* Djimon Hounsou ... Kosa
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