I had high hopes for this show. The original Tomb Raider movies are guilty pleasures of mine (I even enjoyed the 2018 reboot). However, I truly fell in love with the character when Crystal Dynamics released Tomb Raider in 2013. The series had an incredible reboot, and I thoroughly played all three games. When Netflix announced Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft back in 2021, I was really excited. The show is supposed to exist in the same universe as the Survivor trilogy of video games, but it feels like there must have been some miscommunication between the show’s writers and the existing material because this doesn’t feel like the Lara Croft we’ve come to know over the past decade.
We get the return of Jonah from the games, along with a new character, Zip. However, I never really understood their purpose in the show aside from creating obstacles in Lara’s journey. Zip, the “tech guy,” for some reason has omniscient abilities and can remotely view anything, anywhere, providing Lara with all the intel she needs. It felt lazy. Lara is an explorer, meant to discover things herself, yet it seems like everything was just handed to her.
Our villain, Charles Devereux, is on the hunt for the four infinity stones—sorry, relics. The villain’s story is something we’ve seen dozens of times before. I wish we had more tomb-raiding side plots instead of an entire season focused on stopping Devereux from collecting these relics.
We do get to see Lara in some of her iconic outfits, but I was confused as to why she’s in a tank top in the middle of a blizzard. The cold-weather gear from Rise of the Tomb Raider would have been a perfect fit for those scenes, but unfortunately, it wasn’t included.
The animation was solid. I wouldn’t say it was on the level of Blue Eye Samurai or Invincible, but it was still impressive. Hayley Atwell and the rest of the voice cast did a phenomenal job bringing the characters to life, and their performances were a highlight of the show.
Is this show horrible? No, definitely not. However, as a fan of the franchise, I wish we got to explore more of Lara Croft’s world. There are so many untold stories waiting to be discovered. The season finale teases a possible Season 2, so hopefully the issues from Season 1 will be addressed. I enjoyed watching the show, to be honest—it’s just that the potential never fully came through.
In the meantime, I’m very excited about the new Tomb Raider games that Crystal Dynamics is working on.
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