Tomb Raider reboot stars Alicia Vikander and Daniel Wu on the video-game film
Rather than ape the sex-symbol style of Angelina Jolie’s Lara Croft, Vikander introduces a more down-to-earth, but no less physical heroine. Wu’s character Lu Ren plays an angry and embittered ship’s captain who teams up with Croft
Adapting video games to films is a perilous business. Hollywood is littered with failed attempts. From Street Fighter and Super Mario Bros to Max Payne and Warcraft , it’s been game over for a multitude of console titles brought to the big screen.
So credit the makers and cast of the new Tomb Raider – the bestselling video game franchise that’s already spawned two so-so films with Angelina Jolie – for taking the risk.
Playing the iconic Lara Croft, the intrepid treasure-hunting adventuress in the games, is Alicia Vikander, the Swedish-born star who won an Oscar for The Danish Girl . Even she admits to having concerns when the idea was initially floated. “When I was approached that they were going to make this film, I thought, ‘They’ve already done the films with Angelina. Why are they remaking it?’”
Then it was explained that the plan was to work from the 2013 reboot by Crystal Dynamics, the 10th game in the series and a gritty origin story.
This explains why Vikander, dressed in a sharp grey suit and heels, is holed up in the chic Nobu Shoreditch hotel in London’s East End when we meet for this interview. The Lara Croft that the 29 year-old Vikander plays is not the lady of the manor, as she is in the early games stretching back to 1996, but a humble bicycle courier hustling the streets close to where we are.
“This is her ’hood,” she trills, gesturing outside. “We were filming out here for a while.” It’s why Vikander related to the character so much; this was her ‘hood too after she left Gothenburg. “I came here when I was 20,” she says. “I also lived with my girlfriends like Lara is in our film and a lot of people ask you, ‘What are you going to do?’ That was before my career started.”