Tomb Raider The Legend of Lara Croft - Lara is back again

 Tomb Raider II was one of the very first games I ever played on the Playstation.

It left a big impression on me, not only I was still amazed by the concept of 3D games, it felt realistic to me, traveling within this expansive real life locations trying to not get lost all the while struggling to survive against the other enemies, all the while discovering an ancient tale about a magical artifact rooted in mythology in a world where magic was slowly starting to feel even more real by the minute.

Since then I was always a big fan of the series throughout its peak, its downfall and recent resurgence. Lara Croft was an icon during the 90s and even in modern times when it felt like she was overshadowed by her younger brother Nathan Drake she still managed to carve her own place.

Since 2023 the series is having another comeback, not only we got Remasters of the first Six games in the series. Lara Croft is also appearing in games like Fortnite, Dead By Daylight and Brawlhalla and for the first time ever, an animated series.

Tomb Raider - The Legend of Lara Croft

The story opens in Chile, where Lara Croft and her mentor Conrad Roth are on the hunt for a Jade Box, an ancient artifact with Chinese origin which is told would bring immense wealth to anyone that owns it. Upon discovering the box though, Lara is taken aback by some murals which warn everyone who takes it of a great danger, but Conrad is dismissive of it, believing it to be just meaningless legends. 

Three years later after recovering the box, Conrad is dead and Lara has isolated herself, she decides to cut off with her past life by giving her entire family collection as a donation to the Museum. During a party at her home to inaugurate this decision, a man called Charles Deveraux steals the jade box. Upset by the situation she starts to investigate through her father's belongings, discovering that there are other boxes just like the Jade around the world. It then becomes a race against time between Lara and Charles to find all the boxes and uncover their secrets, and she has to be quick because  it seems that a disaster is quickly looming on the horizon.

The story is very action heavy and cuts a really quick pace. Every episode Lara finds herself in various locales in order to beat Charles to the chase and one of the things I was looking forward to the most is where Lara was gonna end up next. Would’ve been a jungle or a big city, I knew there was some strange secret to uncover and some folks to punch. The only thing that I came out of the show wanting a little bit more of was a couple of more scenes of weird ancient puzzle solving, while the series is certainly not lacking in creativity when it comes to action, but those were the scenes that felt even more like the video games to me.

The treasure hunt aspect was really fun but at the end of the day one could say it’s all just window dressing to a very character driven story for our favorite heroine.

Lara herself was absolutely perfect. Not only her actress Hayley Atwell was able to capture every one of her inflections but for the first time in a while she really started to feel and act like the Lara of old. She was cocky, snarky and a bit arrogant, overflowing with the joy of discovery everytime she found herself in some ancient ruin and they weren’t afraid to show her more fragile side of herself. The best balance between the old and the new. 

Lara’s main conflict in this story is facing the grief for the loss of Conrad, who was basically her second father and we see this explored really in depth throughout the story. Lara has to accept that loss, learning to rely on her friends for help instead of pulling them out of her life as much as possible and finally decide what kind of person she wants to be. It’s built up in a crescendo of emotions, with a lot of dream-like scenes that go in depth into Lara state of mind. I really liked the way they decided to handle her coping with trauma.

The banter with her friends was also really well done. It really felt like people who knew each other for a very long time. They had their issues and their contrasts but they were out there to help each other along the way. While this story does take place after the three reboot games it goes out of its way to give you all the background you ever need without spending too much time on it. 

I ended up really liking Jonah. He's such an adorable big brother to Lara and the way he never gives up on her despite Lara doing anything in her power to keep everyone at a distance really makes you wanna see them make up. As a long time fan it was great to see Zip making a return as Lara’s mission support, he has the most comedic banter with Lara on the radio but he’s also really caring for her and he looks fabulous as hell!

The series also has a ton of very humorous moments, not only Lara feels like she’s constantly hunted by bad luck to the point where she might end up looking like a bit of a klutz to some but there are a lot of jokes in there that really land. There’s an episode where they had way too much fun with Lara in a very particular situation so I had to pause many times during viewing because I was laughing too much.

Charles Deveraux was also a great villain for this story, he’s a very well mannered and charming guy, since his first appearance he leaves an impact and you learn throughout all the story that there’s a lot in common between him and Lara, which makes his fall from grace even sadder and his role as the antagonist very effective for the growth of Lara being his reflection of her darker instincts. Even here the voice acting by Richard Armitage is perfect in capturing all of the sides of this character.

So great treasure hunt with fun characters but how does this series look? Really damn good! Powerhouse Animation Studios are back again with their distinctive style and they do a good job bringing this series on screen in animated form. The only thing that ended up distracting me is that sometimes they don’t really mask their use of 3D very well and I bet this will rub people the wrong way. Outside of those hiccups everything looks great, the characters have really cool designs and there are some easter eggs sprinkled throughout that really reward those who are very familiar with the games.

But what if you’re not familiar, can I recommend this show to you? Who has never really played the games all that much? Absolutely yes! You have a fun action filled globe trotting adventure, with strong and likable characters and really good animation, it’s only 8 episodes 25 minutes long, it really breezes by. I think it genuinely might turn you into a fan if you’re not one already so hop on Netflix and then maybe come back to me and say if you liked it!

But you already did watch it and you probably want to hear about my thoughts in more detail, then join me to the..

SPOILER SECTION - Proceed at your own risk

So let’s talk about Charles again and why I ended up liking him so much, He just like Lara has his father at a very young age, unlike Lara thought which could rely on Conrad, Charles was left in an orphanage until his teenage years where he slowly started to become more aggressive and also got arrested a couple of times. Once he became an adult he enrolled into the foreign Legion and after that he served as a mercenary all around the world. All of this was just training and buying his time for the right moment to take his vengeance on the ones who killed his father.

Because of this upbringing Charles is someone who’s extremely lonely and really determined to reach his objective but he still has a moral compass, he won’t resort to killing everyone if he can avoid it. His slow descent into madness is more due to what he was hunting to get his revenge.

The boxes contain some magical stones called the “Stones of Peril” belonging to an mythological being which was gonna bring the whole world into chaos until a chinese Goddess named Nu’Wa managed to defeat this entity, split his being into four stones which were then sealed in these boxes. Each of these stones not only will bestow powers to those who wield them, but they also twist their mind making them more susceptible to their more selfish desires.

So when someone like Charles gets hold of this power he cannot control himself and slowly starts to succumb. Lara tries her damndest to make him back down because she does see a lot of herself in him and wants to stop him from becoming a monster but even if he was sane of mind he would also be too stubborn to back down. 

The only downside maybe is that with the show being so fast paced we really don’t have too much time to enjoy Charles before he goes completely over the top evil but I still think they balance him out well enough.

I’m a bit worried about one aspect of Charles' backstory, the group he wants to take revenge on is a secret society called “The Light” that wants to control the world. They don’t really have much screen time on this season, but I hope they won’t get turned into a recurring element for the future especially since we already had Lara facing off with a very similar group in the games called “The Triad” so it would feel like a retread of the same ground.

I talked about Lara’s friends earlier so let’s talk about Camilla Roth. She’s introduced as an old childhood friend whom Lara had a fallout with and now she probably doesn’t wanna see her again. But once their roads cross in Paris, Lara is shocked to find out that Camilla was really damn happy to see her to the point that she’s even willing to pass over the fact that Lara was in her house trying to hack her laptop. What happened between the two is that Conrad lied to them in order to separate them as children because he didn’t want Lara to form bonds with Camilla that would’ve probably gotten in the way of Lara following in the steps of her father. It was actually really damn touching to see them both realizing what really happened and hug it out afterwards, they are just adorable together, and Camilla even helps out Lara in the final battle with Charles. I hope she becomes a mainstay for the show.

The final episode really drove home the fact that the people behind this show really understand Tomb Raider and want to embrace even some of his goofier elements. After the final battle with Charles transformed into a big monster by the stones, Lara has to venture into the shrine of Nu’Wa to return the stones to the goddess before their powers end up destroying the world. This entire episode is Lara and Jonah traversing a temple together uncovering puzzles, traps and fighting wildlife in order to reach to the core of the shrine. Lara also has her guns back for the first in a very long time and once the stones are returned, the cherry on top is a big confrontation, with a T-Rex. This whole episode is classic Playstation 1 Tomb Raider in a nutshell.

If this sounds just like a mindless fanservice moment to you, I totally understand. But I can’t help but be happy that this show isn’t hiding from the fact that the world of Tomb Raider is inherently a bit goofy. This world is a reflection of ours but Dinosaurs are still alive somewhere, magical artifacts are left all over the place and gods are confirmed to be real, just waiting to be awoken by an English woman. Of course the series shouldn’t remain stuck in the 90s, it should evolve and move forward so that a new audience can enjoy it as much as I did as a kid. The reboot series did a really good job in modernizing the narrative  but I can’t help to think that this stuff that might appear goofy to some is part of its charm and I’m happy that it’s remained in the show even after all this time.

As of right now a second season has already been confirmed by Netflix, and I’ll be first in line once it finally comes out. I didn’t have really high expectations for this show at first but I really ended up enjoying it once it came out, it leaves me with a note of optimism for the future of the games as well.

Lara Croft is back again and let’s hope her legend is gonna live on.