Since day one, video games and movies have never really worked well as a happy medium. Granted, for every diamond in the rough (Mortal Kombat), there are two or three Wing Commanders or Street Fighters on the shelf. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider as a film is tough call because it has its moments of greatness, but unfortunately they are heavily outnumbered by scenes that are just plain dull.

For those of us who haven't been on Earth for the last month, Angelina Jolie is Lara Croft, a very wealthy archeologist who is every man's dream. She is beautiful, loves her motorcycles and sport cars and has a gun collection that would make Chuck Heston salivate. We find her in her mansion practicing her survival techniques against live robots which are programmed to kill her. Aside from her toys, Laura lives with her butler Hillary, and her assistant/ robot designer, Bruce.

Laura's true goal in life is to uncover the mystery of her father's disappearance. She finally gets her chance when she discovers a clock that her father had hidden for her in their home. As it turns out, a secret society, known as the Illuminati, have been searching for this clock for sometime. It holds the key to control time, and this power can be utilized only when all planets are aligned together every 5,000 years, which is occurring in the film. After realizing Croft holds the key to time, the Illuminati steal it from her and head over to Cambodia where they must continue with their mission.

Croft has a choice, either she can let the Illuminati continue on its quest for eternal power, or she can tag along and help, doing what is right in the end.

Tomb Raider takes the viewer to different locations from the jungles of Cambodia to frozen areas in Iceland. However, once inside the temples of these locations, it's quite obvious we are in a studio filming a movie.

Jolie seems uncomfortable as Croft, partly because of the super sized bra she has to strap on and run around in. She, more than anyone, realizes that she isn't going to win another Oscar here, so her performance is half-baked; she is strictly eye candy for the viewers. Besides Jolie and Jon Voight, most of the cast is filmed with no name British actors who are in the film to take up space.

Personally, I have played Tomb Raider a handful of times, and I'd like to say this film does the game no justice. It took four people to write the story for this film. The last time I heard of four people working on a script, it was for Godzilla, and we all know how good that film was.

As for the casting, Jennifer Love Hewitt should have been Croft. She resembles her in everyway, from her facial features all the way to her natural curves. The producers made the mistake of picking Jolie over Hewitt because of the Oscar recognition. Give me a break. No one is coming to see this because Jolie has the Oscar clout; they're coming to see explosions and to catch Jolie climb walls in super tight shorts. C--- Neal James

Movie Review

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS

The Fast and the Furious is a dumb movie. The dialogue is hackneyed, the cinematography is over-done, and the acting is forgettable. And all of these contribute to why it is so fun to watch. This is a barebones action movie, and a rather enjoyable one at that. The action is almost nonstop, the car chases and crashes are impressive, and there is plenty of eye-candy. If you want to give your brain a rest and watch 100 minutes of explosions, scantily clad women, and fast cars, this is time well spent in the theater.

After all, isn't that what a summer movie should be? No pretension, no attempts to have some added depth, just a fun show to watch with flat soda and over-buttered popcorn.

The only thing The Fast and the Furious doesn't do is spell out who fits where on the good vs. evil chart. We know who we're supposed to cheer for, but the movie keeps its audience guessing as to who is behind the hijacking spree in the opening sequence. Which is just as well, because beyond that there isn't much in the way of plot. Other than a couple stock characters brooding at each other and trying to win each other's love or respect, the storyline sits in the back seat of the fast cars the movie centers around.

There are a couple unexpected twists early on, but we obviously aren't talking about The Usual Suspects here. Most of it goes along the lines of learning something seemingly bad about a character, then learning why it was justified within the next five minutes. Vin Diesel's character is given some moral ambiguity, but not enough to ever make him seem like one of the villains.

Diesel and the rest of the cast say their lines, have the occasional emotion, and generally try to look cool while the camera's pointed at them. Hey, if acting were a requirement for action movies, would Schwarzenegger be a household name? The closest anyone comes is Chad Lindberg as a mechanical genius with Attention Deficit Disorder that keeps him from doing anything else with his life (sort of a milder version of the idiot savant).

With the exception of a few middle-aged cops, the cast reads like a menu of young stars, most of whom probably won't get far beyond this kind of empty but entertaining movie. Where a bunch of barely employed twentysomethings find the money to beef up their cars like they do in this movie is beyond me. So is how they can afford to bet $2,000 on the races. Yes, the whole point of the thin plot is that some of these people are stealing expensive toys, but not all of them. The drag racers are the good guys, remember? So what if their favorite past time gets the police after them more often than not, or if they prevent pizza boys from delivering their precious cargo (one of the movie's more desperate product placements).

So what it all boils down to is that The Fast and the Furious won't win any big awards, it won't make the dramatic careers of anyone in it, and it won't be remembered a year from now. What it will do, however, is provide an hour and 40 minutes of kinetic energy in an air

Movie Review

HIMALAYA

A straight description of this film might make you sleepy. It's about some Nepalese villagers making their annual pilgrimage through the mountains to trade salt for grain. They bring lots of yaks with them.

To see the film is much different, because under the humble Discovery Channel premise lies a simple yet rooted tale about the passages that bind all people.

Tinle (Thilen Lhondup) is an aged chief of a tribe of salt trekkers. When the son of an enemy tribe, Karma (Gurgon Kyap), shows up with Tinle's dead son on the back of his yak, Tinle blames him for his son's death. The headstrong Karma sticks around, and there is building tension between him and the stubborn, cantankerous Tinle. Tinle decides that in place of his son, he will resume leading the yak caravan into the hills to secure the future of his people. Thinking that Tinle is too old to make the journey, Karma wants to accompany him on his expedition, but Tinle refuses to allow it. So Karma gathers up yaks and some of the tribesman and heads off into the hills before Tinle is set to go. Tinle in turn gathers up his monk son, Norbou (Karma Tensing Nyima Lama), his grandson and heir to the yak skin throne, Passang (Karma Wangel), his widowed daughter-in-law Pema, and a few others-- and yaks-- and chases after Karma.

From here this movie takes an epic turn, both in the cinematography and thematically. These two developments work in a contrasting nature with one another, and the result is quite moving. There are complex shots made in all kinds of harsh conditions during this expedition that took life-threatening weeks to set up-- the results are incredible. Then there is the simple humanity of the story. The transitions that Tinle and Karma undergo as they begin to accept each other's ways would be considered clich� in traditional American cinema. As it is though, the characters simply beam in their respective positions. The vital nature of their expedition, and the constant struggles to survive on the trek are instrumental in giving the plot its intense gravity.

The credibility and breadth of the movie could be attributed to the fact that these people are essentially playing themselves. Director Eric Valli, a writer and photographer for National Geographic, forged a friendship with these people on assignment back in the early '80s. Upon seeing The Seventh Samurai with Valli, some of them actually suggested that he use the medium of film to document their lives. With exception of Lhakpa Tsamchoe, who plays Pema in the film and appeared in Seven Years in Tibet, none of these people had been on camera before, although this fact is never really apparent-- the film flows like the slice of nature that it really is.

Valli has total access to these people, their lifestyle, and their ceremonies, which also contributes to the success of the picture. This film proves that even across the globe, people still share the same problems and emotions-- and that the name Karma is the Nepalese equivalent of John. B+ --Josh Tyson

Movie Review

SWORDFISH

I mentioned to a friend that I was going to see John Travolta's new film Swordfish, and her response was, "Don't you mean Swordfight?" I find her response humorous, simply because I didn't realize how much testosterone the producers pumped into the making of this film (after all, Warner Brothers did pay Halle Berry $500,000 extra to show her breasts in the movie). This film is about fast cars, fast women and even faster Internet connections. Are you ready to log on?

Hugh Jackman is Stanley, a one-time super hacker who has been released from his two-year prison term. All he wants is to set his life straight and gain custody of his daughter who resides with his wealthy ex-wife cum porn actress. To do this, he needs money he doesn't have, which is how we are introduced to John Travolta's character, Gabriel.

Gabriel is a spy who lives like a rock star-- fast cars and fast women surround his home. Gabriel offers Stanley $10 million to help him seize unused government funds that have been collecting dust for dozens of years. As we delve into Gabriel's character, we learn that he isn't working alone, rather hand in hand with a dirty senator, and they intend in using these funds to purchase nuclear weapons. Swordfish also stars Don Cheadle as tenacious special agent Roberts who is on Gabriel and Stanley's trail, and Halle Berry as Ginger, Gabriel's stunning assistant.

This film is supposed to be Travolta's third or fourth comeback film. I doubt if it will do him the justice he is seeking. The impression I got was that the studio gave Travolta three really nice suits and he came in and filmed all his scenes within two weeks. His character is filled with the same cheesy lines from Face/ Off, but without the substance.

Director Dominic Sena is the man responsible of Swordfish as well as last year's Gone in 60 Seconds. Educated viewers will pick up on the fact that both of his films play out like twins of each other. Both films involve a one-time criminal who is trying to stay clean but must break the law again for a family member. Also, both of these films try to justify that breaking the law is okay as long as there's a legitimate reason behind your actions.

Since the characters and plot have all been cut and pasted from other films, Swordfish wears out its welcome 40 minutes into the movie. What could have been a great opportunity to introduce viewers to the world of computer hacking, turns out to be a been-there done-that version of other films we've already seen. C --Neal James

DVD REPORT

BLACK CAESAR (1973)

Writer/director Larry Cohen became a cult icon the hard way. Which is by making genre films that are consistently better and certainly more original than those put out by almost any other exploitation filmmaker. Rent a Cohen film-- whether it's Q, or It's Alive or Maniac Cop-- and you're bound to discover one of those pleasant surprises hid amongst the copious junk sitting on the shelves of your local video store.

Black Caesar is a Blaxploitation update of the classic Warner Brothers' gangster films of the '30s. (Most obviously, the title is a riff on Little Caesar.) Like those movies, this one is rather episodic in nature. We first meet the title character as a young teen. Apparently working as a shoe shine, we quickly see that he's actually setting up a street killing. Soon afterward he's savagely beaten by an evil racist street cop and sent to prison. Before going in, he states his intention of learning the trade from professionals, as it were, before he returns to the streets.

Eight years later he's back, now played by the extremely suave Fred Williamson. Williamson is absolutely terrific here, in what is probably his best movie. Soon he's the first black hood working for the Mob, which he subsequently betrays. In quick fashion he becomes the neighborhood crime boss, but learns the old lesson about what his money and power can't buy.

The film is more interested in the machinations of how Williamson seizes power than it is in violence, although there's certainly plenty of that. Meanwhile, Cohen is, for a white guy especially, fearless in going for the throat regarding racial matters. You can't imagine this film being made today, that's for sure.

The disc's big gun is a marvelous commentary track by Larry Cohen. This is one of the most educational lectures on low-budget filmmaking I've heard. The number of scenes shot in or outside Cohen's house, for instance, proves rather substantial. Moreover, when we see Williamson toss some fur coats out of a high apartment window, find out they belonged to Cohen's mom! Cohen has a good memory and a natural way with an entertaining anecdote. There's the occasional bald spot in his remarks, but nothing too bad.

Considering the low recommended price of only $15, this DVD is a definite bargain buy for those who like gritty urban exploitation. A --Ken Begg

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