There’s nothing I love more than to sit down in front of my PS4 and play a few games, while my friends are all at a party, not sharing any of it on Snapchat, at risk I’ll notice they didn’t invite me.
May it be a whimsical game of Mario Kart, flinging smiling banana peels at monkeys. How about a session of Minecraft, building a city for my blocky friends? Or should I play the latest Tomb Raider, where I hurtle down a flowing river, only to be impaled by a splintered tree, straight through the throat and causing a slow, agonising death as blood soaks the screen?
Ah. Bliss.
With any luck, that moment will be omitted from the upcoming Tomb Raider movie, starring Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander. Otherwise, expect to see me in the cinema hiding behind my popcorn. (Who am I kidding? I’m hella greedy. I’ve already eaten that, my sweets and my Slush Puppy before the trailers have even ended.)
A second trailer has landed, and it’s stayed true to its video game source material… Quite a scary amount, to be fair. Here’s the moments from the trailer that look like they were ripped straight outta the video game franchise:
Firstly, if you skip past the moment where Lara’s cycling through Shoreditch – probably past some bearded, bald hipsters who have an organic aftershave smelling of avocado – the trailer begins with Lara aboard a sinking ship where she makes a leap that would make Jesse Owens jealous. This is exactly how the 2013 Tomb Raider video game opened. Or it would have if I didn’t accidentally sit on my remote and skip the cutscene. Damn my big, bodacious behind.
Soon after, we see Alicia’s Lara hanging on for dear life, from the wing of a crashed fighter plane, similar to how she crossed chasms in the recent video game series. (Again, she would have if I didn’t try to play the game one-handed, while I ate a series of Custard Creams with the other. Needless to say, I’m not very good at gaming.)
Lara’s then flung from a cliff face, smacking her way down off of a fallen tree, into a flowing river. The less I say about what could possibly happen to here as she hurtles through the white rapids, the better. I’ll never get that imagery out of my head. Ever.
Alicia Vikander even appears to be armed with an identical arsenal to the Lara Croft that appeared in the 2013 and 2015 video games – from a climbing axe to her bow and arrow. And there’s one thing I’m really pleased she didn’t inherit from the original Lara… Those terrifyingly pointy boobs. Shudder.