5. Tomb Raider (2018)
With a franchise as long-standing and beloved as Tomb Raider, there’s a lot of risk in an adaption. After two previous movies failed to impress critics, the announcement of a reboot wasn’t met with much enthusiasm. With Academy Award winner Alicia Vikander cast as Lara Croft, 2018’s Tomb Raider released without making much of a splash.
It’s important to note that the 2018 movie adapts the 2013 game reboot rather than the ’90s titles. Expanding the ever-growing mythos of Lara Croft, Tomb Raider was something of an origin story, following a younger Lara searching for her presumed-dead father. It manages to tell a more grounded story than previous Tomb Raider movies, but it still incorporates elements of the supernatural (in keeping with the wider franchise).
Being able to please the entire spectrum of Tomb Raider fans was always going to be impossible. The amount of changes that the franchise has seen means that a truly faithful adaptation wasn’t ever on the cards. However, 2018’s Tomb Raider manages to be action-packed, impressively crafted, and remarkably well-acted, making it one of the best video game movies ever made.