Lara Croft Tomb Raider The Cradle of Life

The tepidly anticipated return of the videogame vixen belly-flopped on its US release, and it did so with a splat that could drown out several summer blockbusters' worth of car-crunch and detonations. From the tinnitus-inducing opener - a mini-avalanche on Santorini - The Cradle of Life erects a crumbling wall of sound and wields its fallen rocks like truncheons: collapsing temples, screaming sharks, glass-shattering gunfire, teeth-rattling helicopters. After the end credits roll, patrons stagger out shellshocked, eardrums perforated and equilibrium shot. Impervious to the sonic booming all around her, lissome Lara (Jolie) enters accessorised by jet ski and hair extensions. She must outwit bioweapons demon Dr Jonathan Reiss (Hinds) for custody of plague dispensary Pandora's Box. Ostensibly, Reiss and Croft make worthy opponents, but De Bont spares little time for mind-to-mind combat between the adversaries, while the love-hate tug match of Lara and her roguish right-hand Terry Sheridan (Butler) accidentally yields the only laugh line of this deafening movie. JWin.