Slick, agile, and of course sexy, Lara Croft became a video game icon. Her appearance was one of the few to break the mold set by cartoonish characters aimed directly at an adolescent audience. With the character's popularity booming, Paramount let $80 million loose for the film adaptation, and succeeded amazingly well from a financial standpoint.

The film does drag in spots and a few edits wouldn't have hurt. It's by no means an intelligent effort either, relying entirely on its looks rather than logic or brains. That's exactly what this is a meant to be though, a rousing summer blockbuster. You can't take a lot away from Tomb Raider when you're in that mindset.

For details on the film itself, read my full review of the movie in its original DVD release.

Following in the footsteps of its SD cousin, this HD DVD is flat, lacking color, and carries a severely muted look. Black levels are left in a dull gray, colors have no pop, and the entire transfer is flat. There is little in the way of sharpness or detail, and long shots are particularly troublesome. It’s hard to see any improvement here.

Oddly enough, the audio suffers from the same DVD carry-over problem. With both DTS and 5.1 Plus options, the disc pushes some incredibly vibrant surround work. Action scenes are filled with gunfire from all channels. The problem here is the lack of bass. There is no punch coming from the LFE channel, and you’ll need to double check to make sure your subwoofer is even on. The actions comes off flat without it, and it’s inexcusable.

Extras are wonderfully put together though a copy of the DVD, including a nice look at the video game and the phenomenon it became. There are some rare early looks at the original concepts for the character in Are You Game?, which wasn't even female. A few more minutes spent here would have been appreciated. Eight minutes is hardly enough to get the full story.