I was looking forward to the new Tomb Raider. I’m aware that the two earlier films in the video game-inspired franchise starring Angelina Jolie as the buxom British adventurer Lara Croft hardly comprised cinematic gems.

But it was precisely the prospect of seeing how the once hyper-sexualised character would be reimagined—over a decade later, and particularly in the midst of what I like to think of as the post-Wonder Woman era when it comes to action blockbusters—that had me excited about the reboot, directed by Roar Uthaug (The Wave).

And the promos did look promising, featuring a lithe, ultra-toned (and very sweaty) Alicia Vikander plowing through a variety of 3D obstacle courses, still donning that iconic tank-top, but to far more athletic effect this time around than in her predecessor’s case. Vikander, for her part, is as solid as expected—handling both the dramatic and the physical demands of the role with prodigious ease. 

If only she’d been placed in a better film. 

Because, as it turns out, this new Tomb Raider is a drag and then some. Unoriginal to the point of absurdity, and tragically dull and low-stakes for a film positively drenched in action sequences, Uthaug and his writers have botched the opportunity to serve up a more relevant, awe-inspiring heroine for a new generation of viewers. 

We start in London, where a cash-strapped Ms Croft is busting her behind working as a delivery girl, late on her rent and gym bills. But don’t feel too sorry for her just yet; this starving-hipster lifestyle is partly a choice: Lara’s father happens to be the unimaginably wealthy business tycoon Richard Croft (Dominic West), which means she has millions at her disposal were she to ask.

Only thing is, Lord Croft mysteriously disappeared seven years ago, and while the world has accepted him as dead, Lara refuses to believe it. Which is why, despite constant nagging from her father’s business partners and legal lackeys, she won’t sign the papers declaring him gone and thereby unlocking her inheritance. Of course, you’d think she would’ve stood a far better chance of finding her old man with the aforementioned millions in tow, but whatever. 

Anyway, just as she’s about to succumb to pressure and finally sign on the dotted line, Lara finds a clue in an artifact Richard left for her. It leads her to a hidden chamber in Croft mansion where she  discovers that there was far more to her father than she had imagined—Richard was no mere businessman, but something of a connoisseur of the weird and the mythical—and that there’s a very good chance she was right about his still being alive.

Scattered about are other clues about where he might be, and who he might be hiding from. Lara, for whom this is the first time in years that there has been reason to hope, is determined to find him and bring him back, even if it means having to travel halfway across the world and to places she never imagined existed. 

If you think that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. The script is derivative as can be, cobbled from elements from other explorer-of-the-exotic type films, most evidently the Indiana Jones franchise. But it’s missing that essential playfulness, that lightness of touch that could’ve at least lifted it to the acceptable realm of retro-camp—though there’s a refreshing lack of complicated machinery and newfangled devices here, there’s also no sense of fun.

We watch as our indefatigable heroine leaps from one murky action set-piece to another, very much in the way she probably would’ve in the video game (I’ve never played it so I can only hazard a guess), except you don’t have a controller in your hands to twiddle with and are forced to sit there, a passive spectator, even as the outcome couldn’t be more obvious each time. And spoilers be damned: Let me just tell you that the writers make you wait over an HOUR for a tomb to be raided. That’s just false advertising in my book. 

It doesn’t help that the father-daughter shtick propelling the whole story is so utterly unconvincing. Poor Vikander and West have been stuck with some truly terrible dialogue, frequently veering into such sappy and clichéd territory that would probably have even Nicholas Sparks rolling his eyes. Too much focus is on the silly little nicknames and cutesy gestures between them, with the result that the true depth of the relationship and the motivations for either Lara or Richard’s actions later on never come through compellingly. 

Fortunately, the choice of leading lady is among Tomb Raider’s few positives. Vikander, mostly known for more dramatic roles—such as her Oscar-winning turn in The Danish Girl, or more recently, 2016’s The Light Between Oceans—but who has also time and again dipped her toes in action (Ex Machina, Jason Bourne, The Man from UNCLE), is a great fit here.

And, in very much a contrast with its predecessors—and reportedly in keeping with similar changes in the video game—there is a distinct refusal to leer at her on the camera’s part in this iteration, barring a few stray scenes.

Rather than being framed as the object of fanboy fantasy, the way Jolie had been back in the day—though god knows the actress was such a self-assured badass in the role, smugly aware of her own effect, that it’s difficult to simply write off her portrayal as “sexist”—Vikander’s body is framed as tough and unbreakable as any male action star’s would be, more steel than flesh. 

The rest of the cast, however, slide off the radar. West, as mentioned before, has some of the cheesiest lines in the entire film, and Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Wu are wasted in terribly underwritten parts. Walton Goggins has more to play with as the antagonist, but it comes off cartoonish.

Not shocking in the least, we’re given hints as to a potential sequel towards the end of Tomb Raider. I really, really hope they change their minds, and we can just forget all this ever happened. But if its inevitable, at least Vikander’s reprisal of the role gives us something to hang on to—let’s just pray for a better playground and playmates for her than she’s been given this time around.