Tomb Raider

Video game vixen Lara Croft--that curvaceous, gun-slinging archeologist honey, perfectly embodied here by Angelina Jolie--is trying to recover two halves of an ancient artifact that can control time. She's racing against a secret clan of gristly bad guys who would use said gizmo for evil purposes, blah, blah, blah. Around the 50-minute mark, Lara gets her hands on one half of the artifact, but for all her supposed smarts, she's too thick to figure out that all she has to do is destroy that one half to save the world. Game over. Apparently, as long as the soundtrack is loud, the stunts are plentiful and Jolie's T-shirts are tight, director Simon West (Con Air, The General's Daughter) doesn't give a stitch about plot. Admittedly, some of the action sequences kick butt, but the rest of the movie is just stupid. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: the widescreen DVD release includes a director's commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, an alternate main title sequence, and the U2 music video "Elevation."] (R. Blackwelder)