Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life is a 2003 action film directed by Jan de Bont, and starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft.

Intrepid British archaeologist Lara Croft has made perhaps the most important archaeological discovery in history: an orb that leads to the mythical Pandora s Box. Unfortunately, the orb falls into the hands of Jonathan Reiss, an evil scientist who deals in killer viruses and hopes to sell the secrets of the box as the ultimate weapon.

Recruited by British Intelligence to get the orb back from Reiss, Lara recruits Terry Sheridan, a British marine turned mercenary (and her former love interest) to help. The two embark on an adventure that spans continents in an attempt to regain the orb…

Nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film, 2004.

Tomb Raider 2: The Cradle of Life Review
By Roger Ebert

“..In a summer where the special effects in movies have grown steadily more repetitive and dreary, "LCTR:TCOL” uses imagination and exciting locations to give the movie the same kind of pulp adventure feeling we get from the Indiana Jones movies. There's an amazing use of giant neon signs in Shanghai, an escape by parasails, a secret lab hidden in a retail mall, a pole-vault to a helicopter, and a perfect scene where the villain, in hot pursuit of Lara, gets into an elevator and then a little brat gets on and punches all of the buttons. I've been waiting for years for that to happen.

Not everybody, I observed, could play Lara Croft. Angelina Jolie can, with a straight face, a dry wit, a fierce resolve and a British accent, which adds a certain style to the enterprise…This is a better movie than the first one, more assured, more entertaining. The director is Jan de Bont (“Speed”), who demands a certain logic from his screenwriters, so that although the story is completely preposterous, of course, it is consistent within its own terms. I was relieved to discover I am not tired of movies like this after all. They have to be good, is the thing."