The history of Lara Croft is the history of female video game characters. Debuting in 1996 with the very first Tomb Raider game for PC, Playstation and the now forgotten Sega Saturn, Lara Croft, though shakily animated in early 3-D rendering, has long stood the female equivalent to the predominantly male adventurer/archeologist figure throughout the video game and cinematic world. Angelina Jolie achieved superstardom cramming into a skin-tight black wife beater and sporting a fistful of pistols as the titular character in the largely maligned 2001 Simon West adaptation, which saw a slightly less maligned, but less financially successful, sequel drop in 2006. The plug was soon pulled on Jolie’s tomb raiding days. Enjoying a celebrated franchise reboot in 2013 courtesy of publisher Square Enix, the game itself has never been better and the folks crammed into smart Hollywood suits wisely cast rising star Alicia Vikander to put a new spin on the resurrected character. Read More
