Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life

The second outing from the aristocratic lady archaeologist sees her morphing still closer to a female version of Indiana Jones.

Where Indy fought off Nazi hordes intent on capturing the Ark of the Covenant, Lara is determined to get to Pandora's Box before evil Ciaran Hinds.

Along the way she does her bit as the Judith Chalmers of action heroes, with stops off in Hong Kong, Kenya, Tanzania, Greece, China and, er, Buckinghamshire.

Of all the recent superhero yarns, the Tomb Raider is one of the worse offenders when it comes to style over content, flashiness over form.

Rather than any narrative thread, this gadgets-heavy sequel is basically a series of setpieces, namechecking references from Bond to Lord of the Rings.

It can impress - a 1,000ft plunge from the 84th floor of Hong Kong's International Financial Centre - but more often than not the non-stop high jinks just get tiresome.

If she can't get out of sticky situation with brute force or guile then there's some gizmo lurking somewhere that ensures she escapes unscathed.

Thanks to this total lack of vulnerability, there's no sense of mortality and Lara becomes the old one-dimensional cartoon character bleeping away in the corner of a pub.

Emotion, such as it is, comes from her relationship with Brit mercenary Terry Sheridan (Butler) but it's not exactly romantic: "You could break my wrists but I would still kiss you."

The army of Tomb Raider fans who made the first movie the biggest opening ever for a film with a female star will continue coming over all unnecessary.

But for the unconverted this is unlikely to surprise with any fresh insights into the action hero as feminine icon. Or, a story about a chesty bird with two big guns.

Tim Evans