Take a first look at Ali­cia Vikan­der as Lara Croft

In its almost embar­rass­ing­ly blink­ered deter­mi­na­tion to make a big tick­et video game adap­ta­tion that’s, you know, actu­al­ly worth see­ing, Hol­ly­wood has plucked one of its fastest ris­ing stars for the lead role in a major new Tomb Raider reboot.

Ali­cia Vikan­der stars as icon­ic gam­ing hero­ine Lara Croft, who was pre­vi­ous­ly brought to life by Angeli­na Jolie in a pair of so-so action­ers back in the 2000s. In direc­tor Roar Uthaug’s upcom­ing reboot, sim­ply titled Tomb Raider, Croft has been recast as a hip­ster East Lon­don bike couri­er who jour­neys to an unchar­tered Chi­nese island in search of her AWOL explor­er father. Here’s the offi­cial synopsis…

“Lara Croft is the fierce­ly inde­pen­dent daugh­ter of an eccen­tric adven­tur­er who van­ished when she was scarce­ly a teen. Now a young woman of 21 with­out any real focus or pur­pose, Lara nav­i­gates the chaot­ic streets of trendy East Lon­don as a bike couri­er, bare­ly mak­ing the rent, and takes col­lege cours­es, rarely mak­ing it to class. Deter­mined to forge her own path, she refus­es to take the reins of her father’s glob­al empire just as staunch­ly as she rejects the idea that he’s tru­ly gone.

“Advised to face the facts and move for­ward after sev­en years with­out him, even Lara can’t under­stand what dri­ves her to final­ly solve the puz­zle of his mys­te­ri­ous death. Going explic­it­ly against his final wish­es, she leaves every­thing she knows behind in search of her dad’s last-known des­ti­na­tion: a fabled tomb on a myth­i­cal island that might be some­where off the coast of Japan. But her mis­sion will not be an easy one; just reach­ing the island will be extreme­ly treacherous.”

It essen­tial­ly sounds like a com­ing-of-age / ori­gin sto­ry, with the adven­ture aspect of the plot cen­tring around Croft look­ing for some­thing called the ​‘Dag­ger of Xian’. As far as Vikan­der is con­cerned, she cer­tain­ly looks the part, although it will be a tall order for her to bet­ter Jolie’s career-mak­ing per­for­mance as the intre­pid and tough-as-nails pro­tag­o­nist. Here’s a cou­ple more first-look images for your perusal.