Also, while Vikander is excellent, Lara’s emotional arc—grief turning into acceptance—feels rushed. One key monologue about “choosing to be the door, not the key” lands awkwardly.
Is the entity a villain? Not exactly. The film smartly avoids making it a standard monster. It’s more like a force of nature: cold, fair, and terrifying. In the final confrontation, Lara doesn’t kill it. She negotiates with it by offering a memory she’s willing to lose. That’s bold, poetic, and very un-Croft-like—but it works.
Lara Croft in The Gatekeeper is a brave, uneven hybrid of Indiana Jones and A24 horror . It lacks the explosive action of blockbuster reboots but delivers genuine intelligence and atmosphere. Hardcore fans of classic Lara (dual pistols, acrobatic kills) may feel underserved. But if you want a thoughtful, spooky, puzzle-driven one-off where Lara’s greatest weapon is her mind, step through the Gate. lara croft in the gatekeeper
The mirror corridor sequence. The final 10 minutes (stay through the silent credits for a chilling audio cue). Skip it if: You dislike slow-burn horror or metaphysical endings.
In the latest chapter of the rebooted Tomb Raider saga, Lara Croft in The Gatekeeper attempts to blend the gritty, survivalist tone of the 2018 film with high-concept supernatural horror. Directed by Misha Green (known for Lovecraft Country ), this standalone adventure pits a more seasoned Lara against an ancient order protecting a dimensional threshold known as “The Gate.” Not exactly
Green excels at dread. The monastery breathes—stone corridors shift when you’re not looking, and the sound design (footsteps echoing into impossible distances) is masterful. Lara (Alicia Vikander, fully committed) is no longer the frightened survivor; she’s a weary archaeologist with a moral code. One standout sequence sees her traverse a collapsing hall of mirrors while the Gatekeeper whispers her dead father’s voice—genuinely unnerving.
After a cryptic artifact surfaces in a black-market auction in Istanbul, Lara tracks it to a forgotten monastery in the Carpathian Mountains. There, she discovers that “The Gatekeeper” is not a person, but a living curse—a being of shadow and geometry that guards a doorway to a plane of chaotic “anti-memory.” If opened, reality rewrites itself. Lara must solve the monastery’s Escher-like puzzles before a rogue paramilitary cult (led by a surprisingly menacing Claes Bang) forces the Gate open. In the final confrontation, Lara doesn’t kill it
Streaming now on Paramount+ (hypothetically).