The Hunter

For me and many others, the popularity of Tomb Raider/Lara Croft and the rise of the internet went hand in hand. It was only natural that, during the series' heyday, someone would make a fan short about it.

Two unique things about this short, though: One, it was animated; many of the Tomb Raider fan films are live action, so this stood out in the crowd. The other thing that makes this an oddity is that it combines two different franchises: Tomb Raider, and a lesser-known but cult favorite Japanese anime called Iria Zeiram. In that sense, this short film epitomizes fan fiction: Take two completely unrelated series and put them together, even if their genres don't mesh organically.

To be honest, this short film hasn't held up well. Its animation is rudimentary (there are numerous shots when only Lara's head moves), the editing could've been tighter, the plot is wafer thin (Lara steals a sword from a building, and is cornered by Iria and a bunch of security guards), and it takes almost an entire minute to get going, with a pointless zoom through a futuristic city that exists solely to show off what were elaborate visuals at that time. Its dialogue is perfunctory, with one of the lines at the end outright cribbed from the Iria OVA.

That said, when this debuted twenty years ago, it was quite a novelty. Remember, computer animation, especially from fans and not the major studios, was still in its relative infancy back then, so getting a fan film produced in that medium was pretty cool. And for a Tomb Raider fan, getting to see Lara in unofficial adventures, looking very similar to how she looked in the games' cutscenes, was a treat.

The short's director, Paul Angol, doesn't seem to have made anything else, making this short all the more intriguing. He clearly has a talent for visuals if nothing else, so if he didn't do any more animation work, it's a shame.

I know, it's a long review for a 5 minute fan fiction film that nobody outside of the Tomb Raider fan community has heard of. It's really nothing special today, but back in 2000, it had a certain appeal for the reasons above.