Rating: 
Summary: Not bad
Review: With three more weeks before the film opens, I finally broke down and read this novelization, in little spurts (promising to stop before any major spoiler points) that finally went to the finish. There are nice little touches --- what you'd expect from a book that should flesh-out what the film can't dwell upon --- but nothing that should really spoil the moviegoing experience. The film will sink or swim with Angelina Jolie's performance, period.Stern does a nice job with character backgrounds and interactions, though depth is limited to the characters of Lara Croft and her father. The story hangs together, but the book isn't a revelation like the best of film novelizations; unlike works like Orson Scott Card's *The Abyss,* you won't be inclined to return to this one over and over. It provides a moderate amount of detail on the Tomb Raider universe, with enough skill to make the read a pleasant weekend diversion (although not enough to make you *really* curious about archaeology, pistolcraft, or bungie jumping in the foyer).
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