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 bout
halfway through "Womb Raider," an unambitious, über erotic spoof of
2001's "Tomb
Raider," the star character (Cara Loft) summons a great deal of
conviction and curtly says to her assistant, "Dillon, find the mud
pit." Anyone sitting through the first 45 minutes will know immediately
that a naked lesbian rompfest is in the cards. That fact alone marks the basic
nature of this amateurish little film -- behind every new scene or set piece is
the making of the next naked lesbian rompfest.
The narrative arc of "Womb Raider" is not
difficult to penetrate even if you, like me, missed both of the
"Tomb Raider" films starring Angelina Jolie. Cara Loft (the
lusty alter ego of Jolie's Lara Croft) is a treasure-hunting
archeologist babe whose father died trying to find three idols, or
"wombs," which grant the power of creation to the holder. At
the outset, Loft is summoned to the den of a wealthy financier (Dr.
Scrotus -- seriously) by a late night messenger with an itch that needs
scratching. One sex frolic later and Loft has marching orders from
Scrotus to pick up where her father left off -- find the
"wombs" and return them for a fat payday.
Written and directed by Randolph Scott, the plot of
"Womb Raider" exists only as a thin support mechanism to
display Scott's real interests, which are apparently limited to lesbian
chicks with guns, lesbian chicks having sex, and naked lesbian chicks
with guns having sex with each other. Loft is played by Lauren Hays,
whose other credits include "Meatballs 4," "Babewatch
Girls on Girls," and the word play event of the decade,
"Sexcetera." The only other major character is Natasha
(Antoinette Abbot), a Russian spy sent by Scrotus to shadow Loft while
she travels the globe in search of the wombs. Together, the two women
share most of the skin burden for the latter half of the movie,
eventually setting their eyes on each other.
The acting in "Womb Raider" consists of
an insipid bowl of self-conscious line mumbling certain to insult
daytime soap stars everywhere. Natasha's Russian accent is only slightly
less preposterous than the plot, and the locations featured -- Arabia,
Tibet and Africa -- look suspiciously like Southern California and
Arizona (and in fact this is later confirmed by the DVD extras).
Of course none of this is supposed to matter, a
sentiment I agree with entirely, because we are squarely in the genera
of soft-core porn. If done right, such films are meant to be sexy in a
jovial way -- much sex interlaced with artificially sincere lines
delivered with an imperceptible smirk. The problem is that the makers of
"Womb Raider" don't have the good sense to know this. The film
takes itself far too seriously and misses the chance to be genuinely
entertaining as well as enjoyably raunchy. Aside from a few sharp double
entendres (Natasha: "I'm glad she could coax you into coming."
Loft: "More than once, in fact.") a fantastic comedic
opportunity is missed, which, for me, has always been one of the
greatest things about good porn.
In good skin flicks, the guy
at the door is never just delivering pizza or there to fix the
television, and everyone knows this. The great narrative-style porn
films recognize their own brainlessness with a wink and a nod.
"Womb Raider," however, refuses to embrace its own cheesiness,
thereby forcing us to believe that it is a genuine endeavor, the thought
of which is, of course, ridiculous.
On the other hand, as a strictly carnal pleasure I
suppose the film hits all notes that a soft-core sex symphony should.
Abbot and Hays, who get most of the skintime … er, screentime, are
both well put together, and so are the other 10 or so other dames that
appear throughout the film. None of them ever miss a chance to lose
their clothes and "express" themselves, and they generally
look very nice doing it. That alone, however, is not enough to sustain a
90-minute yawner with family vacation style camera work and only enough
narrative material to fill about 10 minutes (give or take 9). These
girls may be very easy on the eyes, but this film is anything but
pretty.
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