Alicia Vikander Embodies 'Tomb Raider's' Lara Croft in First Poster

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Ahead of Tuesday's release of the first trailer for the movie, the teaser poster for the rebooted Tomb Raider has arrived, showing what makes Alicia Vikander different from the previous big-screen incarnation of Lara Croft. For one thing, her choice of weapon. For another, a noticeably long neck. 

In many respects, the poster plays it relatively safe; this is hardly the first teaser poster to show a movie's lead character with their back to the audience, looking back with an emotion somewhere between mild frustration and grim determination on their face. (Thankfully, the positioning on this poster, and placement of the text, reduces potential sexualization of Vikander by de-emphasizing the curve of her back in the composition.) Similarly, the tagline on the tweet that revealed the poster — "Her legend begins" — is so generic as to almost be meaningless.

However, there are two things in particular that make this poster noteworthy.
 

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The climbing ax featured in the poster is actually from the video games that act as the movie's inspiration; it first appeared in the 2013 Tomb Raider game that rebooted the franchise, and shows up again in its follow-up, Rise of the Tomb Raider; in addition to its intended purpose, it can also be used as a weapon when necessary. Its appearance on the poster could be considered a subtle Easter egg teasing fidelity to the source material.