Continuity mistake: When Lara is in the secret room and is digging out the clock, she puts the lid against the crate and covers it with straw; but in the next shot, the lid is in a different place, and is no longer covered in straw.
Continuity mistake: After Lara's battle with the robot Simon at the beginning of the movie, the Butler gives Lara a bottle, which she picks up in her right hand. However, the shot changes and Lara is now walking towards the camera, with the bottle in her left hand.
Continuity mistake: When Alex West comes out of the shower thinking someone is in the room with him, he opens the door to find the maid. In the first shot she is holding one towel, in the next, she is holding two.
Continuity mistake: At the end when Lara is fighting Powell there is a shot from behind Powell that shows Lara's hair over her shoulder. The shot changes to behind Lara and her hair is at her back - the action doesn't move during shot changes.
Revealing mistake: When everyone dogsleds toward their objective, you can see the filming crew's snowmobile tracks at the bottom of the screen.
Continuity mistake: In the beginning scene where Lara is switching the disks in Simon she gets some sort of fluid on her left hand, however in the next shot, when she is closing the disk case, it's gone.
Factual error: Lara's father's tombstone reads 'Lord Richard Croft'. Surely even brainless Hollywood types know that it should read either 'Lord Croft' or 'Richard, Lord Croft'?
Plot hole: When the Illuminati are breaking into the tomb of the dancing light, Lara is watching them through binoculars. She sees them, and even comments about Alex. How did she see them through all the trees? There were loads underneath her.
Plot hole: If the ancient civilization wanted to stop people from ever using the power of the triangle again, why didn't they just destroy the triangle right then and there instead of splitting it in two and hiding the pieces? It would make sure that no one would ever get the power of the triangle and is easier than going to ends of the earth and creating all sorts of traps and challenges.
Continuity mistake: After Lara tried to save Alex in the water, below the planets, she starts pulling up on the metal arm of a planet. The next shot she suddenly pulls up on the concrete floor.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning, right after Lara gets the bottle from the butler's hands, she walks towards the stairs and, while they are filming her from her back, she gets really close to the first step, but when the scene changes to her front, she is still half way to the stairs.
Continuity mistake: During the scene where Lara steals the first half of the triangle, she ends up in front of all the people with guns, and she pulls out the piece as a way to gloat, when all of a sudden, the huge three-headed stone woman warrior comes to life and everyone starts to move away. Lara turns around, and she then starts to move away, but by then the piece isn't in her hand anymore, and she didn't have time to put the piece away...
Continuity mistake: When Lara is bouncing on the black ropes and flipping around, at one point her shirt flips up and her body makeup must have started to wear off because you can see the large tattoo on her lower back, yet the next times she flips, her back is all one colour.
Factual error: When Lara is about to be air-dropped into Cambodia, she concludes her transmission to the plane crew by saying: "Over and out." Even a novice two-way radio user would know better. "Over" means "I stop talking and await your reply", while "out" means "I am finished..no reply needed.goodbye." They cannot be used together.
Factual error: When Lara is on the back of the robot extracting wires, you can see her from it's eyes. That's impossible due to the shape of the head.
Continuity mistake: At the beginning of the movie after Lara tears a bunch of wires out of Simon, the robot freezes. Lara takes a few - at least 8 - steps towards the treasure - so Simon's about 15 feet behind her - and in the next moment when Simon regains consciousness he's right behind Lara's back. We did't hear the robot moving, only when he got up. How the hell did Simon get there?
Continuity mistake: Near the beginning, just after Lara has rushed over Tower Bridge on her bike and is outbid at the auction, she is talking to Alex West, I think. Several times, the shot changes between a close-up of Angelina Jolie's face and a wider shot of Lara and Alex. In the wide shot, the light is on Lara's left cheek, but in the close-up the entire left side of her face is in shadow.
Continuity mistake: When Lara is getting into her car, she has a headset type microphone going down the side of her face. Yet when she gets into the car, the microphone is gone.
Continuity mistake: During the scene in the temple where Lara is getting the first piece of the "triangle", the pendulum she releases has different positions between shots. During one shot you can see it has reached the apex of its motion and is far from the green glass jar. In the next shot it is again much closer to the jar. Second, the green liquid continues to get ejected from the glass even though it is already below the nozzle.
Factual error: Here's the basic plot: every 5000 years, the planets align (viewed from "above" and the side). The last time this happened, a meteor fell to the Earth. The metal from the meteorite was used to make a Mystical Device, which can Stop Time, Give Great Power, and Do Other Things that require capital letters for emphasis. Without drawing this into a boring scientific lecture, I'll provide one aspect that would destroy the plot significantly; Pluto's orbit is tilted by a whopping 17 degrees from the plane of Earth's orbit (technically called the ecliptic), which is huge compared to the size of the planet itself. Check out http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/nineplanets/nineplanets/plutodyn.html.
Answer: This movie left a lot of holes. It was pretty much: Lara knew what to do and she did it. Perhaps there are clues in the movie, but the book explains all the puzzles in much more detail (as books do). So if you are really interested in the deep puzzles of the adventure, the Tomb Raider book is what you should look at.
Coconut