Have Gun, Will Shower

The camera lingers on Angelina Jolie's thighs and, at a New York City screening of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, the audience bursts into brisk applause. There's a cheer at a closeup of the gravity- and logic-defying bosom Jolie is wearing, and nearly a standing ovation when she takes a shower. With contours beyond the dreams of pulp painter Frank Frazetta, and lips so preposterously full and provocative they deserve to be called by their Latin name, Jolie here is a cartoon goddess come to some sort of screen life — a silly movie's most convincing special effect. She could eclipse...