Angelina Jolie critic Peter Stack wrote, "Jolie, working through an overwritten part, is a sensation as the desperate club crawler learning truths about what she's willing to gamble." She won the Breakthrough Performance Award from the National Board of Review. In 1999, Jolie starred in the comedy-drama "Pushing Tin", alongside John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Cate Blanchett. The film met with mixed reception from critics, and Jolie's character—Thornton's seductive wife—was particularly criticized; writing for "The Washington Post", Desson Howe dismissed her as "a completely ludicrous writer's creation of a free-spirited woman who weeps over hibiscus plants that die, wears lots of
Angelina Jolie required her to learn an English accent and undergo extensive martial arts training to play the archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft. Although the film generated mostly negative reviews, Jolie was generally praised for her physical performance; "Newsday"s John Anderson commented, "Jolie makes the title character a virtual icon of female competence and coolth." The film was an international hit, earning $274.7 million worldwide, and launched her global reputation as a female action star. Jolie next starred opposite Antonio Banderas as his mail-order bride in "Original Sin" (2001), the first of a string of films that were poorly received by critics and audiences