Revealing mistake: When Lara and the guy race with their bikes by the Great Wall, Lara's stunt is noticeable because her face is rounder and not so angular.
Other mistake: When the submarine surfaces from beneath Lara, from the submarine's angle it looks like the sub is just coming up and will then level out. But we can see the submarine stays at this angle. And in the next shot we can see Lara resting towards the aft rudder. If the submarine would rise at such an angle with the aft rudder just surfacing, basically the complete submarine would be almost out of the water. This angle and Lara's position would only be possible, if she came to rest at the front side of the sub's sail.
Continuity mistake: Throughout the final cradle scene Lara has two lines of blood on her right temple and cheek. The blood spots change position slightly from shot to shot. This is clearest with the two spots under her right eye. (01:39:10 - 01:45:45)
Continuity mistake: When Lara first arrives on the boat, she removes charts, etc from a waterproof bag (it has a black plastic seal with yellow screws). Yet when she dives she appears to have only her standard Lara Croft-style backpack, which would not stand the pressure, even if it was waterproof. Further to this, when she escapes the Temple, she no longer has it, yet her headset and video camera survive the pressure and submersion of her shark ride and subsequent 3 days in the water.
Visible crew/equipment: When Lara's two Greek partners are killed in the temple, electric lights can be seen reflected in her goggles. (00:08:40)
Continuity mistake: When Lara and Terry escape from the Shay-Ling on the ropes,upon reaching down they make a very unrealistic turn. They climb down heads first, and they flip so as to fall on their feet on the ground. But the motion is very "robotic". Even if they were very strong athletes, this would still be impossible, as the rope should be very stretched (should be fixed at both ends). Otherwise, it would not give them the support they need for such a flip. All the way down you can see that, at the bottom, the ropes go through some sort of pulley system. It is only after Lara and Terry are standing on the ground that the ends are shown swinging freely. So their dismount is realistic in one version of the scene, but unrealistic in another.
Continuity mistake: When Lara is looking at her guns and knives in the old Chinese lady's house, you can see that Lara's hair is at least six inches shorter than at any other time in the movie.
Continuity mistake: When Lara is sliding down the rope, she fires at the guards at the top. However, when the action cycles, the shell would not clear the port before the slide came forward. Therefore she should have only fired one shot, then have a blockage.
Plot hole: When Lara and Kosa are leading the 20 natives in search of Pandora's box, Lara suddenly slows down and says, "We're getting closer." One of the natives (the one who said he'd stay with them to the end) says something to Kosa. Kosa says to Lara, "He wants to know how you knew (that they were getting closer)." Since Kosa had been translating in both directions, how did the native know that Lara said "We're getting closer"? An earlier response to this indicated that maybe the native "knew a few words of English". If you think about it, that's impossible seeing as how this would have been his first contact with the language. From the moment that Lara arrives in the native village, Kosa translates in both directions for everybody. (01:24:10)
Factual error: Just after Lara puts the "Pandora's Box" back into the black acid, the screen fades into a horizon view of the mountains of Africa. Slight problem, though: doesn't mist RISE from mountains, and not drift down onto it like it backwardly does in the shot?
Factual error: When Lara walked into Times Square in Hong Kong and looked up to the skylight: there is no skylight - just a ceiling in that building. Also had the shootout really taken place, dozens of police officers would have been at the crime scene within minutes, as you have policemen at every street corner. (00:57:50)
Answer: The pressure in the temple would be the same as that of the water just before Lara entered the temple. So no she would not need to decompress before entering at the temple as it was open to the sea, but she would have surely suffered the bends on the rapid accent to the surface.