Uncharted Review

Directed By: Ruben Fleischer
Written By: Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Jon Hanley Rosenberg and Mark D. Walker; Based on the Naughty Dog game series and characters created by Amy Hennig
Runtime: 116 minutes
MPA Rating: Rated PG-13 for violence/action and language

Tom Holland – Nate Drake
Mark Wahlberg – Victor “Sully” Sullivan
Sophia Ali – Chloe Frazer
Antonio Banderas – Santiago Moncada
Tati Gabrielle – Jo Braddock
Steven Waddington – The Scotsman
Pingi Moli – Hugo
Manuel de Blas – Armando Moncada
Tiernan Jones – Young Nate
Rudy Pankow – Young Sam

In the entirety of Uncharted, there’s one moment in particular that comes off as inspired and nearly enough to get a longtime cynic and skeptic onboard. Star Tom Holland, as Nathan Drake, finally dons the iconic gun shoulder strap and holster. Suddenly, Greg Edmonson’s iconic theme music from the game starts to kick in. It’s like watching Batman suit up in the Batsuit for the first time, or Captain America rallying the Avengers together with “Avengers Assemble” in Endgame. In that moment, Uncharted appears ready to finally deliver something that longtime fans of the game would relish. However, the classic theme music is fleeting and gone almost as fast as it made its appearance in the soundtrack. The ensuing fight sequence that follows this moment does not meet the franchise standard.

The Uncharted movie is finally here. It seems like this project has been a pie and a sky almost as long as the game series has been around. The film project was first announced way back at Comic-Con 2009, not long before the release of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Considering that the Uncharted game series was literally like playing a Hollywood action-adventure movie, the idea of an Uncharted live-action movie seemed like an easy sale, but harder still to do.

The film project languished in development hell for over 10 years, until Spider-Man star Tom Holland got attached and gave it some much-needed momentum. After experiencing an endless stream of directors, writers and stars, Tom Holland was cast as the live-action iteration of franchise protagonist, Nathan Drake, and Mark Wahlberg would be his partner-in-crime, Victor “Sully” Sullivan. Ironically enough, Wahlberg was once in line for the Nathan Drake role.

Rather than the prequel storyline it was originally purported to be, likely because it’s much harder now for Holland to convincingly play a teenager, the new Uncharted movie is a hodgepodge of the previous games. The film borrows story, characters and thematic elements from Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception and even Uncharted 4: Lost Legacy.

Largely, the film focuses on forging the relationship dynamic between Holland’s Drake and Wahlberg’s Sully, as they endure to secure the biggest lost horde of treasure in history. A former acquaintance of Nate’s MIA older brother, Sully recruits the small-time thief Drake, who moonlights as a New York bartender as a means to swipe wealthy marks’ jewelry.

Drake doesn’t trust the shifty Sully, but he’s encouraged to join, knowing that Sam was close to discovering the lost treasure of Ferdinand Magellan; something the Drake siblings dreamed about discovering when they were kids. However, Drake and Sully are not the only ones on the trail of Magellan’s lost gold. Santiago Moncada (Banderas), the heir to an aristocratic Spanish family who once bankrolled Magellan’s expedition, wants to finally fulfill his family’s legacy, and he doesn’t mind having his associate, Jo Braddock (Gabrielle), eliminate anyone who gets in their way.

The central issue that brings down Uncharted is the casting. Holland put the work in and got in tremendous shape to beef up and play Nathan Drake, but the attitude, voice and energy still sound like he’s playing Peter Parker. With the film’s focus being the developing partnership between Nate and Sully, the chemistry and rapport just aren’t there. While Wahlberg isn’t quite phoning in his performance as Sully, it’s Wahlberg performing his greatest hits. When Wahlberg is onscreen, it’s not Victor Sullivan. It’s Wahlberg doing his usual, stereotypical schtick.

Antonio Banderas isn’t exactly wasted as Moncada since he looked bored in most of his scenes. Moncada is more or less an after-thought to the overall plot. He’s a two-dimensional, cookie-cutter character. He’s equally uncompelling as an antagonist.

The majesty of the Uncharted games is that players are immersed in an action-adventure story akin to Indiana Jones, except in the case of the games, the players are the ones making the adventure unfold. The Uncharted games don’t just turn the player into Harrison Ford, but Steven Spielberg as well. That’s a reason why great video games are so empowering to players. So, when a video game tries to adapt that into a film, that player agency is usually lost.

The Uncharted games delivered not just large-scale, cinematic action set pieces, they created a cast of charming, iconic characters that audiences fell in love with. In the case of Holland and Wahlberg, something is off and missing with Drake and Sully. The magic and chemistry that unfold while playing Uncharted just aren’t there.

Aside from the casting issues and lackadaisical villains, Ruben Fleischer’s direction looks largely uninspired. The action sequences resort to fast, quick cuts. These often obscure the fight sequences. It’s hard to become immersed in an adventurous, epic action sequence when the camera is constantly cutting away from the impact of the strikes and major action beats. When there’s finally an opportunity to show the lethal Jo Braddock in action, the camera shoots her fighting style in a very sloppy, uninspired manner. This is the moment to establish Braddock as a threat and formidable adversary, but it lands with a thud. Much of the action and sequences throughout the film look like they’ve been edited to rush the pacing, and some valuable continuity has been lost.

The movement of Holland as Drake looks more like free-running or parkour. Sure, Drake is often put through daring chases in the games and is often hanging for dear life, but the game action scenes never really looked or felt like parkour. It was more like Drake would be running or climbing for his life and would just manage to escape utter doom by the skin of his teeth.

Uncharted‘s closest performance to a breakout success is Sophia Ali as Chloe Fraser. Her interpretation of Chloe is believable if a bit unoriginal. The film does a good job of establishing her attitude toward treasure hunting. She’s so damaged that she is unable to let herself trust anyone, and she simply has to double-cross her partners before they would do the same to her. Ali also has much better chemistry with Holland than Wahlberg.

Besides the aforementioned moment later in the film, there is one major action set piece that’s fairly unique and original. It’s a decent set piece because while it’s unique from anything in the games, at least it possesses some of the game franchise’s spirit. Thankfully, the major beats of this sequence are not chopped to pieces.

Uncharted also leans heavily on the sin of setting up and baiting for sequels, boldly convinced that the first film has a hit and potential franchise on its hands. While there’s certainly the impression of grander adventures to come, even the sequel-baiting hooks are poorly written in a disjointed fashion. One, in particular, is even more clueless than one of the credit cookies for Eternals.

The gravest sin by composer Ramin Djawadi’s score is that he refuses to embrace the amazing music from the game series. Hollywood often fails to realize that the music in video games is almost as iconic as the games and their playable characters. Yet live-action films so often jettison or eschew the theme music that is often about as iconic as the actual games they come from.

Djawadi is actually a talented composer, but his score for Uncharted is largely flat. Most of the score that plays throughout the film sounds like run-of-the-mill adventure music. It almost sounds like someone to make an off-brand Dr. Skipper version of the Uncharted theme. There are only two moments in the film when the actual game music makes a welcome appearance, and they were few and far between. It’s a shame because those are the moments when the Uncharted movie almost starts cooking with gas.

Many have spoken about cracking the code for video game movies much like Hollywood was able to do for comic book superhero films. While there have been some recent minor success stories with video game-to-film adaptations, Uncharted does not have the secret sauce.

5.0

The final score: review Not So Good

The 411

As an adaptation of the iconic game series, Uncharted is rather disappointing. As an action-adventure film, it's a cookie-cutter script, with threadbare characters, that tries to rely on the chemistry and charisma of its lead stars. Tom Holland as Nate Drake and Mark Wahlberg as Sully engage in a lot of banter, but they never really click as that dynamic duo. The writing and dialogue are largely uninspired, and the action looks choppy and dull. Uncharted does not have the secret sauce to pull off a strong video game-to-movie adaptation.