Uncharted Review

Action movies based on video games have had a mixed reputation to put it nicely. Many are lucky to reach the level of average. Uncharted is the latest franchise that harbours cinematic ambitions.

Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is a New York bartender who has a knowledge of history and a skill for pickpocketing. He gets recruited by Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), a Navy veteran who knew Nathan’s brother. Sully wants to use Nathan’s knowledge and skills to find Magellan’s lost treasure and find it before Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas), a member of a family that has financed many terrible things in Spain’s history.

Uncharted came across as a mix of Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and Dan Brown stories. It was a treasure hunt film where the characters had to find clues and artifacts, go to some famous landmarks, go through traps, and face enemies who have a lot of resources. It was a modernisation of the Indiana Jones formula or can be seen as a more action-packed version of National Treasure.

Uncharted had three major settings, New York, Barcelona, and the Philippines. The bulk of the film takes place in Barcelona so acts as a travelogue for the city. It was fun seeing the characters doing research and going through puzzles and traps that were set up by Magellan’s betrayers. In the best way possible some moments like when Drake and Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali) set off a trap where they’re locked in a flooding room felt like a video game. It was lucky for the characters that after 500 years no one else figured out the puzzles or they didn’t work due to a lack of maintenance.

Compared to the Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, Uncharted was more grounded. Grounded should be in quotation marks because Uncharted was a film that had a climax involving helicopters airlifting 16^th centuries ships. However, there were no supernatural elements in Uncharted like the other archaeology-themed franchises. It made for a nice change that the film was just about finding a treasure and getting rich, not about stopping a madman who wants world domination.

There are many risks when adapting a video game to film. If an adaptation changes too much then fans of the games will be alienated, but some changes are required because a straight adaptation will lead to this question: why don’t I just play the game? Uncharted did not escape these issues. Some of the big set pieces were lifted straight from the games, like when Drake was hanging out of a cargo plane. Uncharted has a unique problem because the games have been called cinematic and many critics have called them interactive movies. The Uncharted movie had a paint-by-numbers approach in regards to its story, plotting, and action.

The filmmakers made the Uncharted movie into a prequel. This led to them turning Nathan Drake from a rugged adventurer in his 30s to a baby-faced 20-something. Holland looks like he would have just started at university, not a globe-trotting adventurer who finds treasure and who fights mercenaries. Fans of the games will be annoyed and even people who haven’t played them would struggle to find Holland’s Drake plausibility. Even around actors who were close to Holland’s age, like Ali and Tati Gabrielle, Holland looked incredibility young. Holland tried his best, but it seemed he was cast because of his fame as Spider-man. Charitably it would be best to think of Holland’s Drake as an alternative version because Nolan North, the voice actor of Drake in the games has a cameo and makes a reference to the games.

The rest of the cast was perfectly fine. Wahlberg’s Scully had chemistry with Holland’s Drake and he was a fun presence as a self-servicing partner. Scully was so obsessed with gold and treasure I couldn’t help but think of him as Scrooge McDuck. Ali was decent as Chloe Frazer, a woman with her own interests and acts as a potential love interest for Drake, and whilst Gabrielle seemed a bit young to play the main henchwoman, she made up for it by having an agile fighting style. Antonio Banderas had the thankless role of playing a generic villain, which was a real shame since he normally plats larger-than-life characters. However, Banderas’ character does have some justification because his ancestors did finance Magellan’s expedition.

Uncharted was a perfectly adequate action adventure. For fans of treasure hunt movies, it was a fun diversion. As someone who hasn’t yet played the Uncharted games, the film does serve as a decent advertisement.