Uncharted – Movie Review

Uncharted – Movie Review

116 Minutes, Rated PG-13

Written by Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway

Directed by Ruben Fleischer

Synopsis:

Street-smart Nathan Drake, is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter, Victor “Sully” Sullivan, to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan, and lost 500 years ago by the House of Moncada.

Another year, another video game movie adaptation.

Doesn’t that synopsis read like the back of a video game box? Of course it does.

Based on the wildly successful video game series, Uncharted brings Tom Holland back to another (hopeful) franchise property for Sony.

You may have heard of the other franchise he’s in with them. It’s kind of a big deal right now.

Anywho, while I’m sure Ryan and I will be going into more detail when we talk (or maybe not… who knows, really?) I am absolutely sure somebody besides me has made the same observation:

“Tom Holland plods well-charted territory in Sony’s Uncharted adaptation.”

Yeah, it’s pretty standard adventurer fare, still trying in vain to capture the wonder that was Raiders of the Lost Ark but feeling more like a discarded script for a National Treasure sequel.

While Uncharted is undoubtedly better than the recent Tomb Raider reboot, that’s not really saying much, because both films suffer from the same malady: they play out like a scripted video game, instead of the open-world concept Indiana Jones made so popular.

In both Uncharted and Tomb Raider, find the map to get the key to open the door to steal the treasure. A leads to B leads to C, without deviation.

No shortcutting anything (no matter how easy to do so), no improvising a solution given the elements at hand, nothing like that.

Simply find the map to get the key— you get the idea.

That’s not to say it’s not entertaining to watch Peter Parker parkour his way around an auction house or have Antonio Banderas chewing scenery like a boss as the villain or try to figure out exactly when player 2 is going to double-cross our hero.

But the band plays on, with cut-scene dialogue designed to make sure the audience never loses the plot, while including plenty of Easter Eggs for fans of the games.

And the only one of those I cared about was the beach cameo of a certain voice actor who is only present to force fans to involuntarily recreate the Leonardo DiCaprio meme that is so popular right now.

But whose dialogue and delivery are sheer perfection.

Uncharted is in theaters now.

Uncharted stars Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Steven Waddington, Tiernan Jones, and Rudy Pankow.

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