Movies based on video games have a terrible reputation for a reason. No matter how hard Sony Pictures tried, it was almost impossible to make ‘Uncharted’ stand out as the first box office hit of the year.
The ‘Uncharted’ franchise makes for a great adventure game but in the film format, it’s the type of story that makes for a generic action film, and adding Tom Holland to the mix doesn’t do the film any favors.
‘Uncharted’ stars Holland as the franchise’s lead character Nathan Drake, a young fortune-hunter who works as a bartender in New York City and steals from rich patrons in between jobs. He meets Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), a fellow fortune hunter who worked with Nathan’s brother Sam tracking treasure that was hidden by the Magellan crew. Sully explains that Sam vanished after helping him steal Juan Sebastian Elcano’s diary and now he needs Nathan’s help to find him again. Nathan, who hasn’t seen his brother in 15 years, decides to help but gets caught by a group of mercenaries led by the Moncada family.
It’s never a good sign when a film has three different screenwriters and none of them could make this film anything more than standard. Outside of the pitch meeting to green light this film, ‘Uncharted’ offers nothing more than standard blue screen stunts.
Wahlberg and Holland make for a very odd pairing as an action duo and both men have very little chemistry with any other characters let alone themselves. Age gap aside, the duo doesn’t have the right comedic formula to make their on-screen barter entertaining for audiences begging the question of one of them was miscast in the project. Given the fact that Walberg was originally set to play the titled character until the studio opted to go with the younger Holland in hopes of a profitable franchise could be the answer to many questions concerning production.
‘Uncharted’ can’t shake the comparisons to Indiana Jones but even as a knockoff to a series people have long gotten tired of, the film just fails to be engaging in any meaningful level leaving the final product to be dry and generic.
As a video game, ‘Uncharted’ has a lot going for it in terms of enjoyability, the same can’t be said for the movie.
2/5
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