Review: Uncharted is a standard action flick that goes nowhere new

Sony Pictures is planning a dangerous expedition, a daring quest that many have attempted without success: make a good video game adaptation. After decades of mockery and stigma (thank you, Super Mario Bros.), this genre has been growing more and more popular in recent years with successes like 2019’s Detective Pikachu and 2020’s Sonic the Hedgehog; maybe critics didn’t love these movies, but they at least found audiences.

Now Sony has thrown its hat in the ring with Uncharted, an action/adventure movie based on the game series of the same name. So has Sony found the legendary treasure of a great video game movie, or did it fall down a bottomless pit and land next to Mortal Kombat: Annihilation?

To begin this review, let me put my cards on the table and say that I didn’t really like this movie. I didn’t hate it, though.

Nathan Drake vs Indiana Jones

The first thing I want to bring up is the pacing. The movie opens with Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) flying through the air with his leg stuck on the straps of a cargo box that is hanging out of a flying plane. Right off the bat we’re thrown into the thick of it, and it sort of works. If you know the Uncharted games, it’s not surprising to see Drake in this type of situation, but even if you don’t, it’s a flashy start that gets you interested right away.

Personally, I was hoping Uncharted’s opening scene would be more like the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indiana Jones flees a booby-trapped tomb. And in spirit, it kind of is. However, it doesn’t do what the opening of Raiders does. That sequence shows off Indiana’s cleverness and resourcefulness as he overcomes a series of rapid-fire trials; it’s not just a running start, it establishes our hero’s skillset. Whereas in Uncharted these opening minutes are just fast, mindless action. It’s high-stakes action, sure, but for me, a character being in mortal danger isn’t enough to like them.

Also unlike Raiders (don’t worry, this is the last time I’ll make this comparison), which begins at the earliest point in the story and moves on from there, the opening of Uncharted is actually a glimpse into the future. After a cliffhanger, we flash back to Nathan Drake’s childhood before catching up with him as a young man. And now the movie shows us what Drake can do, and starts forging an emotional connection with him so the audience will want to join him on this adventure. We get a bit of tragic backstory involving Drake and his older brother Sam at an orphanage, then a grown-up Drake pickpocketing bar patrons and doormen. The movie is hitting the beats it needs to, but the pace feels a bit too fast, and the standard-issue action movie dialog is uninspired at best. I know action movies aren’t supposed to have slow scenes, but Uncharted would have done well to ease up on the gas in its first act at least.

By the end of these establishing scenes, I don’t really like Holland or Wahlberg’s characters. Truth be told, I don’t like their performances either. Tom Holland is just being a slightly spunkier version of Tom Holland, and Mark Wahlberg plays Mark Wahlberg. In my opinion, both of them are poorly cast as Drake and Sully. They bear little resemblance to the video game characters in looks, voice or attitude. These are typical action heroes who just so happen to be named Nathan Drake and Victor Sully, and as typical action heroes they do a serviceable job. Holland at least gets a few moments to show a range of emotion, but Wahlberg delivers practically every line with a cocky action hero cadence.

Marvel’s Uncharted

And then there’s my favorite afterthought in all modern action movies: the humor! It’s bad. It’s that Marvel-esque comedy that consists of random arguments over stupid nonsense, or lol random I got you a cat now there is a cat in the movie for a brief second hahaha. At least Marvel pulls it off half the time. Here the jokes are all duds.

Speaking of that, I was fascinated by the clear influence Marvel had on this movie. Sony obviously wants Spider-Man fans coming to see Tom Holland. It feels like a lot of the self-aware humor was put in the movie to appeal to Marvel fans who like these types of jokes, rather than out of any organic thought or impulse.

One last thing I want to say about the writing: beyond the jokes not working and the dialog not grabbing me, the script doesn’t really follow our Earth-based logic. And I’m not nitpicking normal action movie stuff like, “How could Drake survive that fall from the airplane?” — I know action heroes are immortals who would survive a 12-gauge shotgun blast to the head. However, when you establish that Wahlberg tracks Holland through his phone, how do you not address how Wahlberg keeps doing that even after Holland gets completely submerged in water for several minutes…twice? For that matter, how does Holland’s lighter continue to work after he’s  completely submerged in water…twice? Sorry if these complaints sound too Cinema Sins-ish, but these aren’t just tiny inconsistencies to me; they’re holes that the movie didn’t care enough to cover up. Not only is the movie stone-dead dumb, but it’s treating me like I am as well.

Action action action!

I could dash off a few more, “Wait, what?!” moments like that, but let’s move on to the action. Some of the action scenes work. The one that stands out to me is the fight at the nightclub, which cleverly reincorporates Holland’s mad mixologist skills we see earlier in the film. However, it suffers from the same thing the other action scenes suffer from: the choppy, split-second editing and shaky camera work make it difficult to feel immersed. In some action sequences, like Sully’s rumble at the pizzeria, I spotted inconsistencies between shots regarding where characters were  (or at least I think I did; it’s hard to be sure when everything runs together so fast). The airplane fight and the climactic battle that ends the movie are basically ruined by the shooting and editing. I can’t enjoy what I can’t see properly. And it’s too bad, because on paper those are both great set pieces.

You know, between you and me, I think there’s a reason the shots weren’t longer and the camera wasn’t more focused. If you look at some of these environments (when the movie gives you the chance), the CGI looks pretty obvious; clearly Sony does not have Marvel money. This isn’t to say that the movie with the bigger budget is the better one, but compared to other modern-day action blockbusters, Uncharted comes up short visually. The computer-generated graphics in Uncharted are not as seamless as in, say, Spider-Man: No Way Home (opening swinging scene not included). The environments, especially during the action scenes, have a veneer of artificiality that breaks my immersion. I know there isn’t an easy remedy for this other than to spend Marvel-level money on a video game adaptation, which just ain’t going to happen no matter who’s attached to it.

I mean, I guess you could throw Tom Holland out of a moving airplane and shoot the scene practically…Nah, bad idea. Maybe Kubrick could have pulled it off.

The verdict

That’s about all I have to say about Uncharted. If you’re a fan of the video games, perhaps you might enjoy this, but that’s a very big “might.” Not only are Drake and Sully not well represented by Holland and Wahlberg, but they took everything special about Nathan Drake and wrung it out until we’re left with a cookie cutter action hero. There are barely any puzzles and almost no climbing, which makes sense; that stuff makes for an entertaining video game but not an entertaining movie. But all I could think about while watching Uncharted was how I’d rather be playing it instead.

Man, how many times have you heard that one at the end of a video game movie review? Whose dialog is uninspired now, eh?

Grade: D+

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