Movie Review: Uncharted

credit: Uncharted

Like so many other video game movies, Uncharted felt like it was racing toward a chorus of boos that weren’t going to end until the movie was out of the theater. There’s no doubt that some folks liked it, but a lot of people sounded off in the negative when this movie came out for one reason or another. After watching it there are a few reasons why it doesn’t pan out as a great action movie, but there are several things to like about it as well. For one, Mark Wahlberg and Tom Holland are usually a lot of fun to watch most of the time, especially when there’s action and adventure involved. One would have to play the game to see the deviations and where things were kept true to the franchise, but there are a lot of people who are starting to not care that these movies are straying from the source material since some of them aren’t too bad, while others are just flat out horrible. It feels as though Uncharted falls somewhere between these two distinctions, especially given that it shows Nathan and Sully working together for the first time. 

credit: Uncharted

The chemistry between Wahlberg and Holland is kind of awkward at times. 

It’s tough to tell how well various actors are going to work together at times since even those who have worked with one another in the past might find it difficult to vibe with horrible dialogue or a less-than-stellar script. But for the most part, Wahlberg and Holland did manage to make this movie work around them. There were moments when it felt as though one or the other was trying to lead but was being pre-empted by the other or even someone else on the cast. In other words, it doesn’t feel as though things went as smoothly as they could the entire way through this movie, as the dialogue, which was interesting for the most part, kind of faltered now and then. 

The villains felt a little too generic at certain points in the story. 

Villains going after a treasure and being willing to do anything to get it is rather basic, but then so is the idea that the villains know the protagonists and hold a grudge against them. Nathan Drake was about the only wild card in this story, to be fair, and even he became well-known very quickly. It used to be that Antonio Banderas was a great villain since when he was young enough to run and gun, but these days he’s getting a bit older and apparently can’t do all the things he used to do or even appear to do them. Now he’s the crime boss that sits in the back and finances everything while he has others doing his dirty work. Hey, it’s a role, and it’s one that he’s not too bad at, but as far as using this role in a movie goes, it’s kind of basic. Plus, the bad guys still don’t cross the line when it comes to these movies. It’s understood why this is the case, but it would amaze people if the antagonists were able to go full out, and it might even up the stakes enough to make things even more interesting. 

credit: Uncharted

A lost ship carrying treasure on it is always fun, but the reality of it is hard to avoid. 

Granted, the shot of two massive ships being found in a cavern and being loaded with treasure and other goods is impressive and plays well for a video game and even for an action movie where disbelief is often suspended for at least a couple of hours. But keeping in mind how much one of these ships weighs and how much an airborne helicopter of any make can carry, it’s not even close to being realistic. Tack onto that the fact that Nathan found a large flask that was sodomizing him as he sat on it and then took a drink, and you’ve got a scenario that was bound to make a lot of people roll their eyes and wonder who in the world was going to miss this. 

The movie wasn’t absolutely horrible, but to the fans of the video game, it was less than what they wanted. 

Sadly, this is how things go more often than not when it comes to video game movies, especially seeing how these movies deviate from the source material and can’t really track in the same manner that the games operate since action/adventure games are played differently by each person. But Uncharted took a big swing and didn’t appear to take into account what the fans wanted to see, or they tried to and misinterpreted a few things. Whatever happened, a lot of folks were not happy with this movie, even if it was kind of entertaining.