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We all already know the obvious downfall of the Uncharted movie, right? It’s a blockbuster action film adapting a game that takes inspiration from blockbuster action films. The result is the equivalent of the novelization of a movie that’s already based on a book. Most video game movies struggle with this issue. No matter what the pedants tell you, removing interactivity from an interactive medium is not a step closer to prestige media. However, Uncharted still has some buried treasure in all its globe-trotting chaos.
This adaptation comes from director Ruben Fleischer, who has a very mixed record. His directorial debut was 2009’s Zombieland, a glib horror comedy that presaged a very promising career. By 2018, he got his first big superhero movie with Venom, which suffered a horrific edit but still made money. Later this year, he’ll jump onto the hilarious Now You See Me franchise for the third entry. He’s a decent director of actors, but outside forces seem to drag most of his work through the mud.
A Thief’s Beginning
If you changed nothing about this film but its title and main character names, it would become the subject of a very different conversation. Without the Uncharted branding, it’s a straightforward star vehicle for Tom Holland. You could imagine Holland’s agent excitedly ensuring, “This is how we’ll guarantee you a career outside those Marvel movies.” Holland’s Nathan Drake is a smooth-talking bartender who loves parkour, Cocktail-esque drink stunts, and pickpocketing. He’s got a tragic backstory and a lust for adventure, but his life has hit a bit of a wall. That’s when a career con artist called Sully walks into his bar with an impossible job offer. It’s a straightforward movie about a globe-trotting adventure in search of treasure. You get everything you expect from this film, but none of it leaps above those expectations. The only real standout element is Tom Holland himself.
Holland has the makings of a genuine movie star, but his career choices haven’t always panned out. He has the bizarre superpower to stand out as the only upside of several ill-fated projects. Look into any of his non-blockbuster films, and you’ll find reviews celebrating his work while denigrating everything else. Uncharted isn’t on the same unfortunate trajectory as Cherry or Chaos Walking, but Holland is still its greatest asset. This Nathan Drake isn’t the one from the games, but he is still a compelling character. Holland throws his body into the project, landing stunts like a young Jackie Chan. He acquits himself so well, you almost forget he’s supposed to be Nathan Drake. This is a solid, enjoyable, scrappy character that gives the star a chance to shine. He’s a delight, and his commendable commitment truly elevates the material.
The Journey, Not the Destination
The draw of Uncharted is easy enough to capture on the big screen. Several excellent filmmakers did it decades ago, inspiring the games. The film’s biggest weakness is its inability to divest itself from those inspirations, but its lack of originality is not surprising. Interestingly, Uncharted attempts to shed that familiarity by simply adding more ingredients to the recipe. You knew you’d see some Indiana Jones and a little Romancing the Stone, but we didn’t expect Fast & Furious or the Pirates franchise. It’s the old axiom that stealing from one source is theft, but stealing from many is creativity. Ultimately, the result takes several fun elements from its inspirations. It may not be the best of its kind, but it remains a worthwhile watch for fans of the genre.
Uncharted has a remarkable cold open that leads with its best stunt sequence, the cargo plane bit from the third game. It frontloads its action in a way that suggests they’re scared audiences might lose interest in the first two acts. While the cargo plane is probably the high point, there are stellar set pieces throughout the project. Are big, dumb disaster sequences the only thing a film like this needs to succeed? No, but it is worth the price of admission on its own. It has a lovely little ramp-up from high-class heists to Temple of Doom trap rooms to helicopters airlifting giant ships from the sea. The payoffs are suitably absurd, and the action remains fun to watch throughout. That doesn’t make Uncharted transcendent, but it does deliver on what you’d want from the franchise.
Uncharted fell short of expectations because it was always going to. It is, at its core, a perfectly fine action/adventure film with a great lead performance. It never had to be anything more than that, but the fact that it’s also a video game movie ruined everything. When it feels like a commercial, we don’t think about it as a piece of art. Uncharted has the cinematography, special effects, and acting talent to make a solid action set piece. It just goes to show that treasure or at least items of some value, can go unnoticed if they’re buried deep enough.
