‘Uncharted’ Review: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg Adventure Flick Is Entertaining But Doesn’t Play To Its Strengths

‘Uncharted’ Review: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg Adventure Flick Is Entertaining But Doesn’t Play To Its Strengths

When you’re reviewing a film, your brain is attuned to think critically about every little thing. And lucky are those who can enjoy something as an audience, minus the judgement before they can look at it as a critic. If you asked me for the results of the first half of this exercise, I’d tell you that Uncharted, starring Tom Holland as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg as Victor Sullivan, is a fun watch. A screen adaptation of a popular video game franchise, the film is basically if Indiana Jones and Pirates Of The Caribbean (just the banter parts) had an IVF baby using the sperm of MCU’s Spider-Man. But once I was out of the theatre, I was struck by a serious case of hindsight, and there were things that I had to talk about. Uncharted is directed by Zombieland filmmaker Ruben Fleischer, has a screenplay by Rafe Lee Judkins (Prime Video’s Wheel Of Time series), and Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (both wrote the first Iron Man). It also stars Sophia Ali (India Sweets And Spices), Tati Gabrielle (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, YOU) and Antonio Banderas.

Uncharted (2022)

So Uncharted is a video game adaptation? Yes, and one with quite a bit of potential

For a film that has been stuck in developmental limbo since 2008, Uncharted really comes through. The studio has opted to play safe by going for the most foolproof adaptation style where you don’t need to have played the game to watch the film, and have even deviated quite a bit from the original characterisations. This isn’t exactly bad for the non-player audience, but might be a bone of contention for the OG fans. For example, fans of the game think Holland’s Nathan Drake is younger than his video game version and also has some very different personality traits. The film also jumps straight to the fourth game in the Uncharted series, A Thief’s End, for its plot, serving as a sort of origin story for these characters. 

Uncharted opens with Nathan Drake (Holland) dangling from an aircraft mid-air on a line of cargo that will, at any moment, drop from the sky into the ocean. It’s quite an impressive note to start with, or so it feels at that point. We’re then introduced to a much younger Nate, who along with his elder brother Sam, gets caught trying to steal a map of the Magellan expedition. Both orphans, Sam runs away to evade arrest, but not before assuring Nate that he will come back for him and together they’ll find the biggest treasure that’s never been found because they’re descended from pirates. Cute.

Cut to an older Nate, who daylights as a bartender and occasionally pulls a slick sleight of hand on unsuspecting patrons. He’s visited by one Victor Sullivan or Sully (Wahlberg), Sam’s former partner also in search of the same treasure, who believes that Sam might have told something to Nate about how to find this treasure. Together they embark on the search for a key that unlocks a bunch of doors while being helped and double-crossed in different combinations by one Chloe Frazer (Ali) and one Jo Braddock (Gabrielle). There’s also Santiago Moncada (Banderas), a descendent of the OG rich dude who financed Magellan’s expedition but got cheated out of the gold, which the current Moncada thinks he totally has a right to.

What work for Uncharted and what doesn’t?

Uncharted is often mildly entertaining because I think Tom Holland has perfected the art of making banter with a father/elder brother figure played by a senior actor on-screen look good. He’s done it now with Robert Downey Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alfred Molina and a bunch of others in the Spider-Man movies, and in Uncharted too, he seems to nail it. It basically means he is playing himself and you’ve got Mark Wahlberg playing himself too. The pairing isn’t a stretch, but it isn’t oozing mad chemistry either. It’s also perhaps not a good thing that they’re playing themselves because as a friend who played the eponymous game told me, Holland’s Nathan is too naïve and goody-goody compared to his video game version. I mean, have you seen Holland? The dude’s practically dripping in Eau de innocence!

Continuing this trend of things that can be both good and bad, is the fact that I LOVE watching Tom Holland move. Like, the boy is so fucking smooth in the action sequences and watching him is such a delight that, to quote his fellow Avenger, I could do this all day. He’s pretty much gotten the reflexes he uses to play Spidey down pat, and so he could practically be AU Peter Parker who is a bartender and a treasure seeker (and an orphan. Yes, I went there)! Now while this is visually a treat to my eyes, my brain cannot accept why and how an orphan who is a history buff and never really intended to go on a treasure hunt that his brother was obsessed about, has acquired such good hand-to-hand combat skills and such a chiselled physique. Reiterating here that I am glad for those shots of a shirtless Tom Holland, and damn he smooth, but like, why though?

Uncharted

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I judge treasure hunt movies on the basis of certain key metrics. One of them is the obstacle course that’s laid out to get to the treasure. And the other is how messed up is the chamber that contains the hidden treasure. And in both these departments, Uncharted is a bit too sanitised and afraid to go get its hand dirty in the mud. The clues are kaafi juvenile, and the riddle is so easy to decipher. If Nathan is truly a history buff who spent his life obsessing over this treasure, I want to see him solve some Robert Langdon-level clues here. Everything is, for some inexplicable reason, very well preserved. A fountain in the middle of a sufficiently crowded street stops spouting water, and nobody around wonders what is the weird guy with an ancient golden cross doing in the middle of it all. In another scene, our treasure hunters walk through a secret underground tunnel that has been shut for centuries. It even gets flooded at one point. So where, pray tell, are the snakes and lizards and the rats that infest these places? How are these passageways, these shipwrecks so clean and not inhabited by icky creatures that make your insides crawl?

Uncharted Movie

 

Peter Parker got bit by a spider in a well-secured hi-tech lab. But you’re telling me Nathan Drake is hiding in the hulls of centuries-old ships and not even a crab wants to crawl up his leg and sting him? Get outta here!

Now look, you might think these are trivial pursuits, but let me remind you of the iconic “Why did it have to be snakes?” Scene from Indiana Jones. Or the scene from National Treasure: Book Of Secrets, where the dam breaks and washes over the ancient city of Cibola and Mitch Wilkinson sacrifices himself to get Ben and the others out safe. Mishaps happen when dealing with ancient shit. It isn’t as easy, and it shouldn’t be especially if it is a video game movie!

I also feel that in movies like these, nobody is asking the right kind of questions? Like, if I were Nathan. I’d have quite a few about how Sully has the money he has to fund this mission, how does he know Chloe, what’s the scene with Braddock, and really how is any of this going to help him find his brother. 

All that being said, some of the set pieces and CGI visuals (the one where they’re stepping out of an airplane; the flying ships, etc.) really did make it feel like I was watching gameplay, and as I mentioned before, the film has its moments when it is pure, entertaining fun. Tom Holland, of course, leads the list of things worth watching. But I would add to that list Tati Gabrielle, who is always such a dominating presence on screen! But yet again, much like Holland and Wahlberg, Tati’s act is so reminiscent of her Prudence act from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, that I wish her character got more to do than just be the muscle for the bad guy. She looks breathtaking as always. Sophia Ali, again, has a very one-dimensional character as Chloe Frazer, which I suppose she makes the most of.

Tati Gabrielle in Uncharted

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Verdict

Look here, Uncharted isn’t without its faults. It plays a very safe game, and for the most part, it succeeds in what it sets out to do, which is become a franchise that can appeal to non-players and serve as an introduction to that world for them. However, while the action is decent (could definitely kick things up a notch), it could’ve upped its game a little while writing these characters and designing their quests. 

I’ve been reading reactions on how the post-credit scenes (yes there are two) are setting up the next film in the franchise, and the characters (at least Sully) are actually starting to look like they do in the game. So I guess, I’ll be waiting to see if the makers can take some feedback from the audience and critics and better their game for the next one. For fans of the game, I believe there are some choice easter eggs in the film to spot, including a cameo that they’re going to love. As for the fans of Tom Holland, you’re going to enjoy this one, where he chucks the Spidey suit and is wearing some big boy shoes with another franchise he’ll be carrying on his very capable shoulders.

Uncharted is currently in cinemas.

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Jinal Bhatt

A Barbie girl with Oppenheimer humour. Sharp-tongue feminist and pop culture nerd with opinions on movies, shows, books, patriarchy, your boyfriend, everything.

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