Summary
A successful video game series heads into well charted waters as all the clues lead us in a mostly positive direction.
After being stuck in development hell for well over a decade, UNCHARTED splashes onto the screen with a kind of visual fidelity one would expect from the newly minted PlayStation Productions. Like the games it is based on, we meet Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) as he hangs from several crates tumbling out of a plane. Before you can say button mashing, we’re immersed in a high-concept, continent spanning adventure.
Fifteen years earlier in Boston, Drake’s brother Sam runs away from their orphanage home instead of facing the authorities for their latest crime. Back in the present day, Drake is now a bartender in New York, having never forgotten his brother’s stories of the lost treasure of the Magellan expedition. He’s approached by Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), who is not only searching for the gold but claims to have knowledge of Sam’s whereabouts.
They reluctantly team-up with fellow hunter Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), all the while being pursued by Santiago Moncada (Antonia Banderas) and mercenary Jo Braddock (Tati Gabrielle). It’s all fun and games, at least until the double-crossing begins.
While the games themselves owe a debt to everything from the Tomb Raider series to Indiana Jones, the film version is just as much crafted in the National Treasure mould of historical treasure hunting. Which initially keeps the film on rails, with the script following an episodic series of clues that simply appear rather than reward the viewer. It does all lead to a spectacular set-piece — one that I’m told is partly inspired by Uncharted 4 — involving pirate ships, mid-air collisions and all the climbing and hanging onto stuff that series players know too well. (There are actually three major set-pieces, but two of them are the same one!)
Despite the story limitations, it mostly works thanks to the presence of Holland in the lead. Any initial hesitation around his casting quickly gives way as he comfortably settles into another hero role. Similarly, Wahlberg plays as much of a comic foil as he does partner in crime, and it kind of woks. There’s one scene where he’s just yelling instructions through a grate, and that feels like the most faithful scene from the games somehow. Less successful is Ali as the canonically Australian Frazer, although her accent is even more slippy than most of Drake’s handholds. The badass Gabrielle remains the the MVP though, often dominating scenes without saying a word.
From the mid-credits sequences, and the planned adaptations of Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us, Sony and PlayStation are clearly hoping to build a multimedia empire from decades worth of content. While UNCHARTED may not change the way you think about video game adaptations, it’s still a fun romp that distracts you from the real world in these uncertain times.
2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Ruben Fleischer | WRITERS: Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway | CAST: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Antonio Banderas | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 17 February 2022 (AUS), 18 February 2022 (US)
