UnchartedTreasure! It's a word that stirs the imagination with visions of lost civilizations and wealth beyond measure. Of crumbling maps, secret codes, perilous challenges, and apocryphal history. The kind of stuff that would make for a thrilling video game! (And it has!) Uncharted is an action/adventure movie based on the video game series of the same name. Our hero is the "street-smart" Nathan "Nate" Drake (Tom Holland), who gets recruited by cynical treasure hunter (and fellow crook), Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) to find a lost treasure rumored to have been secreted away by Ferdinand Magellan.
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Video game movies--that is, movies adapted from video games--have traditionally had something of a troubled history. Perhaps the unfortunate stage for them was set by the oft-reviled Super Mario Bros. movie. (Although this movie has developed something of a cult following and did innovate special effects in movies afterward, but I digress.) Since then, there have been serious efforts to retell some of the most popular franchises in video gaming on the big screen, and Uncharted represents the latest effort. But it is an ironic effort, since the video game series was itself heavily inspired by adventure films like Indiana Jones and National Treasure. So, unsurprisingly, the film feels achingly similar to its progenitors. There is a kind of charm and comfort in that. For people who don't mind a film that is--by design--derivative, Uncharted checks all of the right boxes for a spry and visually-stunning action film. The story has a bit of a slow start, which is partially abated by the cold open of Nate leaping from cargo crate to cargo crate after having fallen out of an airplane, a scene deliberately meant to recall the similar cold open of the PlayStation 3 game, "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves". There's plenty of backstory about young Nate (Tiernan Jones) being an orphan alongside his older brother, Sam (Rudy Pankow), and their shared interest in the map Magellan reportedly used to track his circumnavigation of the globe as a key to discovering if the rumors of the lost treasure were true. Nate and Sam purport to have the blood of Sir Francis Drake in them (even if the famed explorer had no children, but reality is no fun so just ignore that), so they feel a compulsion to put themselves into precarious situations in search of something "lost, not gone".
Uncharted is not a note-for-note exact adaptation of the first video game, but draws elements from the entire series, like a reinterpretation of those stories. Case in point: Sam didn't even exist until he was "retconned" into the series in the fourth game, "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End". And a fellow treasure hunter with dubious loyalties named Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali) only emerged in the second game, showing up later in future entries as a cameo, before getting her own starring spot in "Uncharted: The Lost Legacy". But exact adaptations tend to be boring anyway; after all, if you're creating a movie for an audience already familiar with the source material, telling them the exact same story is redundant. Of course this brings up a fundamental flaw in adaptations of video games that are themselves described as "cinematic"; is there really something new to contribute in this different medium that hasn't been explored before? In the case of Uncharted, it's more that the movie represents an attempt to have its cake and eat it, too. By that I mean it is trying to appeal to a new audience (read: non-video gamers), while giving fans of the games something familiar yet a (little) bit different, like buying a pair of already worn-in jeans from the store. Uncharted is positively riddled with "Easter eggs", or nods to the games that (ironically) will gleefully fly right over the heads of newcomers to the story of Nathan Drake. I don't want to spoil too many of these, but fans of the games should recognize the voice of that dude at the beach resort who says that "something like that happened to me once" when Nate recalls falling out of the plane. Sony is a multimedia company that has the pull to create cutting edge video games (like "Uncharted") and also distribute movies without that whole "rights" issue about its own proprietary characters and stories. That's good, and it feels like that's a contributing factor as to why Uncharted feels so faithful to its source material, even if it riffs on it a bit. But--and there's no slowing down the irony train--watching Uncharted feels even more like just watching the movies that inspired the game, rather than something wholly "original". That's not meant to imply that one shouldn't enjoy a movie on its own merits (like Uncharted) just because it's been done before. Uncharted largely carries over from the games its sharp wit and the dodgy loyalties between its characters. Nate is as "everyman" as one can expect from this kind of film--even if he is kind of ripped and lives in a loft apartment in New York City that I would be hard pressed to imagine that he could afford on his bartender's pay (no matter how savvy he is with twirling a bottle of gin). Once it gets going, though, the action stays consistent, even if it does swim through some outlandish and implausible waters, especially during the climax. But that doesn't matter. That you've seen heists at auction houses or spelunking into forgotten tombs in other films isn't the finer point to enjoying Uncharted. So even if the name is a misnomer--because the movie navigates through very charted territory--relax, enjoy, and game on.
Recommended for: Fans of adventure movies about treasure hunting with quick and snappy dialogue, roguish characters, and lots of big action set pieces. Uncharted is familiar, big-budget blockbuster fare, but for people on board with that--and fans of the games, to be sure--the movie is a fun, joyous romp.
Uncharted is not a note-for-note exact adaptation of the first video game, but draws elements from the entire series, like a reinterpretation of those stories. Case in point: Sam didn't even exist until he was "retconned" into the series in the fourth game, "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End". And a fellow treasure hunter with dubious loyalties named Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali) only emerged in the second game, showing up later in future entries as a cameo, before getting her own starring spot in "Uncharted: The Lost Legacy". But exact adaptations tend to be boring anyway; after all, if you're creating a movie for an audience already familiar with the source material, telling them the exact same story is redundant. Of course this brings up a fundamental flaw in adaptations of video games that are themselves described as "cinematic"; is there really something new to contribute in this different medium that hasn't been explored before? In the case of Uncharted, it's more that the movie represents an attempt to have its cake and eat it, too. By that I mean it is trying to appeal to a new audience (read: non-video gamers), while giving fans of the games something familiar yet a (little) bit different, like buying a pair of already worn-in jeans from the store. Uncharted is positively riddled with "Easter eggs", or nods to the games that (ironically) will gleefully fly right over the heads of newcomers to the story of Nathan Drake. I don't want to spoil too many of these, but fans of the games should recognize the voice of that dude at the beach resort who says that "something like that happened to me once" when Nate recalls falling out of the plane. Sony is a multimedia company that has the pull to create cutting edge video games (like "Uncharted") and also distribute movies without that whole "rights" issue about its own proprietary characters and stories. That's good, and it feels like that's a contributing factor as to why Uncharted feels so faithful to its source material, even if it riffs on it a bit. But--and there's no slowing down the irony train--watching Uncharted feels even more like just watching the movies that inspired the game, rather than something wholly "original". That's not meant to imply that one shouldn't enjoy a movie on its own merits (like Uncharted) just because it's been done before. Uncharted largely carries over from the games its sharp wit and the dodgy loyalties between its characters. Nate is as "everyman" as one can expect from this kind of film--even if he is kind of ripped and lives in a loft apartment in New York City that I would be hard pressed to imagine that he could afford on his bartender's pay (no matter how savvy he is with twirling a bottle of gin). Once it gets going, though, the action stays consistent, even if it does swim through some outlandish and implausible waters, especially during the climax. But that doesn't matter. That you've seen heists at auction houses or spelunking into forgotten tombs in other films isn't the finer point to enjoying Uncharted. So even if the name is a misnomer--because the movie navigates through very charted territory--relax, enjoy, and game on.
Recommended for: Fans of adventure movies about treasure hunting with quick and snappy dialogue, roguish characters, and lots of big action set pieces. Uncharted is familiar, big-budget blockbuster fare, but for people on board with that--and fans of the games, to be sure--the movie is a fun, joyous romp.