Uncharted

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Uncharted is the film adaptation of the hit video game adventure series of the same name. In this our young protagonist, Nathan Drake, joins forces with treasure hunter, Victor Sullivan, to discover the missing House of Moncada fortune and his long-lost brother, Sam. The film really came alive whenever it got to play with its adventure origins, seeing our heroes trek their way through ruins solving puzzles or navigate a midair gunfight while scrabbling for a parachute. These moments have a lot of pulse to them and are often quite well-choreographed. I also felt that seeing the balance of power shift between the natagonists was one of the only halfway decent plot twists of the film. The practical stuntwork at hand looks great, especially the plane scene which is highlighted spectacularly. I felt the cinematography was nothing jaw-dropping but Fleischer achieved a visual style that contained the scale of the blockbuster well. The visual effects for that final boat/helicoptor chase was also not too shabby.

 

Antonio Banderas, who played Santiago Moncada, gives one of the better performances I've seen from him in recent years; the way he is coldly driven by a sense of birthright is played with both grace and menace expertly. Tati Gabrielle, who played Braddock, is one truly fearsome antagonist with a ruthless streak to her; I think the bloodthirsty edge Gabrielle lends to her role is what makes her even deadlier than Banderas in some ways. Steven Waddington, who played The Scotsman, is a more comedic antagonist with an intense physical presence; Waddington leaning into a strong Scottish brogue leads to some of the funniest line delivery in the film. Manuel de Blas, who played Armando Moncada, is a more tempered figure of wealth than his on-screen son, Banderas; seeing de Blas try to temper and control Banderas' wild ambitions made for a great early power struggle. Nolan North, who played Hotel Guest, might just be one of the best cameos I've seen in a good long time; the tongue in cheek humour used by having Nathan Drake meet Nathan Drake is expertly done.

 

I really have to commend Mark Wahlberg, who played Victor Sullivan. The man spent a lot of the movie working really hard to keep the tone, humour and stakes of the feature very present and it was clear he was one of the most veteran performers in the cast list. He just has a lot of gusto and confidence from the moment he appears, this is a role who knows how to play a room and furthermore, all the players in it. Seeing Wahlberg twist and turn Holland's Drake is a lot of fun, and the comedic banter between the two is an added bonus. I loved the constant lack of trust for others Sully shows, Wahlberg always seems to have a colder edge to anyone who isn't Holland. This also ties quite strongly to the ultimate character arc Sully faces of choosing between personal gain and loyalty to others which rounds out in a very satisfying way. Mark Wahlberg is one of the leads that really keeps this film consistent and a lot of what works stems from his acting.

 

This is a film that worked hard to make those big moments of adventure thrilling and epic in scale, but the rest of the feature felt very poorly crafted. Nathan Drake is motivated by this need to find his brother but we don't necessarily feel that urgency or connection from the one flashback scene we have at the start of the film. In fact the solution to this is to have a number of voice overs from the actor who played Sam Drake, peppered throughout the film. It was a very weak way to make us feel like Nathan was personally motivated by this quest. Beyond this there's this whole story arc around trust and both the protagonists and antagonists are double crossing one another constantly. It grows tiring having every second dialogue line basically be, "You can't trust him kid" or something of that sentiment. Uncharted feels impatient to jump to the action sequences, for instance Nathan almost immediately joins up with Sully after declining him in the previous scene. The film fails to understand how to progress its characters beyond a very surface level change, the characters are all in their own way quite alike when you examine their personalities and motivations. I don't think I've seen a blockbuster this slowly pieced together in a while, and I certainly felt giving us the plane scene twice was quite over the top. I admire Ramin Djawadi as a composer but he gave one of his blandest scores yet for Uncharted, the tracks were generic adventure fanfare that felt like they'd been pulled out of an early 2000s blockbuster. 

Tom Holland, who played Nathan Drake, comes at the role with a lot of charisma but is never quite right for the part; Drake is clearly written to be a little cocky and self-confident while Holland still brings some of that awkward but charming energy we more associate with his Peter Parker role. Sophia Ali, who played Chloe Frazer, has one of the most ghastly Australian accents I've had to listen to; her role felt like a broken record giving speeches about not trusting anyone every second scene. Tiernan Jones and Rudy Pankow, who played Young Nate and Young Sam respectively, weren't very compelling as these young sibling thieves/would-be treasure hunters; Pankow in particular delivered some quite empty lines about how much he cared before disappearing into the night. We never truly came to appreciate what these characters were like younger so it was very hard to empathise with Nate missing his brother later in life.

A passing adventure feature that never really escapes the curse of video game to film adaptations. I would give Uncharted  a 5.5/10.