In Review: Uncharted

Synopsis: In Uncharted Street-smart Nathan Drake is recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan, and lost 500 years ago by the House of Moncada.

The Story

Based on the hugely popular video game series. Uncharted gives us the cinematic take on how Nathan Drake and Victor “Sully” Sullivan first met and follows them on their very first adventure. The story begins by showing us a brief flashback to when Nathan Drake is about 10. He’s just been out with his older brother Sam and the two have been caught trying to rip off an antique map from a museum. The two boys are separated as Sam runs away from the police and Nate is left behind in the orphanage.

Some years later. Nathan is now working as a bartender in a New York bar and is ripping off customers by using his skills as a pickpocket. When he steals a bracelet from a wealthy young woman. It gets the attention of Victor Sullivan aka Sully. When they first meet Nathan is reluctant to work with Sully, but when he finds out that Sully’s promise of adventure is the real deal he happily signs on and uses his knowledge of history to help Sully track down treasures.

Sully and Nate’s first misadventure leads them to an auction for a gold Spanish crucifix, which happens to be one of two keys to finding Ferdinand Magellan’s lost treasure. However, they are not alone in their search for treasure. As Billionaire Santiago Moncada and his muscle Braddock are also looking for the gold and they are not going to play nice. 

The Acting

Tom Holland does a pretty good job of the Nathan Drake role and manages to pull off the smart-ass remarks that Dake is known for with just the right amount of sass. I loved the scene where he comes into contact with Braddock’s Scottish thug and bites off a little more than he can chew.

Mark Wahlberg manages to pull off Sully, but this is a slightly different take on the character than the one that we see in the video games. And the circumstances in how Sully and Nate meet are changed for the film because in the game series Sully meets Nathan when he is still a kid. Tati Gabrielle is brilliant fun as Braddock who makes for a fun villain and is brilliantly ruthless in the role, but also adds a little playfulness to it. Antonio Banderas is pretty solid as Santiago Moncada who feels that the Magellan treasure is his by right.

Overall

While this movie isn’t as bad as the critics are saying it is. It doesn’t quite hit the mark for me as an Uncharted film. I mean sure we get a lot of great action beats that are very obviously inspired by the game series and Tom Holland does a great job of playing Nathan Drake. But the film felt a little rushed in parts. And as such didn’t quite capture the subtle nuances and feel of the game series.

The scenes in Barcelona where Nate, Sully, and Chloe are working out the various puzzles and unlocking the clues that lead to the treasure map. These scenes felt very rushed and It felt like they rushed through the puzzles because we didn’t really see too much of Nate actually figuring things out. Nor did I get any sense of excitement from the discovery of the new clues. It just very much felt like a means to an end to get to the next action beat. Which is not really in the spirit of the games series that the movie is based on.

Overall. The film’s story works pretty well and we get some great action beats that are lifted from the games series. But the lack of time and effort spent on the puzzle elements and the lack of that eureka type of moment when Drake figures something out kind of killed it a little for me. In short, not a bad action movie, but not quite on the same par as the Uncharted game series. But it definitely gets points for effort.