A black hole of charm, Sony’s Uncharted is the opposite of inspired. Everything about this lazy, expensive, haphazard adaptation of the popular Playstation exclusive reeks of assembly-line blockbuster manufacturing. For a wannabe franchise-launching starting block, one that clocks in with an aggressive $120 million dollar budget, Uncharted feels little more than a hack pastiche of adventure movie tropes, airlifted in from better treasure hunter films and spackled with a coat of snide Mark Wahlberg one-liners. It’s painful by virtue of just how adamantly risk-averse and paint-by-numbers just about everything on screen ends up being.
Adapted fairly directly from the Naughty Dog game franchise that began in 2007 and has since spawned three direct sequels and a couple of spin-offs, Uncharted plays fast and loose with characterization, turning series stars Nathan Drake and Victor “Sully” Sullivan into bland action stars with little personality to call their own. From the jump, Tom Holland (Drake) and Wahlberg (Sully) seemed like questionable casting choices and, having seen the film, I can confirm that they were indeed terribly miscast for their roles.
Holland brings a whiff of spark to his version of Drake but he’s such a bland actor decidedly making few actual “choices” with his take that absolutely nothing pops about the character. He reminds us of Nathan Drake because he’s clothed like the character we remember, nothing more. That said, he’s far better suited to Nathan Drake than Wahlberg is to Sully. Wahlberg misses the mark entirely. Not only does he look or sound nothing like the character, he has none of his brackish appeal and acts as a source of annoyance rather than a guiding mentor.
Tom Holland does technically look the part (especially from behind) but his youthful lack of experience just don’t fit the character as experienced in the game. I’m by no means a purist when it comes to adapting a video game property into a film but having Nathan Drake be an orphan turned New York bartender/petty thief only makes sense until he suddenly knows how to drive a boat or fire a weapon with deadly accuracy. Uncharted just kind of bumbles from moment to moment, too busy with plot double crosses and cringy humor to dig into who these characters are and what makes them interesting.
[READ MORE: Our review of 2018’s ‘Tomb Raider’ starring Alicia Vikanderr]
The beginning of Uncharted speaks to the sloppy ride in store, the film from Ruben Fleischer (Zombieland, Venom) starting with a flash forward then a flash back before finally settling into “Present Day”. After Nate’s older brother Sam left him in the lurch years prior, the small-time thief has been left to his own devices, lifting jewelry off patrons at the swanky NYC bar he tends to. Drake is swiftly recruited by roguish ex-Navy officer Sully to find the legendary pile of treasure left behind by Megellan, battling Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) and Jo Braddock (Tati Gabrielle) along the way. Because treasure. Then there’s Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), a completely untrustworthy ally who seemingly can’t help but double cross Drake and company every other scene. The adventure plays out predictably and features almost no single moments worthy of note.
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Filmed throughout Spain, Uncharted occasionally boasts the kind of impressive vistas one expects from a globe-trotting adventure film. And though Fleischer tries to achieve a kinetic first-person action style (to mixed effect), the execution of various set pieces is questionable at best, downright laughable at worst. Rather than lean into the over-the-top bombast of it all, Fleischer apes instead from Tomb Raider, The Goonies, and – most of all – Raiders of the Lost Ark but with no style to call his own. Uncharted is pure pastiche, an indulgently over-priced knock-off that can’t manage to achieve even the most basic task of ameliorating audiences to its characters. 
[READ MORE: Our review of ‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’ starring Tom Holland]
Yes, the film is based predominantly on 2016’s “Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End” game, but Uncharted has been a pretty blatant spin on Indiana Jones from the get go. The fact that Fleischer’s film fails to inject any of the definitive material that helps distinguish Unchartered as a game from those other more familiar action-adventure series speaks to its ill-conceived approach. Much like the treasure seekers at the heart of the film are motivated by the lure of riches they’ll likely never get, so too is Uncharted an insipid cash grab – and so too does it come up empty-handed.
CONCLUSION: This tame adaptation of the popular Playstation game series manages to strip the charm out of the franchise, due partially to poorly cast leads in Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, neither of whom manage to make this flavorless adventure – which borrows liberally from other better action-adventure films – any fun at all.
D+
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By: Matt Oakes
Matt Oakes is the founder and editor-in-chief of Silver Screen Riot. A Tomatometer-approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes, he’s a founding member of the Seattle Film Critics Society and a member of the Online Film Critics Society. He started writing about movies in college, when the university paper wouldn’t have him, and has been reviewing ever since, covering festivals like Sundance and SIFF along the way. He has a soft spot for horror movies that make him die a little inside, a healthy skepticism of film Twitter’s consensus favorites, and a philosophy degree he swears is relevant. He’s based in Seattle.
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