daniel chigunwe
Uncharted game series protagonist Nathan Drake owns a ring he claims came from his forebear, explorer Sir Francis Drake.
It’s engraved “Sic Parvis Magna,” or “Greatness from small beginnings.”
The game series reflected that motto, with the modest first instalment spawning three direct sequels, each better than the last.
But that greatness isn’t reflected in the movie version of Uncharted.
It’s a small beginning for a possible Sony film franchise, but yet another dud of a video game adaptation.
A glimmer of sequel potential is stowed away in a second post-credits scene, where a sudden burst of chemistry in the riffraff banter between treasure-hunting pals Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) and Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) is sure to make people wonder where such lively line deliveries have been for the last two hours.
For one minute, everything about the characters feels right, but it comes far too late.
Throughout the film, Zombieland and Venom helmer Ruben Fleischer and screenwriters Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway ping-pong between as many game franchise characters and new additions as they can possibly cram into one origin story. In the game series, the characterisation is more compact and robust.
The Drake-and-Sully duo function as the thieving core in the first instalment, before the designers expand their roster and flesh out their back story in subsequent entries.
The series’ villains have never been interesting, but there’s some personality behind motives like seeking the Tree of Life to gain eternal youth, or magicians attempting to fracture Nathan and Sully’s deeply established friendship.
That verve is missing in the film version as well.
The film version feels like the writers were assigned different aspects of adapting the Uncharted formula: puzzle-solving, sneaking around, parkour, and larger-than-life action.
The fragmented story makes it even more difficult for them to introduce and alternate between so many different characters. But even without the burden of introducing so many characters, the choices propelling Uncharted still lack stakes, genuine peril, fascinating twists on history, or adrenaline-pumping adventure.
Some of the action sequences are lifted straight from the games, most recognisably the much-advertised cargo-plane fight from Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, where Nathan free falls to what seems like certain death.
Fleischer and the writers find convenient ways to initiate the set piece — which in the games builds from a car chase in which the player jumps into the plane as it’s taking off on the runway — but in live-action it’s done with a blockbuster kitchen-sink method that can’t escalate the tension with so many characters in the mix.
It’s admirable that they want to shake up the familiar elements, but there’s no weight or emotional gravitas to anything that happens. (Also, anyone who’s played these games knows nothing should come easy or convenient for Nathan Drake.)
The Uncharted games have never focused on realistic action, but some moments in the film adaptation still stretch the fantasy a bit too far.
(There’s some business with a sports car that would make Dominic Toretto blush with embarrassment.) It’s as if no one bothered to consider how cartoonish chaos would come across in the context of a two-hour movie that veers between serious and light hearted.
There’s no room for any spectacle to stand out, or for the characters to develop a rapport organically.
Various fight sequences are choppily and rapidly edited together, surrounded by obvious green screens.
That’s a particular disappointment, considering the four mainline Uncharted games consistently pushed the boundaries of what the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 could achieve graphically.
Worst of all, the central characters lack even a trace of dimension. In defence of Tom Holland, his basic movements — punching combos, climbing, and positioning behind objects when sneaking — are so carefully calibrated to his video game counterpart that when no one is speaking, and there is a moment of coherence in the action, it’s briefly thrilling to see Drake brought to life so efficiently on the silver screen. Even the way Nathan Drake and Sully disperse upon entering a Barcelona church to look for clues feels like it’s modelled after the games, with the audience in the action, searching alongside the characters.– thevergeunchartedreview
Peter Tanyanyiwa
Online Reporter