Uncharted: An Adventurous Review

Uncharted is the long-awaited film adaptation of the popular video game franchise. The film serves as a prequel to the video game series and focuses on a younger version of the protagonist of the series, Nathan Drake. It also has a star-studded cast that includes Tom Holland as Nathan Drake, Mark Wahlberg as Victor Sullivan, Sophia Ali as Chloe Frazer, and Antonio Banderas as Santiago Moncada. There are high-flying stunts, action-packed fight scenes, and quippy dialogue interactions that fill up the bulk of the movie. Some scenes in the movie are either inspired or taken straight from the video game series as well. 

The main plot of the movie focuses on a young Nathan Drake going on an adventure with Victor Sullivan and Chloe Frazer. Together, they must find the treasure from Ferdinand Magellan because they believe it will lead to Nathan’s long-lost brother, Sam. Along the way, they encounter evil villains, deadly booby traps, complex puzzle-solving mysteries, and unexpecting betrayals along the way. This makes their quest to find Ferdinand’s treasure a crazy adventure. 

As both a fan of the Uncharted video games and movie, I think this film is in the mix between both bad and good. On the positive side of things, the film has good action and fight sequences. This is because the fight scenes are well choreographed and filmed. They are also realistic because it is mostly hand-to-hand combats and fast swinging punches. It also has well filmed action sequences that would be fit in the world of Uncharted. At one point, there is an action sequence that takes place on a plane, which is a sequence that is taken directly from the third game, Uncharted: Drake’s Deception. Another good takeaway is Tom Holland’s performance as Drake. He has the quips, sense of humor, and fighting skills that make him like the Drake from the video game series. He carries the film with all these skills in hand.

On the other hand, the film suffers some setbacks that drag the movie down. One of the things that drag the film is the basic and generic plot. This is because the film follows the usual format of other adventure films like Raiders of The Lost Ark. This format is when the adventurer goes on a mission to travel across the world with his/her love interest and/or friend to find a lost artifact and fight evil villains along the way. This generic format makes the movie unoriginal and predictable due to its formula. Another big setback is the lack of depth and character given to the villains of the movie The villains of this movie are rich bad guys who want to find and use the treasure for their own villainous and greedy purposes. These bad guys are the types we see in most movies nowadays that they come off as being bland, boring, and uninteresting characters. 

Overall, I think this film is an alright film for something that is based on a very popular video game series. The film has its good marks while at other times it has its bad ones. The good marks mainly come from the performance of its main star, the action-packed stunts and fight scenes and the homages that honor the game series. The bad marks mainly come from its lack of originality in its plot along with the uninteresting villains of the movie. In the end, the movie is still enjoyable for both average moviegoers and fans of the games because of the entertainment and story it presents to its audience.