Kevin Wang
Staff reporter
The Uncharted movie, based on the popular video game series of the same name, has created a lot of buzz after its release on February 17.
The Uncharted film follows the origin story of a young Nathan Drake (Tom Holland), after being recruited by treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), to retrieve Ferdinand Magellan’s lost fortune. The hunt becomes a race against Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas), as to who can get to the treasure first.
After a controversial trailer released October last year, many fans were worried it was going to be a poorly made film adaptation of another popular franchise. Luckily, it seems that Sony knew what they were doing.
While the film isn’t the most original, it is well-paced and entertaining. It’s a witch’s cauldron of every adventure movie with a little sprinkle of video game and just an appetizer to the much larger world of Uncharted, adapting bits from each of the games.
One trend that seems to happen to movie adaptations is the casting of popular actors, despite how well they portray the characters they play. The Uncharted movie is no exception, with the casting of Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg. Holland’s acting was charismatic as always, but he never fully portrays Nathan Drake from the games. Wahlberg’s Sully was even more unfitting, missing Sully’s iconic mustache and booming voice. Despite that, Wahlberg’s chemistry with Holland was still entertaining to watch and those few flaws can be easily overlooked by people unfamiliar with the games.
Additionally, the film medium lacks the immersion of being actively a part of the action and decisions made by the characters, the reason why video games such as Uncharted are fun to play. This means that when adapting these games into film, it feels as if something has been taken away. For anyone who has played the games, this feeling will likely stick throughout the action sequences in the movie. Although action scenes in the movie are dramatic, it is still more fun and challenging to play the games yourself than watching Tom Holland do it.
A comparison between the movie version and game version one scene can be found on IGN’s YouTube channel.
The Uncharted film is like any other action-adventure treasure hunt film, full of action-packed sequences and some near-impossible stunts and scenarios. Although it’s a simple movie, it is still entertaining and does capture the sometimes-cartoonish nature of the Uncharted games. Although there was never a strong sense of danger, there was always a great sense of adventure and discovery. The movie will likely play better for those who haven’t played games than diehard Uncharted fans. But even for those, there are still things to like about this movie.