Uncharted Movie Review

Uncharted has the ingredients to be a fun action flick: great cast, intriguing storyline based on a video game, and fun action sequences. Tom Holland takes some time off being Spider-Man to play as Nathan Drake. Holland brings the necessary level of sass, skill and humor that makes Nathan Drake a fun character to watch. He is joined by Mark Wahlberg, as Victor “Sully” Sullivan, who puts on an equally entertaining performance. Wahlberg plays his typical snappy, quick witted self, but it worked for the story he was given. Uncharted is also packed full of action sequences that were overly ridiculous, but made the movie fun to watch. The most exciting of these was when Nathan is hanging on by a foot on an open cargo door of an airplane, thousands of feet in the air! The scene defied the laws of physics, but because it was entertaining, fans are sure to let it slide.

Unfortunately, these were not enough to overcome Uncharted’s flaws such as being bogged down by poor storytelling, awkward pacing, and shotty editing. The biggest issue with the storyline was how it treated its main villain. Antonio Banderas plays the main antagonist Santiago Moncada. Moncada is part of a wealthy family who claims ownership of this missing treasure that Nathan Drake is trying to acquire. He has a compelling backstory and motivation. So it makes no sense why mid-way through the movie does it shift to a new villain named Braddock (played by Tati Gabrielle) who up till that point was only a major henchman to Moncada. Uncharted then had a villain who was given no proper build up and who had no clear motivation or connection to the treasure other than the cliched “For the money”. This was a deflating swerve by the movie that took all investment out of the story. 

Uncharted also had rapid pacing that made the relationships between characters awkward. There’s a moment in the film where Nathan’s trust in Sully is completely shattered, but after a few minutes, he simply moves on from it and continues the story. Uncharted never gave the relationships time to properly develop, making it difficult for the audience to connect with them.

While the action scenes were entertaining, there were moments during the finale where the editing started to break down. Nathan was fighting bad guys on a flying pirate ship (You read that right) and between every attack, there was a cut so the screen was flashing like a strobe light. This caused the entire scene to be nauseating to watch and ruined what could have been an awesome fight scene.

Uncharted isn’t the worst video game movie out there, but it shouldn’t be considered a good movie. This is a movie that could be watched or skipped. Either way, it will have no impact on anyone’s life.