Uncharted Film Review: Adventures Of Nathan Drake Finally Comes To Life, In A Fun And Full Of Adventure
Stars: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and half star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Based on the popular video game franchise from Naughty Dog, Uncharted would have all the ingredients to be the beginning of a fun and enduring film saga. But as often happens, the ingredients, if not mixed well, once combined leave that feeling of bitterness in the mouth that is not always forgivable. But fortunately, this time, the sum of the pros outweighs the cons and in the end what comes out is a film that entertains and entertains.
The PlayStation Productions intro, which accompanies the opening credits of the Uncharted film by putting some of the most important recent videogame icons of the Sony brand on the catwalk, is undoubtedly a declaration of intent on the long-term cross-media project that is looming between cinema and video games. But it is above all a message to fans of the PlayStation brand about how operations such as Uncharted – but also the upcoming TV series of The Last of Us – are products designed primarily for the community, with the aim of embracing an even wider audience thanks to the big screen. The choice to focus on a young face like Tom Holland, even at the cost of upsetting the original characterization of Nathan Drake, after all, it speaks for itself.
Yet there is something magnetic in this film adaptation of the Naughty Dog saga, directed by Ruben Fleischer with the air of someone who knows that he must first of all make a gift to the audience. Something that, net of indisputable defects in the writing phase, made us leave the room with a shy smile. That something, perhaps, is the evident passion with which the product was packaged, are the quotes and references – now shameless, now veiled – even to the smallest of the elements that have made the Drake saga a real cult. It will be that the taste for the unexplored has pervaded us from the first minute, and that net of some forcing that mark the passage from the videogame to the room we realized that in the end the new Sony Pictures production works and has fun.
Uncharted Film Review: The Story
Based on one of the best-selling and critically acclaimed video game series, Uncharted introduces the crafty young Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) to audiences in his first treasure hunt adventure with witty partner Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg). In an epic action-packed adventure that spans the entire world, the two protagonists set out on a perilous search for the “greatest treasure ever found”, chasing clues that could lead them to Nathan’s long-missing brother.
The fact that the Uncharted film actually saw the light is in itself a miracle, after the troubled gestation that has lasted since 2009. A project that has transformed over the years, to the point of assuming the final form of a sort of prequel. With a Nate a Sully younger than their interactive counterparts, which at the same time represented a sort of cinematic reboot?
Because, if there is no doubt that Fleischer’s film tells an adventure that Naughty Dog has never explicitly shown us – that is the very first epic of Drake and Sullivan as “partners” – it is also true that this Uncharted for the big screen tells the origins of Nate again, partly paying homage and partly deviating from what was seen in the flashbacks of the third and fourth instalments on PlayStation. Yet the narrative structure is confirmed from the beginning by another quote from the writing of Neil Druckmann and associates. The feature film with Holland opens in medias res, with the reckless Nate involved in a disaster, without telling us anything about how he got there. It is only afterwards, with appropriate flashbacks that delve into both the distant past and the more recent one of the character, that the first act of the film reconstructs Nathan’s childhood and the background of his journey into the unknown, in an initial half hour.
In short, right from the start, the film adaptation explicitly declares its intentions: to tell elements already known to fans of the franchise, remodelling them in a format suitable for the room, borrowing scenes (and even shots) directly from the most iconic and spectacular sequences of videogames. . Then, in the middle of the story, something changes, albeit temporarily. It is in the Nate-Sully dynamic that Fleischer’s work differs slightly from that of Naughty Dog, starting from the first meeting between the two protagonists, modernized and adapted: Nathan is a young thief who works as a bartender in a luxury club, and exploits his deception skills to live for the day and steal precious objects from his unfortunate customers.
He is also an orphan and for nearly a decade has lived without his brother Sam, who at an early age was forced to flee the law with a promise to be reunited sooner or later. All that Sam left to Nate was a ring, the legacy of the legendary privateer Sir Francis Drake of whom the boys proclaim themselves descendants, and a passion for history, as well as for hidden treasures never found again. Sam’s obsession was all about the lost riches of Magellan, who is said to have circumnavigated the world by amassing gold in immeasurable quantities.
And it is precisely on those precious ones that Victor Sullivan, an adventurer collector with unorthodox and not exactly legal ways, has laid his eyes, setting out in search of the young Nate to continue that of a missing Sam Drake. And, as per the canon for the videogame franchise itself, once they have allied themselves, the two must deal with a powerful ally: the villain played by Antonio Banderas more or less faithfully embodies the values of a classic Uncharted antagonist, obsessed with a treasure that he thinks about the duties of law and surrounded by a large group of mercenaries. And it is therefore along the second act, as well as in the third, that the Uncharted film returns to the trappings of the original work, taking us around the world, in search of clues about Magellan’s treasure, between secret ravines and puzzles to be solved, up to the explosive final showdown.
Uncharted Film Review and Analysis
Not everything works very well in the narrative mechanism of this title, and probably the choices that differ from the videogame story are the least convincing. Starting therefore from an ambiguous bond that is created between Nate and Sully, including the dynamics of their first meeting. We must admit that in this passage from one medium to another, in fact, the differences with respect to the original characterization of the protagonists did not seem particularly incisive, and on the whole the feeling is that most of the characters lack the depth and charisma of the characters interactive counterparts. In truth, it is Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, who at least bring to the screen a convincing and close-knit version of the Nate-Sully couple, who, net of a not too encouraging start, gradually transforms into the duo that many players have learned to love.
The same process does not always involve (and is well suited) to other supporting actors, such as Chloe Frazer (Sophia Taylor Ali). However, it should be emphasized how much this Uncharted is first of all an origin story, which only along the way gives shape to the protagonists introduced in 2007 by Naughty Dog. Furthermore, the entire story is proposed to a general public in a setting that looks above all to the theme of the family and the Bildungsroman, elements that actually flatten the rhythm of the narrative during the second act. In short, some writing ingredients do not make you cry out for a miracle in Uncharted a film that however makes up for its flaws thanks to a huge but appropriate dose of fan base.
The action scaffold, as well as the art direction, look with respect and admiration to the substantially perfect direction of the franchise on PlayStation (speaking of genre cinema, we explained some time ago how Uncharted between video game and cinema was already perfect in itself). It should be emphasized that in some moments – among which the plane scene or some flashback reconstructions stands out – Fleischer’s direction is transformed into a carbon copy of some extracts, especially from Drake’s Deception and End of a Thief.
In this sense, the fine line between quotations and shameless copying is left above all to the sensitivity of the public, although the best of itself the film shows it precisely on the occasion of some original ideas that do not betray the spirit of Uncharted, but rather evolve it by going even beyond the pleasant and adrenaline-pumping exaggerations of Naughty Dog. This is the case of the final confrontation, set on two pirate galleons flown over the Caribbean Sea, as well as a secret ending capable of snatching more than a few tasty thrills.
Overall, the action component of Uncharted turns out to be good and will satisfy an audience looking for an adventurous and spectacular story. It must be admitted that in no time the feature film manages to perfectly recreate the dynamism and adrenaline of the most incredible moments of the original, and this is perhaps the main flaw of a film designed above all to be placed in the judgment of gamers.
But it is also true that, at the end of its 115 minutes of viewing, the Uncharted with Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg nevertheless hits its target: it is fun and passionate, also and thanks above all to its extreme quotations and, thanks to the liking of its audience, the PlayStation Productions title can represent a shy but convincing beginning for something truly ambitious, including a return of Drake and Sully in cinematic format. Who knows if even Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, protagonists of a work with measured but concrete ambitions, will really succeed in going “from humble origins towards great enterprises”?.
Uncharted Film Review: The Last Words
The Naughty Dog video game comes to life in a film that is halfway between a prequel and a reboot and which, on the whole, works as a pure fan service operation. Uncharted with Tom Holland is a fun and adventurous film, which entertains properly when it openly mentions the source material and stumbles upon some original cue that does not reveal itself to the level of video games. Ruben Fleischer directs an origin story without huge creative leaps, but treating the original saga with respect and love. All in all, PlayStation Productions’ big-screen journey seems to have started off on the right foot.
