 Well, Sony finally did it. They got the Uncharted film made after what feels like an eternity of attempts. Failed scripts, lost directors, changed actors, but here we are. 2022 Uncharted. This is a trick you want to talk about as I am an avid gamer and a big fan of this property. The video game series has been amazing. I love the storytelling, the voice acting, the characters. They've had five games from Naughty Dog, The Creators, Uncharted 1 through 4, and then The Lost Legacy. Plus, there was a spin-off game that was only on the Vita, and I think there was a card game at some point. I didn't play those two, but I've played all the major ones. So when they announced Uncharted, I was very scared. This was a property that's near and dear to my heart. I love the Indiana Jones style to it. Nathan is such a great character. He's fun. He's reckless. He's got that smart-ass charm to him. And when it was announced that Mark Wahlberg was gonna play Nathan Drake, resounding no from me. Hell no, as a matter of fact. Mark Wahlberg barely acts as it is. He's always just himself. And sometimes that's perfectly fine. You got guys like Jason Statham, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Dwayne Johnson. They're pretty much themselves all the time, but their coolness and their charisma is enough to carry it forward. But anyway, he's set aside, and then Chris Pratt gets announced later, and I'm still thinking, No, this is better, but still, no. We have Nathan Fillion right there. He's right there ready to go. In fact, he actually played Nathan Drake once for a short unofficial web film. It was like 10 minutes long or less. Really well done though. This is just tricky, because unlike with books, it's easier to separate that medium from the movie than it is, say, a video game, because you're actually seeing the character. You're hearing the character, and you're controlling them often, or you're interacting with the others. So you really do grow attached to them and what they look and sound like. Now, I think if the essence of the character is brought to the big screen, and they don't lose a lot of it in translation, that's fine. I mean, I think that's fair. Unfortunately for fans of the video game series like myself, this film does absolutely miss the mark with these characters. Tom Holland's a great actor for certain roles. He's not convincing me in the slightest, though, that he's anybody else, but Peter Parker here. You can put Sir Drake's ring around your neck, but you're not fooling anyone. Mark Wahlberg? Not even trying. Not even attempting to do sully. He calls him kid. I guess that's as much as he thought was necessary. No cigar, no mustache, unless it's after the credits. I didn't stay for him. So maybe you get that tease at the end, but no. No, it didn't happen. Now when I initially talked about the trailer, people were like, this guy's clearly not played the games, or he would know that young Nathan Drake is in Uncharted 3. Yeah, I know that. I know that. Young Nathan Drake isn't interesting, though. He hasn't grown up yet. He hasn't had the experiences that make him the character we love and think is funny. And that's the problem with Tom Holland. He still looks like he's a kid. Like, I look at the guy and I think maybe 20? He's probably 30, for all I know, but it doesn't come off that way. Which is really awkward, five minutes into the film when they do a flashback 15 years earlier. And I'm sitting in my head thinking 15 years? That's a long- what is he, three? Because the character in this flashback is clearly 15, and he looks like he's three years younger than Tom Holland. Tom Holland changed his appearance a lot in three years. The film is very much an amalgamation of some of the set pieces and moments from the other games. Those of you looking forward to Elena Fisher will be disappointed. She's nowhere to be found in this. Instead, Chloe Fraser, who is my dream. I love Chloe. She's so good in those games. And this is definitely the closest to the video game counterpart we get. Unfortunately, the actress, as lovely as she is, isn't pulling the camper I've grown very fond of from the Uncharted games. That ass will be missed. I will remember you, will you remember me? Don't let your ass pass you by. Fun fact, I finished the review and then completely forgot that I didn't talk about Antonio Banderas as the villain. That's how uninteresting he is. And I love Antonio Banderas and was actually looking forward to him as the bad guy here. He's just he's just kind of nothing. There's just nothing to him. It's a shame because they kind of present him as one of Sully's big adversaries from the past and they never have an interaction. In fact, Drake and him only communicate one time for like a 20-second sequence. And that's it. The thing that is woefully missing here is that beautiful theme song. You can hear it twice, I think. It's very subtle. For the most part, you're not getting that big orchestra, that big bombastic sound. Instead, it's replaced with this very generic theme that is constantly in your ears. Oftentimes unwarranted. Alright, video games stuff aside, let's pretend the Uncharted games don't exist and we're taking this at face value. How does it hold up that? Well, I'd say it's pretty mediocre. As far as the plot goes, it's a treasure hunting expedition and those are always up my alley. We see our characters jump from location to location as they try to track down the house of Moncada's lost treasure that's been sitting for 500 years just waiting to be found. There's some good double crosses in the film. Triple crosses, quadruple crosses. Hell, they're looking for keys that are crosses. It's big on the crosses. The chemistry between Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg is awkward. Sometimes it works. Oftentimes, I feel like Mark Wahlberg's just kind of an ass and not in the same way Sully was from the games. Here, since Mark Wahlberg's not really that old yet, he doesn't have the grays, he just kind of comes off as lazy because oftentimes you won't participate in the action moments and you'll be like, I gotta check out the door over here kid or I gotta go do this. He just comes off as kind of a jerk. Instead of the wise, lovable old dog that Sully is from the games. As far as video game movies are concerned, which have a terrible rap and for a good reason, they're almost always awful, this is sadly probably the best one yet. I say sadly because it's so far separated from the characters I love from the video games and I'm sure they're gonna make more of these if it's successful and that's kind of a bummer. It sucks because Sony clearly put a ton of money into this and you can see it on the screen. There's some large-scale action, especially in the third act, which just gets incredibly dumb. Like we're talking some of the dumbest shit you'll ever see. The script as a whole is pretty messy. People just show up conveniently when they need to. Oh, we need to get pirate ships out of this cave? It's a good thing we have a giant cruiser on standby with two massive choppers to pull them out of the convenient opening at the top. Are you kidding me? Hey Sully, I need you to come and do that plane. Sure thing kid. Let me just quickly scale up hundreds of feet of chain dangling high in the air while I have a backpack full of gold weighing me down. We won't show that though. I'll just warp from the ship to the plane. Lots of dumb shit like that. The movie's also really hell-bent on Nathan Drake reading postcards that are nothing more than one sentence. We're talking six words, and I guess the director thought audiences were too fucking dumb to read six words on a postcard, so they have the actor narrate what's being said. Dear Nathan, I love you, your brother Sam XOXO. There's plenty of parkour, only a few hand-to-hand fights, and almost no shooting of guns. Remember the games where you have a gun all the time, and you're constantly shooting dudes? Yeah, I don't think Nathan Drake in this shoots anyone. He might kill one or two people with a gun towards the end, but he probably apologized right afterwards, which was also weird when he kills a guy on the plane, and then he's like, Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to do that. What? Why that guy? Why single him out? You've murdered others. It's just there's so many weird choices in this. The bottom line, it's okay. If you have very little expectations, you just want to waste an hour and a half. Thankfully, it's only an hour and a half. For me, this is a movie you watch at home when you're bored and have nothing better to do, and that's about it. And that's sad to say about an uncharted film because these games deserve better. I'd love to hear from you now. Have you seen the film? Did you love it? Am I way off? And this is a great representation of the video games, or are you like me and you thought, man, this was better than I thought, but it was still not very good. Like the video if you had a good time. Subscribe if you want. I put out movie content constantly, and I'd love to see you stick around. Things that weren't in the film from the video game. Sully never says, Drake! No! Tom Holland never has to crouch down awkwardly to grab a treasure glimmering in the corner. The film never needs to be masked by loading, as Nathan Drake side shuffles through a cavern. And while he does boost Chloe Fraser up like he does in the game multiple times, we don't get that perfect ass shot looking up. So what was the point, you know? What was it all worth?