UNCHARTED

Stars: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle and Steven Waddington.
Writers: Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway.
Director: Ruben Fleischer

Rating: ★ ½ 

I vaguely knew Uncharted was a successful video game series and that fans have been frothing at the mouth over a bigscreen reworking of the adventures of petty crim Nathan Drake and his recruiter, sly ol’ treasure hunter Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan. I do know that they haven’t been pining for this film, it’s fair to say.   

It’s been 20 years since Drake (Spidey himself, Tom Holland) has seen his older brother Sam, so when Sully (Mark Wahlberg) promises both a huge payday and some hope for the bros to reunite, Drake is all in. Two bejewelled amulets are the keys to a series of adventures, first in the tunnels below San Sebastian, where they are joined by fellow adventurer Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), then to the tropical island resting place of the bounty they seek - all this while, dodging ruthless billionaire Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) and the blade-wielding Braddock (Tati Gabrielle).

Wikipedia describes the gameplay as “jumping, swimming, climbing, swinging from ropes, shooting, combat, puzzle solving, driving, boat riding, and other acrobatic actions.” In that regard, the film has people doing all those things. But there is little connective tissue between the character and their actions; like the game, it feels like Drake and Sully just have to go through this bit to get to that bit. Holland and Wahlberg are repeatedly made to look like not-quite the action film buddies they were paid to be.

An obvious template is being employed here to transfer the platform game format into a movie, or at least back into a movie; the game was apparently a riff on globe-hopping adventures like Raiders of the Lost Ark and National Treasure. That partially explains the ‘copy-of-a-copy’ dullness, a film so relentlessly derivative, so cut from the shopworn, tatty cloth of dozens of better films, it never finds its own reason-for-being. Instead, it just creaks and groans towards its CGI-cartoon conclusion. 

Ultimately I could care less about this plodding dirge of a film but I do want to point out the most dispiriting thing about this whole mess. Every villain that is trying to derail our white-guy heroes is a) a woman, and/or b) a ‘foreigner’. It is wildly ironic that the only references to the action-adventure films of the past that Uncharted mimics with any skill are the ugliest, most outdated elements.