Uncharted

The Doctor’s Diagnosis: C

               Uncharted, my ass. There isn’t a damn thing in this movie that hasn’t been done in a dozen other adventure films. The obvious comparison is the Indiana Jones franchise, but those films have already been copied so many times that Uncharted feels like a cover band that was inspired by another cover band. They are technically hitting the right notes, but are so far removed from the original that they can aspire to be little more than a passable clone. If Raiders of the Lost Ark is AC/DC playing Madison Square Garden, then Uncharted is the cover band playing your local tavern and hoping that everyone is too drunk to remember that Back in Black is supposed to have a guitar solo in it. Watching Uncharted reminded me of how I feel when I’m at a bar and such a cover band is playing: I wish somebody would just play the original fucking song on the juke box instead.

               Based on a popular series of video games that I’ve never played, Uncharted chronicles the treasure-seeking adventures of Nathan Drake. I should note that I had to look up the names of all of these characters in order to write this because none of them left any impression on me. Nathan (played by Tom Holland) and his brother are orphans and are obsessed with Magellan, the first person to sail across the world (at their age, I was obsessed with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Surge soda, but to each their own). They get busted breaking into a museum and the older brother is sent off. Years later, Nathan is working as a bartender when he is approached by Scully (played by Mark Wahlberg), who tells him that he was his brother’s partner in a search for Magellan’s treasure. Nathan is told that his brother was killed in the journey and he agrees to take his place as Scully’s partner.

               Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Uncharted is how incredibly unremarkable it is. This is the cinematic equivalent of jangling keys in front of a kitten; it isn’t so much a film as it is a pointless distraction that is meant to kill some time and then be forgotten. The action scenes are terribly edited and filled with awful CGI, so you can’t tell exactly what’s happening while simultaneously being aware that it looks fake as hell. The adventure and puzzle setups mainly just evoke memories of better movies; the trek through the sewars of Barcelona, for example, just reminded me how much cooler this was when Indiana Jones (who the characters actually reference by name) did a similar search in The Last Crusade. The one truly original sequence involves a battle between two pirate ships being hoisted into the air by helicopters, which sounds like it should be far more entertaining than the film gives it a chance to be. The characters also make the mistake of mentioning Jack Sparrow, which just made me think about how much better this sequence probably would have been in an early Pirates of the Caribbean film. Don’t mention better movies in your movie, kids. That’s screenwriting 101.

               The characters and plotting also reek of laziness. Drake has no discernable personality other than alternating between being a moron and being a whiny bitch, which isn’t the combo that you want in a rugged adventurer. Scully is a walking plot device and shows up whenever exposition is necessary. The two female leads are also stock characters, with one serving as the stereotypical rival adventurer character that all of these movies have (think Sean Bean in National Treasure or Walton Goggins in Tomb Raider). The treasure hunt itself is generic and plot progression largely hinges on Drake being a complete moron. For instance, early in the film we see him use fire to reveal a hidden message and then wait the duration of the film for him to figure out that he should apply the technique to post cards that he’s had for the entire film. Adventure films don’t really work when I want to slap the main character and explain the mystery to him for the entire freaking movie. I also question the need for an elaborate quest for keys to open a door when dynamite would get the job done rather quickly, but I digress.

               I’ve seen this point raised many times so I’ll just touch on it briefly, but Tom Holland is terribly miscast here. He may be well into his 20s, but he still looks like he’s about fifteen years old and years away from needing to shave. He does not look like a tough, worldly adventurer; he looks like a kid dressing as an adventurer for Halloween. This is made more confounding by the casting of Wahlberg in the partner role, as he’s obviously a much better choice to play the main character. It would be like if a casting director screwed up and reversed the casting for Batman and Robin, but they said fuck it and just went ahead with it.

               Uncharted neither does anything particularly well or anything particularly badly. This is the film equivalent of a perennial C-student that does just enough to get by without attracting either positive or negative attention. I didn’t like it, I didn’t hate it and I won’t remember it. If you are looking to kill some time and come across this on streaming, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours. I would recommend watching Raiders of the Lost Ark for the 100^th time instead, though. It will somehow still contain more surprises than this movie.

Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted_(film)#/media/File:Uncharted_Official_Poster.jpg