‘Uncharted’ review: Tom Holland is more than game but this joyless adaptation should have stayed in development hell [Grade: C-]

You would think adapting a video game is an easy task. The blueprint is already made as many playable works, especially those of modern times, have in their programming at least one cinematic element. And when there are plenty to spare, “cinematic trailers” to promote the games can even be assembled, afterward eligible for a Golden Trailer Award. But if the two iterations of Hitman, Alone in the Dark, Resident Evil and plenty more have shown, it is indeed a quest easier said rather than done. Not exactly strong responses to promos. Weak reviews on release. A “curse” gets mentioned. The consensus becomes to be fine with games going filmic yet to be wary with films tackling games. If the two mediums were a couple, without doubt only one is in better shape. And as long as apathy keeps on being present, this pattern continues.

Uncharted has plenty of apathy. Yes, the expected limitations of a code-free reality and liberties taken to “un-game” game features are in the footage, but apathy is the item that keeps glinting. Based on the hit Naughty Dog games featuring adventurer Nathan Drake, this film sees itself as such since 2008, but the final product is more a mix between the need to get this off people’s plates for good and the wisdom to carve a new trail for the IP with the most basic, boring moves. In other words, the time, talent and reportedly $120 million went into manifesting this project that didn’t seem to want to be realized would have been better spent on a sequel to The Adventures of Tintin. Maybe a contemporary take on Cocktail, even, as reminded by the silver-tongued nature of this Nathan (Tom Holland) and some set pieces’ sporadic leanings into his bartending skills. Isn’t the bartender protagonist a lift from Assassin’s Creed, or a mark of character coolness that is much busier than Naughty Dog’s scribing and Nolan North’s voice?

There is a problem with your video game adaptation when all it does is evoke everything else besides its source material, or at the least the joys within it. Holland does what he can with his apparent nimbleness and a palpably ardent will to self-validate, but that alone is far from enough to make Uncharted functional. In fact, he is the only player cognizant of the charms that Amy Hennig and company had embedded into their treasure hunter, even when his attempts are constantly undermined by writing (from Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum and Matt Holloway) and direction (from Ruben Fleischer) supercharged with the “let’s just get this done” mentality. Needless to say, that is not “let’s just get this right” seen and felt in the four main games, whose key spices—all more spectacle-based than character—have been cherry-picked, slapped together and dismissed to form the next 116 minutes.

When it is decided that the familial notes of A Thief’s End and Drake’s Deception as your film’s fuel, why not give Nathan’s love for his missing brother Sam (Rudy Pankow) some weight and ask this swole version of Sully (Mark Wahlberg) to stop being a drill sergeant and instead a mentor? When said fuel goes into a vehicle with the looks of both Drake’s Fortune and Among Thieves, why is passivity the distinct trait in outmaneuvering the moneyed Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) and his fashionable assassin Jo (Tati Gabrielle)? Or in the syncing and trading of wits with Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), whose name is initially pronounced as “Klo”? The rush for the gold hidden by the crew of renowned explorer Ferdinand Magellan is, to one’s shock, unfeeling despite plenty of diving, flying, swimming, running and shooting from the characters—and, more importantly, despite the constant tug of the brother who may have perished. See what apathy has wrought. And from the indifference surfaces less an effort to translate the magic that is already there and more subpar cosplay currently showing in thousands of theaters.

Unplugging Uncharted then becomes a smart move, but that will also reveal how this is not a good adventure film. It is loud and occasionally pretty—all thanks to director of photography Chung Chung-hoon, growing more comfortable with every new high-profile work—but not good. Sure, the next opportunity to mess around the fountains of Barcelona’s Palau Nacional or to see carracks engage in a dogfight over the waters of the Philippines might be ways away, yet the thrill is hollow without the romance. It’s like a skeleton deluding itself into believing it has some internal mass—to be blunt a worthy cinematic pair of the games—when the writing has a habit of telling what it is showing, the pacing vaults past character beats as if it’s a speedrun session, the summoning of roguish charm always borders loathing, and the music (from Ramin Djawadi) isn’t exactly aware of where its spirit of adventure has just landed. Again, apathy at work. And to also detect it at the level where Uncharted as yet another adventure film says a lot about the higher-ups in the game-to-film pipeline: They keep failing to reverse the curse because they don’t have enough love for the games they have bought the rights to. The blueprint from the developers, barely studied. They themselves make the adapting process difficult and then, as always, wonder why the play-through doesn’t end with a “ding!” and a “Charted!”

Grade: C-

Sony Pictures will release Uncharted only in theaters on February 18.

Photo: Clay Enos/CTMG/Sony Pictures

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Nguyên Lê

Nguyên Lê is a freelance film writer currently based in Houston, Texas. He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic who is a member of the Houston Film Critics Society and Online Film Critics Society. His works can be seen on InSession Film, The Young Folks and Houston Chronicle. He likes to cook as well. Follow him on Facebook (nguyen.le.334) and/or Twitter (@nle318) — he always needs friends.

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