Uncharted (2022) Review
“You said that money changes people. Makes them greedy and selfish. But I think that’s just who you are.”
Though there is a certain comfort watching a film like Uncharted, based on the beloved video game franchise I grew up with, there’s also the sense of reality I can’t shake off; this is not a good movie. If this adaptation was released when I was a child, it may be one of the films I carried with me on family road trips to watch on a portable DVD player as my parents drive seven hours south on the 5. It may have been a film I had memorized front to back; pure bliss in not thinking about the writing, direction, or any technical merits (or lack thereof) whatsoever. I can see this being one of those movies for many people out there and that’s endearing in itself.
But since those family road trips, I’ve spoiled my brain rotten with enough film theory that, in fact, I find myself questioning my lack of enjoyment towards a film like this. It’s obviously not trying to be a great work of art; crafted as a purely palatable adventure story attempting to garner an audience beyond the video game franchise. Uncharted is purely another blockbuster that lives in a filmscape dominated by the MCU; take that as you will. Though it may be far from the worst video game adaptation to release – that’s not saying much given how low the bar is at this point. I don’t dislike adaptations taking routes that diverge from its source material – but this is a film that doesn’t understand the core of the franchise in the first place. Replacing humorously witty banter with cookie-cutter blockbuster quips to fill a joke quota isn’t quite as deceptively charming as it was in 2012. And at the end of the day, this is a film that feels lazy in every sense of the word; opting for a relatively weaker storyline than the games and one that fails to even ignite the spark of adventure we’ve seen many times before.
At the end of the day, Uncharted feels so unintentionally small. Even with bombastic set pieces, it’s not enough to give audiences that globe-trotting sense of adventure. The film instead chooses to focus on monotonous dialogue between characters cramped in uninteresting locations. Where Nathan Drake in the video games explores the lost cities of Shambala and El Dorado – here we see our heroes break the walls of a Little Caesar’s. With six video games in the franchise – it seems it would be simple enough to translate that same magic onto film; especially when the games are narratively driven in the first place. Holland and Wahlberg do a competent job playing their respective roles – but the casting itself feels as if a Hollywood producer attempted to milk yet another video game franchise with no semblance of what made it click in the first place. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Casting Sophia Taylor Ali as Chloe Frazer is a fantastic choice though and I’ll take a Lost Legacy spinoff before the actual sequel; please and thank you. And though there is one absolutely bonkers action sequence that had me vocally gasp in theaters, the moment comes and goes too soon as the film returns to mediocrity.
If Uncharted went off the rails and actually took some narrative risks, or even doubled down on its goofiness, I would have definitly enjoyed it more. Instead, Ruben Fleischer is back directing the blandest blockbusters Hollywood has to offer – and I don’t think Andy Serkis is coming around this time to dig this franchise out of the dirt. For a film that’s been in development hell for about a decade, we could have gotten something much worse. But for some reason, I think I’d rather watch that version. At least I wouldn’t have been bored.
