It is a bittersweet moment when a cursed Hollywood production finally hits the screen. Any writer who has served their time at a film desk is intimately familiar with the troubled production history of Uncharted: Sony’s ambitious video game adaptation has been part of the Hollywood rumor mill since 2008, even playing a key role in the now-infamous Sony email hacks. But now, having fought its way through a pandemic production, Uncharted is finally here – and the result is an affable piece of studio filmmaking that easily clears our collective lowered bar.
After being separated from his brother in their childhood orphanage, young Nathan Drake (Holland) earns his living tending bar and lifting jewelry from his wealthy clientele. So when a man named Sully (Wahlberg) shows up and promises to help him secure the score of a lifetime, Drake is quick to say yes. But to do so – and retrace his brother’s final steps – Holland must first earn the trust of the mysterious Chloe Frazer (Ali) and stay one step ahead of the dangerous Jo Braddock (Gabrielle, who easily steals the film from underneath her co-stars).
In casting Holland and Wahlberg, the producers of Uncharted cast aside backstory in favor of star power. Not much is learned about Drake or Sully outside of their frequent barbs, and neither actor strays far from their signature personas. Wahlberg’s Sully is “ill-tempered arrogance”; Holland’s Drake is “plucky physicality.” As a film, Uncharted is built around letting stage presence drive performance, and it is a credit to the general malleability of the source material that the whole thing mostly hangs together. These are roles that both actors could play without a script, so it is no big surprise that their schtick translates well to the family adventure genre.
As far as the action sequences go, they work, too. Seams are everywhere – every close-up of Holland seems to have been shot in some COVID-proof green room, and one can only wish a speedy return to prestige fare for cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon. But these characters do appear to exist in a world where physics (and pain) seem analogous to our own. If anything, these sequences demonstrate our shifting approach to Hollywood set-pieces. For every Mission: Impossible sequel where Tom Cruise actually straps himself to an airborne plane, we can have one Uncharted, where the camera moves just fast enough to make the CGI never too egregious. This is the cinematic language of the modern studio film, and judged on those standards, this particular entry is fine.
And maybe that’s the biggest surprise. With so many video game adaptations being little more than live-action fanfiction, Uncharted stands out by feeling like an actual movie, mostly eschewing fan service in favor of little organic beats between characters. The result is something of a YA National Treasure – both movies are heist films for a generation raised on Dan Brown novels, where historical objects are awash in conspiracies and secret mechanisms. Throw in a healthy dose of profanity – surprising in its prevalence, which says more about Hollywood than Uncharted – and you have a film that has emerged from production hell not terribly worse for wear.
This article appears in February 18 • 2022.