Ever since the dawn of digital media, man has dreamed of one thing and one thing only- to defy the laws of the universe, to go above and beyond and somehow, against all odds, adapt a video game into a semi-decent movie.
Most games don’t really lend themselves well to the movie format, because for more interactive media, their focus is often building on a fun and engaging gameplay loop which leads to the narrative having to take a backseat.
There are exceptions of course with one of them being the Uncharted series.
Tom Holland plays a pretty by the numbers action hero who finds himself among thieves like, Sophia Ali as Chloe, and Mark Wahlberg as Sully, which actually gives a pretty original spin on his character by playing Mark Wahlberg, but with two additional quirks: double-crossing and liking cats.
As an adaptation it means it has some level of creative constraints, but even if its goal was to stay loyal to the source material it didn’t really do a great job.
The characters have few things in common apart from their names and the casting feels more like the decision of an A.I. algorithm looking at recent trends rather than an attempt at bringing in people who could capture the essence of their video game counter-parts.
The video games themselves are still several times longer than your average movie ranging from 10-15 hours but their plot is ultimately just backdrop for the action sequences and the characters.
At their best the games manage to use their action adventure setting to enhance or even parallel their narrative and themes and at their worse it is used only as a device to keep the plot moving forward.
This may seem like a long prologue for a movie review but it is necessary to understand that even with all these tools and knowledge in place, the Uncharted movie still manages to be extremely derivative and generic in everything from its plot to its characters.
It might not seem surprising that this movie based on a video game series- based on late 20th century action adventure movies- which were in turn based on early 20th century adventure serials- is nothing beyond generic and derivative, however all of its previous incarnations in media managed to do something original within their genre.
The movie, didn’t have to reinvent the wheel to be good, but it could have at least polished it or given it their own coat of paint.
This would have been great if it meant doing something new and original with them but that’s not the case.
So in the end all the movie has going for it are its action sequences which suffer from two major problems.
The first one being that they underestimate the vast difference that exists in the suspension of disbelief an audience can hold for a movie compared to that of a video game.
When a 3D model is doing things like launching itself forward against high altitude winds, it doesn’t really seem that odd because it exists in a separate world from our own, but when you see a regular person do it, it becomes much more jarring to witness and breaks you out of what was already a really shallow immersion.
Secondly it turns what was once an interactive experience into a cutscene, while watching it unfold on screen you’ll mainly wish you were just playing it, which makes the movie a great advertisement for the games, but very little else.
Ironically enough, Uncharted follows a very charted path, the characters feel uninspired, it has a somewhat narrative bland and apart from a couple of original action sequences, the film doesn’t really have much to offer.
It’s far from awful, but its undistinguishable taste easily makes it one of the more forgettable films of the year so far.
By Francisco Santos
Feature image: Sony