Sophia Ali

(Amazon Streaming, July 2022) I haven’t played the Uncharted series of computer games (I’m what they call a PC exclusive, and Uncharted was until very recently a PlayStation exclusive), but I am a forgiving audience when it comes to slightly unhinged large-scale adventure films. Alas, there’s something missing in the mechanical assembly that is the big-screen version of Uncharted. The problem here isn’t necessarily lead Tom Holland, who brings his expected blend of wide-eyed innocence and action chops to a role meant to establish a long franchise—his bar brawl using whatever’s on hand is one of the film’s early highlights. Mark Wahlberg makes an effective older co-lead, while Sophia Ali provides an interesting foil/love interest. I also liked Tati Gabrielle and her evolving role in the film, despite an atrocious hairdo that looks like tightly wrapped cellophane. The film also reaches a pleasant loopiness toward the end, where nothing makes sense but at least we’ve got a naval battle between two ships flown by helicopters. (… it’s one of those action sequences you have to see in order to understand.) But while all of these good elements bring the film to a “watchable” rating, Uncharted leaves a lot of material on the table. The first and biggest problem is structural, as the film’s first two-thirds struggle to wow audiences or build momentum. Whether it’s a budget or a scripting issue, I’m not sure, except that the film tacitly seems to recognize the problem by beginning with the action sequence that introduces the third act, then flashes back to how we all got there. And how we got there is often incredibly dumb—with so-called world class thieves using trite methods that undermine the respect we’re supposed to develop for those same characters. The “historical investigation” aspect is underwhelming and the film doesn’t move fast enough to prevent basic plausibility questions from popping up regularly. It’s noteworthy that the rather good climax makes even less sense than the rest of Uncharted, but moves fast enough that we don’t care. Now that the origin story throat clearing is done, I will watch a sequel… but how about making the good film first next time a video game makes the leap to the big screen?