Uncharted

I haven’t played the game and I enjoyed this. A modern Indy with lively action, snappy one-liners and entertaining heroes. But it isn’t particularly clever, but at least one twist had me surprised. Two opulent action sequences - the plane and the boats work smoothly, but ignorance of the laws of physics is sometimes a bit annoying. Quite soon, Tom Holland stops being so reminiscent of Peter Parker and in places carries the movie effortlessly on his shoulders. Most of the time, Wahlberg is a self-centered bastard, but reels off some great one-liners. I’m still disappointed that it wasn’t Carnahan who directed this, but in the end it worked out really good. (2022-07-24)

There's nothing particularly endearing about Uncharted that would make you fall in love with it, unlike the game. However, it's still an enjoyable treasure-hunting adventure packed with incredible action and even more unbelievable effects. In the 80s, this might have felt lacking, but today, it's more than enough for a fun watch. (2022-11-20)

Sahara 2, a bit better perhaps, but certainly not a good film. Tom Holland's Nate is more a kid who often takes his shirt off than a likeable thief with a sense of honour, and Wahlberg's Sully doesn't look much like the video game Sully either. But I'd be quite happy to wave my hand over it, if for God's sake I was having fun and if the story was interesting. Unfortunately, Uncharted is the kind of movie that isn't about the adventure atmosphere, but about the visual effects, that isn't about the characters' relationships, but about them talking and picking on each other all the time, where one character tells another that he acts like Indiana Jones, and another character calls someone else Jack Sparrow, but it's never a joke, it's always cringe. The plot is downright simple, the story unfolds as you expect (except for the bad guy thing, which was rather surprising, but also stupid). For nearly two hours, Uncharted tries, in two big action scenes it boldly defies the laws of physics and logic, but it's either too little or too much. When Nolan North appeared in a cameo role, I didn't have that nice feeling like I did with Stan Lee's cameos in the Marvel movies. I thought I'd rather see a Nate that looked like that. (2022-02-12)

I haven't played or seen the games, so I'm only reviewing the film on itself and I have to say that it's definitely not the dud that game fans complain about. On the contrary, Uncharted is a fairly decent National Treasure kind of flick with decent pacing, plenty of action and colourful scenery, and I didn't find Tom Holland bad either, as others have said. To be fair, the film certainly has its faults, especially in the logic department, and personally I would have liked to see more traps, puzzles and quests like in National Treasure, and generally play with the ideas more and make them more entertaining, but that's probably just my wishful thinking. The result is a perfectly fine satisfying adventure ride that, according to the feedback, won't please fans of the game, but for the rest of us it's more than enough. (2022-05-08)

Adapting a video game series into a grand, adventurous, action-packed movie that looks more magnificent, adventurous, and action-packed than any of its competitors, is a challenging and seemingly unnecessary task. And yet despite endless pre-production delays, changes in the director chair, and an incredible paradox where the actor originally planned for Nathan ended up in the role of Sully, Uncharted is a success. The creators do not need to reinvent the wheel, they allow the main hero to jump, run, and fall as befits the famous franchise, and above all, they remember that most viewers have played the game and will want to experience something familiar. The traditional flaw of game adaptations is possibly eradicated definitively, and the main visual attractions directly quote the third installment or even exaggerate the conclusion of the fourth one. However, what relieved me the most was the interaction between the main duo. Tom Holland is likable and, as a younger Drake, he can fully embrace the traditional acting role, but Mark Wahlberg, as Sullivan, I was dreading for some time only for him to ultimately steal the show. He perfectly captured the essence of the grumbling mentor with a nose for money. (2023-05-19)