By Elly Herrick, Editor-in-chief
Everyone has something from their childhood that when they’re older, they see and instantly turn into a kid again. Uncharted is a video game franchise that has dazzled audiences since the first game’s release in 2007. As the credits rolled at the end of each game, I felt like I was walking out of a movie theater, so it wasn’t that surprising that Uncharted was made into a movie. It was released exclusively in theaters Feb. 18, 2022.
The action-adventure games follow a treasure hunter, named Nathan Drake, who has an unusual amount of knowledge about history. Drake and his cigar smoking partner, Victor Sullivan or Sully, travel around the world in hopes of finding lost treasure. The movie follows the same plot with some minor changes.
As someone who has played all five Uncharted games, I was very excited for how Hollywood would bring Nathan Drake’s Indiana Jones style adventures to the big screen. I was honestly surprised and disappointed that a crucial character in the games wasn’t in the film. Elena Fisher is a reporter who serves as Nathan Drake’s love interest and is all around a badass character. Not only has she been in the franchise since the first game, but she also plays a crucial role in Nathan’s development and is a role model for me and many young girls growing up.
The movie follows the same plot as any typically Uncharted game. It incorporates some of the best moments like, breaking into a mansion filled with ancient artifacts, stealing a cross from a huge auction, and jumping out of a plane tied to cargo. The scenarios have viewers on the edge of their seats wondering how the characters would get out of their unique situations.
Using Tom Holland and other popular actors is a good way to bring in a crowd. I was curious to see how Holland could play a criminal treasure hunter as opposed to his more popular role as your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. Many fans were skeptical that Holland could pull it off, but I’d say he pulled off the role perfectly. While he isn’t the spitting image of Nathan, his playful chemistry with Sully, played by Mark Wahlberg, showed fragments of the partnership they had in the video games.
It is a great movie; it captures the witty and clever writing found in the games, but it had its flaws. The most noticeable inconsistency, however, was one I couldn’t get past.
Having the trio of Chloe (a treasure hunter played by Shopia Ali that appeared in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves), Sully, and Nathan be a group that had to work together, but did not trust each other created an opportunity for twists and turns, but I found that it made the movie frustrating to watch.
Their ungenuine partnership makes you almost hope they fail because watching the characters betray each other over and over again contradicts them working together in the first place. When no one actually displays loyalty, it makes the ending confusing when Sully gave up the treasure to save Nathan when he’s been doing the opposite for most of the movie.
The connections between the characters is what made the video games so special. While selfishness is a common trait in thieves, that overbearing trait represented in the characters ruins who Nathan Drake really is.
The true villains in the movie seem to be Sully and Chloe as they lie and betray each other more than the actual villain played by Antonio Banderas.
Banderas plays a flat and uninteresting “Godfather” type villain as opposed to the psychotic war criminal and old partners who served as villains in previous Uncharted games. Banderas doesn’t seem to have a clear motive to find the treasure besides greed and living up to his family’s name, which I found contradictory since he killed his father – his remaining family.
For outsiders, Uncharted is an exciting Indiana Jones type of adventure that serves as an escape for two hours, but to viewers who have played the games, it’s a letdown because of the inauthentic relationships.