Through a combination of the creatives showing up and performing their duties admirably and simply existing, Uncharted manages to confirm some things that a majority of the general public, movie nerds and/or fans of the game already knew. 1: That Tom Holland guy is indeed a certified movie star in or outside of the Spider-Man suit. 2: Mark Wahlberg can play a cocky, sarcastic, but ultimately likeable asshole character pretty well. 3: Cinematographer Chung hoon-Chung (Last Night in Soho, It) has a really incredible knack for framing and capturing dazzling images. 4: Bringing Uncharted from PlayStation consoles to cinema screens just confirms that it's a B-grade Indiana Jones for a generation of people who probably aren't familiar with the iconic adventure franchise.
Does Ruben Fleischer's (Venom, both entries in the Zombieland series) film have a few tricks up its sleeves? Certainly. The big setpieces seamlessly recreate the aesthetic of a freewheeling video game where the player is frantically trying to use their wits to solve a problem or stay alive in a hostile environment, there's a major treasure hunting sequence that prominently features the name/logo of a brand that I never expected in a million years to have the capital to buy their way into a $100 million+ movie and Sophia Ali's take on an Australian accent is so strange that it took me until a few hours after I got out of the movie to realize that she was even doing an Australian accent.
These few moments of inspiration and endearing confusion ultimately aren't enough to shake the overarching feeling that this is anything more than just a safe, competent project. While it's never boring and doesn't have any really debilitating deficiencies, the amount of kinetic energy, entertainment value and magnetic characters present in Uncharted pales in comparison to the really great adventure films (Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Mummy) that it's lifted its entire playbook from. Can this issue be resolved in the next installment of the franchise that's almost certainly happening now that the film has gotten off to a strong start at the box office? Absolutely, but breaking its stock blockbuster mold is going to require a lot more imagination and passion on the page and behind the camera and that may prove to be too big of an obstacle for something that's so deeply beholden to the formula of superior movies to overcome.
Grade: B-
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