Better than expected, but will still leave fans of the games disappointed

February 2022

Warning: Spoilers

Hello Hivers
"Uncharted" is somewhat fun but offers little to no fan service for those who love the games. Some of the humor is great and the set pieces are well shot and choreographed, but the movie misses the mark and feels more like a National Treasure movie than an adaptation of an Uncharted game.

Despite being marketed as a prequel and origin story for Nate, "Uncharted" is essentially a movie adaptation of "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End" (in which the entire premise of the movie consists of Nate stealing across from a black market auction to find a long lost pirate treasure) with some components and set pieces from 3 and Lost Legacy threw in. That alone made it clear that the writers knew nothing about the franchise and wrote the script while watching a quick YouTube walkthrough, as the script itself is strikingly poor.

As a longtime fan of the games myself, it irked me that Gabrielle's character Braddock was renamed to keep in line with the continuity of Nate not yet meeting Nadine Ross. It just left me wondering what the point of the movie "keeping in line with the continuity" even was, as just about everything in the movie occurs in either the third or fourth games.

Even the continuity of the comics was ignored, as Nate and Chloe wouldn't meet for the first time some years later whilst searching for the city of Agartha. Whilst this might sound nerdy to the casual watcher, it just goes to show how little care went into fan service and writing the script for the movie. It's just lazy, and the whole movie as a whole feels unnecessary, as Nate already had a well-established origin story throughout the later games.

Whilst the casting choices for Nate (Holland) and Sully (Wahlberg) have been heavily scrutinized, the pair do have some decent chemistry between them throughout the movie. Ali plays a decent Chloe Frazer, and whilst Banderas is also decent as the villain, it's hard to look past him as more than a Spanish Rafe Adler. Gabrielle is sadly uninteresting in her role as Braddock.

Overall, "Uncharted" is fun, dumb, and a good time overall. The cast surprisingly has good chemistry together, the humor is almost on point with the games, and the set pieces are well shot. But for fans of the games, you'll be left feeling disappointed by the lackluster, and quite frankly, insultingly bland script.

                                          ⭐ 6/10