Uncharted

 3/4

Starring: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Antonio Banderas

Rated PG-13 for Violence/Action and Language

I have the same fond memories of playing the "Uncharted" games that anyone else who has played that franchise does.  Sure, it's nothing more than a rip-off of "Indiana Jones," but that doesn't make them any less of a blast to play.  Even today, they hold up extremely well.  What took them to the next level was two things: great stories and great characters.  The combat was fun and the puzzles were cool, but hanging out with Nate, Sully, Elena and everyone else was just as appealing.

For thirty years, Hollywood has been trying, and largely failing, to replicate the experience of playing a great game on the big screen.  The problem is not that they don't have good material (video games are getting more cinematic with each new release), but they don't have a substitute for the interactivity.  Something is obviously lost when you take a fully interactive medium and adapt it to a form that acts on the viewer.  Like everything else, filmmakers have been overdosing on the special effects to compensate.  But that's not enough.  Just look at the "Transformers" movies.  Special effects without stories to involve us or characters to care about are meaningless.

Which is why "Uncharted" had so much potential for the screen treatment.  The stories are fun and can easily be cut down or adjusted as necessary, and the characters are some of the best video games have to offer.  Most video games that are grounded with a story have plots that take too long to tell (this was one of the problems of the wretched adaptation of "Yakuza," although it wasn't the only one) or simply won't work without the interactivity (the "Souls" franchise is an example).  "Uncharted" was different; they were pretty much interactive summer action movies.  So even with can't miss source material and a built in fanbase, "Uncharted" should have been the movie that broke the barrier and could prove that successful adaptations were possible.  I'll admit that the movie is, on the whole, enjoyable.  But Hollywood has a lot of work to do if they're going to make this kind of thing work.

This is a prequel to "Uncharted: Drake's Fortune," the first game.  Nathan Drake (Holland) is a small-time pickpocket with a brilliant mind for history and dreams of a long lost treasure that he and his brother Sam obsessed over as kids. That's why he's been selected by treasure hunter and con artist Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Wahlberg) to help him with his next job.  Sully is on the trail of the same treasure Nate has been looking for his whole life, and has found the next clue.  But to get it, Sully needs Nate's help.  With the promise of a reunion with Sam dangled in front of him, Nate agrees.  Soon they're on a globe trotting adventure with Chloe Frazier (Ali), a treasure hunter whose partnership starts and ends with herself. Following close behind is a wealthy psychopath named Santiago Moncada (Banderas) and his dangerous assistant Braddock (Gabrielle).

One of the unsung successes of the "Uncharted" series is the chummy chemistry between the characters.  They worked off each other well.  That doesn't happen here.  Tom Holland is the only member of the cast who works. It's a stretch to see him as a young Nolan North, but Holland is likable enough that I stopped wishing that the better option of Chris Pine was cast instead.  Mark Wahlberg, who for some reason got the part over the obvious choice of J.K. Simmons, is a poor Sully.  The Boston tough guy brings none of the wit, charm or mischief of the Sully gamers know and love.  He isn't a rogue.  He's just a jerk.  As bad as Wahlberg is, his co-stars are worse.  Antonio Banderas does the bare minimum he needs to do to earn his paycheck.  Sophia Ali lacks both the likability, ambiguity and sex appeal of the part played by Claudia Black.  And Tati Gabrielle is a woeful villain.  Braddock is as beautiful as she is deadly, but the actress is so boring that the character is less threatening than Barney the Purple Dinosaur.  You'd think they'd get that right considering how delightfully wicked the antagonists in the games were.  Guess not.

Ordinarily a movie this lame is one I'd give a pass to.  But I can't with this one.  I'll concede that the reliance on fisticuffs over gunfights is odd, the casting is bizarre and largely unsuccessful, the clunky plot is flat, and the obligatory fan service cameo of Nolan North is a complete dud.  And the lack of airtime from the game's unforgettable theme is nearly enough to sink the movie on its own.

The film's one saving grace is its final act.  The much-hyped plane escape is a lot of fun, but it's what comes after that is truly worth the price of admission.  The climactic action scene is so sensational that I don't even want to describe it.  I'll just say that it rivals anything the games have done.  And yes, this includes the famous train sequence from "Uncharted 2," or even "Lost Legacy," which was a more accomplished version of it.  It's the kind of thing we hope for when we go to a summer movie, so buckle up.

So no, the movie isn't very good.  Fans will flock to see it, of course, but save for the final act, this movie isn't a very successful translation of video games to film.