There hasn't been a shortage of movies to watch at the theater and I'm sure that more than enough people have weighed in on Uncharted. So, hey, what's one more opinion, right? Let's go ahead and get right into the big controversial statement: I have never finished an Uncharted game. That's right, my exposure to Nathan Drake is limited, at best. Was I the target audience for an Uncharted movie? Probably not. With that said, I had a damn good time.
First thing to address is that I was as surprised as anyone that Tom Holland wound up working out in this role. He sure doesn't look like Nathan Drake. He looks like Nathan Drake's younger brother. It's been said a million times. For what this wound up being, which was a Drake origin story, he wound up being a pretty good choice. I have limited exposure to the game's characters, so Mark Wahlberg wound up feeling pretty good to me by the end.
If the movie had a weak point, it was the villains. The red herring for the movie villains felt like a dumb twist and I felt like the movie wound up being worse off for it. It didn't feel like treasure hunters versus a greater force by that point, so the stakes felt lower.
Having said all of that, the action set pieces were nicely placed. The action scenes were ridiculous. There were a lot of preposterous moments on screen. That made this feel like something more akin to National Treasure, which is probably the best thing I can say about this. Every generation needs a National Treasure and this certainly fits the bill. This isn't going to revolutionize the genre or anything, but it's far from offensively terrible.
If you're waiting for this to come to streaming, you're more than welcome to. I will say, though, Uncharted on the big screen felt like a blast, so if you want to sit in an empty theater for an afternoon, go for it!
