Overall Rating: 2.75/5
Synopsis:
Sam Drake (Rudy Pankow) is caught trying to steal the first world map made by Magellan. Sam is then thrown out of the orphanage and promises his brother, Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) that he would return. 15 years pass by and Nate is a bartender that pickpockets. He is found by Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) and both of them embark on a journey in finding the treasure that was hidden by Magellan. What happens next forms the rest of the story.
Positives:
Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg's performance
Action sequences
Background score
Story
Negatives:
Screenplay
Short runtime
Characterization
Analysis:
Now I walked into this film with decent expectations that it was going to be remotely close to how the video games were and I will say it lived up to those expectations. Now, this film is mainly based on the 4th game (A Thief's End) with a lot of the stunts and action sequences being derived from that film. However, this film serves as a precursor to all of the games in terms of the timeline. This film, to begin with, went through development hell with the number of times it was postponed from the initial start date of 2008. However to say the least it was made well enough.
To start off, the story is started off with the relationship between Tom and Rudy and it swiftly moves into the present day. We are then immediately introduced to present-day Tom and how he meets Mark. We are then taken to Mark's apartment where Tom agrees to be his partner and then swiftly to the first fight scene in the auction house for the Cross. Now the thing I find problematic in really a lot of this film is that the movie goes by so fast without developing each scene properly. A lot of the scenes feel cut out in the first half of this film and it jumps all over the place with no proper screenplay writing. However, walking past this the action sequences that come in the auction house and in Barcelona are choreographed extremely well and the camera angles immerse you into the action. The Barcelona portions also come with good adventure sequences and once they find out how to work everything out in the church and at the end of this entire portion we are introduced to a good twist at the end of the first half of this film.
However, with the twist being introduced it isn't really effective in the second half of the film. Almost immediately the villain is killed off resorting us to see a story fragmented from the second villain along. However, the airplane fight scene here is done really well also and the chemistry between Tom and Sophia is done well. We are then taken to the final leg of this film and that is finding where the gold is. This sequence the way it leads up to it starts off really well with how the clues are found but it ends up becoming really muddy on how easy it was for Tom to find the gold. We are then taken to an action sequence which was honestly very dragged out in this film as it could have been shorter by minutes but it makes sense as this is like a final boss fight in a video game. The film ends off on a fun note and the two post-credit scenes are done well setting the film up for a successor with the introduction of more characters and a new hunt for treasure. A problem I had though throughout this film is the fact that for at least Nathan Drake they did not stick to the original character. In the Uncharted video games, the character is supposed to be really violent and essentially a killer to say the least. But, the character is changed so much that they make Nathan Drake look like Spiderman in a lot of the action sequences and Tom Holland playing the role especially doesn't help it not look like Spiderman.
To end it off, the music and background score by Ramin Djawadi works really well in a lot of scenes and it elevates them to a good level. Cinematography Chung-hoon Chung is decent as it does not impress that much but it is expected for a film this size. Editing by Chris Lebenzon and Richard Pearson could have been better but it is decent regardless. Overall, this movie ends up being a one-time watch but if you are looking for a fun adventure movie to watch with your friends then this movie is for you. However, if you are going to wait for this film to be out on streaming then this will be out on Netflix in the next 6 months so look out for it.
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