Uncharted

Released last weekend in theaters, Uncharted attempts to bring the popular video game of the same name to the big screen, while also establishing Tom Holland as the next big adventure hero.

Uncharted, a prequel to the popular PlayStation video game series, follows a young Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) teaming up with seasoned treasure hunter Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) as they try to uncover the lost treasure of explorer Ferdinand Magellan. To get to the treasure, they must race against the ruthless Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas) who believes he is the rightful heir to the treasure. Along the way, they must uncover the clues to find the treasure while also learning to work together.

This movie overall is just a fun globetrotting adventure film. Tom Holland does a good job as the young treasure hunter with his humor and charisma. It takes about 10 minutes to see past him being Peter Parker and you buy in that he is this action-adventure hero. Additionally, the chemistry between him and Mark Wahlberg is great. They can play off of each other very well and you can really feel the bromance between their two characters. The movie itself is also quite funny with most of it coming from Tom and Mark though there are a few others that have some funny moments. The big action sequences are also really great. You can defiantly see some inspiration from the games in terms of the scale of the action set pieces. Finally, it is also good to note that you do not need to have any prior knowledge of the games to understand this movie. While there are a few fun references for the fans of the game, it does a great job of standing on its own as an adventure movie.

On the more negative side, the movie's villains are not very memorable. They don't have much in terms of motivation and aren't much of a threat until the final act of the film. The Chloe character also doesn't add a whole lot to the film. They also don't give her much of a character arc. It gets set up in the middle act of the film but then is just abandoned at the end and her character as a whole is just forgotten. Finally, this movie is pretty generic in terms of plot and characters. It feels like it went through the blockbuster adventure movie template with Tom Holland in the leading role to add star power and name recognition.

Overall, this movie is a fun though generic action movie that fans of the genre, the game, and Tom Holland will ultimately enjoy.

Rating: 7/10 Grade: B Recommendation: Go see it