Uncharted (2022)

Starring: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, and Tati Gabrielle
Grade: C+

Tom Holland can’t be stopped as of late, and you know what, I’m okay with it!

Summary

Nathan Drake (Holland) awakens to see that his foot his caught in the wrapping of a crate, hanging from a plane in mid-air. He climbs the string of connected crates in the air, fighting off bad guys trying to kill him, as he tries to get back onto the plane. Once he gets back on the plane, a fancy car comes straight at him and knocks him right back off. As he free falls, a hand grabs him.

Fifteen years earlier in Boston, a young Nathan almost falls out of a window of a museum at night, and his brother Sam saves him. Sam told Nathan to wait outside for him, but Nathan refused. At the museum, they find the first world map that was made after Ferdinand Magellan’s around-the-world expedition. Sam explains that Magellan’s actual goal was to find lost gold during his expedition but never found it. Sam tries to break into the glass enclosure to steal the priceless map, but they are both caught by security. Security takes Nathan and Sam back to the orphanage they live at to talk to the head nun or whatever. Nathan gets a pass but security mentions that this is Sam’s third offense, so they’re going to take him away. He goes upstairs to gather his things, and the nun lets Nathan go up to say goodbye to him. Sam gives Nathan his necklace as a goodbye present and escapes out the window, refusing to be arrested. He promises Nathan he will come back for him.

We then jump to New York in the present day. An adult Nathan now works as a bartender and after flirting with a customer, we see him steal her bracelet as he tries to use his lighter to light her cigarette. As he starts closing up shop for the night, Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Wahlberg) calls out Nathan for his special skills of stealing from the girl and offers him a job. Nathan pleads ignorance, turns down the job, and tells Sully to leave, so he does without protest. However, after Sully leaves, Nathan reaches into his pocket for the bracelet, only to find Sully’s business card because Sully pickpocketed him. After work, Nathan follows the address on the card, steals keys from the doorman, and breaks into Sully’s apartment. He looks and finds the Magellan map from years ago that him and Sam tried to steal. Sully walks into the room, as he was waiting for Nathan. He notices Nathan stopped to look at the Magellan map and reveals that it’s the real thing. Following this, they talk about Magellan’s trip, with Nathan repeating what he learned from Sam when they were younger in that Magellan’s trip wasn’t about exploration, it was about gold. He died in the Philippines actually, with Juan Sebastian Elcano finishing the trip around the world with 17 others, called the “Infamous 18”. The gold part of the story he considers a legend, but Sully thinks it’s legit.

Next, he talks about how these trips were very expensive and had to be financed by the House of Moncada, a private family that have been rich for generations and have funded numerous bad people over the years. They funded Magellan in hopes that he would come back with the gold, a treasure that in today’s money is worth at least five billion dollars. Nathan is wondering why he’s being told all of this, so Sully tells him that he was friends with Sam and used to work with him as they chased Magellan’s gold. Two years ago in Spain, they were getting close to Elcano’s tomb. This is where Sam was sure they would find Elcano’s journal and in it, the location of the gold, but he randomly ghosted Sully in the middle of it all. Nathan tells Sully that Sam did the same thing to him, not seeing him once since he left when Nathan was ten. He would call every once in a while, but after some time, he stopped entirely, and he hasn’t heard from him since. He once again refuses Sully’s offer of finding the gold (and potentially Sam) and leaves. However, after going through old postcards Sam sent him and putting on the old necklace that Sam gave him years ago, he finally agrees to a partnership with Sully.

The first step is an auction coming up that has the largest collection of Spanish Renaissance art and artifacts that have been collected in the last century. The target is a cross called La Cruz de la Hermandad. Apparently, it can secretly be used as a key to unlock the chamber where the “Infamous 18” hid their gold. There are two keys. Sully already has one, so they just have to take the other one at the auction. The only thing that Nathan is tasked in doing is to kill the power during the actual auction, so he starts to do some research in the meantime to try and figure out the best way to go about things. The night of, as Sully fixes Nathan’s tie, we learn through conversation that Sully was dishonorable discharged from the Navy. He was a pilot that looted artifacts from a museum in Baghdad, but he was over the max load, crashed, and was kicked out.

Regardless, they show up to the auction and upon arrival, they see Santiago Moncada (Banderas) arrive to the scene. He’s a part of the super-rich Moncada family, and he thinks the cross is his birthright and fully intends on spending as much money as it takes at the auction to get it. As they scope out the scene inside, Jo Braddock (Gabrielle) flirts with Nathan from the other side of the room as she stands next to Moncada. Sully tells Nathan however that Jo is extremely dangerous and to avoid her at all costs. He sends Nathan away once she walks towards them, so she approaches Sully. They have history together, and she wonders how Sully is going to fuck up the evening for everyone to chase his gold, with Sully only hinting at the possibilities before she leaves. After Nathan stares at the glass-enclosed cross, Moncada approaches and politely implies that he will do some bad things to get that cross in this auction. As the auction is about to start, Nathan makes his way to the back room looking incredibly suspicious, prompting Jo to send some guys to watch after him. At the same time, Sully goes and sits in at the auction. As Nathan is in the process of breaking into the control panel to shut off the power, the cross is being bid on and Moncada is on the verge of winning it, forcing Sully to get into a bidding war with him to buy Nathan some time, despite not having the money to do so. To make matters worse, things are stalled even further when Jo’s Scottish henchman breaks into the room and attacks Nathan. He eventually gets cornered by the henchman outside the room, so as a last-ditch effort to distract everyone at the auction, he jumps onto the light fixture, stopping the show as everyone freaks out.

Sully steals the cross, after switching his jacket to those that are guarding the case and walks out the back as Nathan hits the ground. Nathan is about to be caught by security, but he’s able to escape. Sully is stopped by Jo in the back-room area, but Sully, still acting as a disguised worker, tells security she’s trying to steal the case. This allows him to leave unscathed and though Jo beats down all the security guys, Sully escapes to his car with the cross, with Nathan waiting in the backseat pissed off because he thought Sully was going to leave him. However, after showing him that the cross is in their possession, all is forgiven.

The two take a private jet to Barcelona, Spain. On the way there, Sully shows him the journal of Elcano, confirming the legend of the gold. In the journal, it is said that Magellan found the gold in the Philippines, hid it in Barcelona, and told the Moncadas they “failed”. Sully asks if there is a clue on how to use the keys, so Nathan tells him that based off of the drawing of some special pine tree that they should be looking for a tree. Sully gets annoyed though because he already figured that part on his own because it’s fairly obvious. They land and meet up with Chloe Frazer (Ali), an untrustworthy associate of Sully’s. Right away, she’s skeptical of Nathan, wondering why he’s even there. Nathan wonders the same about her, but Sully reveals that he lied. Technically, she has the other cross they need. After a little arguing between the three of them, she leaves. Sully demands Nathan check his backpack for the cross, and it’s gone.

Somehow, she managed to pickpocket it out of a zipped-up backpack.

A chase ensues and just as Chloe gets to her car first and almost escapes, Nathan’s last-ditch effort to get her to stay is to mention she doesn’t know where to go with the keys. He says that the “Infamous 18” wouldn’t put the treasure by a tree. They would use something more permanent as a marker. After Sully catches up, they dare her to leave. Realizing Nathan may have a point, she lets him explain himself further. Nathan talks about how in their conversation before the auction, Moncada referred to the cross as an “altar crucifix”, meaning it was made to stand on an altar at a church, specifically the Santa Marie del Pi. As a result, they go to the church. On its outside wall is the picture of the tree emblazoned on the side of the journal. Then, the three go back to Chloe’s house to wait for the midnight mass service to search the inside. Back at the Moncada Foundation Headquarters (also in Barcelona), Moncada argues with his father, who’s decided to give away the family fortune. After he doesn’t back down, Moncada meets with Jo and tells her that Sully has been spotted, sending her and her boys after him.

This makes matters worse for Nathan, Sully, and Chloe as they pursue this fortune of treasure. It also doesn’t help that no one in this trio can trust each other either.

My Thoughts:

Let me preface this by saying that I haven’t played the Uncharted video games. The closest I’ve been with it was saying, “That game looks pretty cool”, when it first came out. That’s pretty much it.

Even so, I still wasn’t fully comfortable with Tom Holland as Nathan Drake. With the basic knowledge that I have of the well-reviewed video game franchise, it just felt wrong that Mark Wahlberg didn’t play the lead. Not only does he look like him but considering the basic character traits that Drake has, I think it was just way more his style. Don’t get me wrong, I love Tom Holland. He’s a superstar right now, and I understand casting younger because you want this to potentially be a long-running franchise. I get that and though I didn’t think he did badly in the role, it just became more and more evident to me that Wahlberg was the right choice. It’s still hard for me to get over. Additionally, Holland played the role way too similar to his version of Peter Parker in the most recent Spider-Man films. He has the similar humorous side to him, is still incredibly naive, and still has too much of a babyface to make me think that him pickpocketing people is really that bad. He looks like he could play Peter Pan in a live-action Disney remake rather than a cool guy treasure hunter.

I don’t mean that as an insult either. He would probably be a great Peter Pan; you just have to admit that he looks nowhere near his actual age.

It’s just hard for him to shed the look of Peter Parker so soon after so many MCU films. He didn’t do the role different enough to set himself apart from it either. He didn’t even change his look. I understand that it’s not a role that asks someone to change a lot, but the rugged adventurer role doesn’t really mix well with Holland’s innocent demeanor. Admittedly, this could change in future sequels. It’s just after watching so many Spider-Man movies, it’s hard to not think about.

Wahlberg in a mentor role was fun, but the best parts stemmed from him showing his money hungry tendencies, looking jumpy and excited anytime they’re close to treasure. This really showed the side of Sully that I loved. However, we only see this side every so often. Other than that, Wahlberg plays the role way too cool, despite the best parts being when we see his frantic Pain and Gain-like tendencies slipping out. Anytime Sully shows his true shelf, he got my full attention. In an emotional moment for Nathan, he confronts Sully, asking “You dragged me all the way out here because you think I know something?”. Without flinching, showing that Sully is all about this treasure that has consumed his life, quickly responds with, “Yeah, do you?”. This had to be the most simply written, but all-around best exchanges in the entire film. It showed us exactly what we needed to know about our characters. Nathan is a genuinely good guy that trusts too easy and can’t get over his brother. The gold is a positive, but it’s a very secondary thing to him. On the other hand, Sully will do anything possible to get to this treasure (befriending and betraying whoever), with his burgeoning friendship with Nathan being secondary to him. I loved that part but again, I needed more of it. They kept on trying to force banter between the two, but it felt too heavily scripted as the two tried to throw unfunny quips at each other throughout the film.

I’m not saying that this should’ve been Rush Hour-level of banter, but I think something along the lines of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang wasn’t unreachable.

Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg seemed like they could ease into a banter-filled partnership without a problem. Forcing it where it wasn’t needed was not the way to go. It needed to flow naturally, and this didn’t happen here. Honestly, I felt that if all else failed with the movie, at least the jokes and funny conversations between the two would carry everything. Sadly, I have to admit that it came off as substandard compared to most buddy films that Uncharted could’ve, and should’ve, easily emulated.

The action was solid throughout, but I have to admit it was a bit disappointing. Visually, it was very impressive, especially in terms of an Action-Adventure film, but I felt as if I was waiting for one big climactic fight that never came. It was consistent, and rightfully so, but they weren’t nearly as satisfying as they needed to be. On top of that, one of the best action sequences in the film, with Nathan Drake flying out of an airplane and trying to avoid getting killed, was spoiled completely by the million trailers of the film that we’ve seen on TV and the internet beforehand. It was easily the best sequence of the movie and could’ve been one of the most exciting openings of the year, but because of the number of trailers for the film that I saw on my news feed, I already saw 70% of the scene.

Considering all of the different avenues you can take a treasure hunting movie, the screenplay felt fairly subpar and somewhat undeveloped. There are so many little instances throughout the movie that seemed lazily put together. There’s one funny idea that Nathan demands Sully buy a cat for preparation for the auction, but he tells him the actual reason was to give Sully a pet because he was lonely. The execution of the joke was horrible, and the callback was even worse. That joke seemed like one that was too easy to make considering the talent, and they still managed to make it not funny. The joke was a softball people! Then, you just have a bunch of moments that just don’t make sense to me logistically. I’m not talking about the action sequences. It’s an adventure film, so that type of crazy action always gets a pass. I’m just talking about basic stuff, like how the hell did Chloe pickpocket a closed backpack? Somehow, she manages to steal a heavy cross from Nathan’s backpack, despite the fact that Sully and Nathan are facing her the entire time! No matter how good of a pickpocket you are, this doesn’t seem possible if they were standing right next to her in an open area, unless they put their heads down and closed their eyes! Going along with Chloe’s apparently superhuman skills, there’s a scene where Jo is about to kill her on the plane, but she manages to walk away and hide. Mind you, there are maybe twenty or so soldiers staring directly at her as she walked away but when Jo asks where she went, no one had a clue.

How in the absolute fuck is that possible?

She was standing in front of them and walked to the left. How did not one person say, “Hey, she’s getting away!” or “She went that way!”? It would be physically impossible to not, at the very least, know what direction she went in. There’s also one major question I have about Nathan and Sam’s relationship. This may be answered by the video games but since I have no frame of reference, why does Sam make this whole puzzle of postcards for Nathan? Why does Sam feel like he needs to be The Riddler? Why can’t he just tell his brother in these postcards to go to a specific place to find something? Why does Sam waste so much time doing that to his brother? It just dawned on me in the film that this was never answered. It was just an accepted thing the characters went along with. Shouldn’t Nathan be frustrated at how hard this code is to crack? Technically, Sam found the whole treasure first and just decides to mess with his brother, when he could’ve saved them weeks of time had he just told him where to go. Why waste the time? Why are we as the audience supposed to be cool with it?

Each big moment where Nathan considers leaving the mission, or not even joining in the first place, felt super generic too. After coming up with a decent explanation as to why he doesn’t want to help, all it takes is for him to look at some old pictures of Sam and he was like, “I’m in”. It’s a trope we see way too often in these types of films. In addition, it takes very little convincing to have Nathan re-join Sully, despite some big moment where they tease that the two might split from each other. Believe me, there’s not a single momentary second where I think Nathan is going to bail because Sully is a money-hungry dick. Even when he’s adamant and tells Sully he’s done after this mission, you can’t help but just roll your eyes. Yeah, I’m sure you’re done after this buddy.

When they get to the treasure, before the climax, I honestly thought that it was achieved way too easily as well. I guess the more important part was the big pirate-like ending, but you would think there would be at least some booby traps for Nathan and Sully to have to get through but no, they just swim. Antonio Banderas was a nice inclusion, but the twist involving him didn’t feel like a good decision at all. It felt like the air left the room and never came back. The Jo Braddock character wasn’t strong enough yet to have that big of a role in the second half of the film. Also, the end was wildly predictable. As soon as the treasure was revealed to be $5 billion in the first act, you know they aren’t going to get the treasure. This isn’t even a spoiler. This is just logic. If you were to score a reward in the billions, there’s no need to go after any more treasure. Thus, no more sequels would be made. As soon as Sully reveals that the gold is at least worth $5 billion, my initial thoughts were, “Okay, so how are they going to fuck this up”?

I don’t regret watching Uncharted because I really was intrigued by the duo of the always likable Tom Holland teaming with Mark Wahlberg. If you ignore the look of the character that the movie is based on, you might be able to get into it easier. However, I can’t ignore how lazy and downright underwhelming some of the main story was. It relied heavily on its star power and that was clear by the end of it. On the flip side, I always enjoy a good treasure hunting film, so it was alright. I still see franchise potential out of this movie. Being forced to do an origin story in the first film of a potential series, based on a previously known property, can bog down the excitement and intricate details of what the game is known for. Because of this, I can understand why they didn’t focus too much on the nitty gritty and just jumped right into the big-budget action stuff that attracts the crowds, with the story and the characters having to take a hit as a result.

With that being said, when this franchise is more fleshed out with sequels, there’s a good chance Uncharted will more than likely be the worst one in the series.

Fun Fact: Nathan Fillion campaigned for the role of Nathan Drake, and Chris Pratt was offered the role but turned it down. Mark Wahlberg was originally cast as Drake, with Robert De Niro potentially playing his dad and Joe Pesci his uncle. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were given the offer of writing the film too, but they turned it down.