Saturday, September 3, 2022

Thoughts on Uncharted

Just okay overall. Pretty generic action blockbuster film, entertaining throughout but very little innovation and a lot of weak spots. 5.5/10, worth watching but not a much and definitely got butchered a bit.

Pros:

-Tom Holland is surprisingly pretty good and by far the best performance/character. It's not quite authentic Nathan Drake but works as a young adventurer vibe. Really zero flaws in his character/performance except some goofy comedy bits/one-liners

-It's entertaining throughout, not really a boring moment. This doesn't mean its great but overall moves at a decent pace and isn't a movie one would regret watching.

-The ships/cove reveal is well done and a nice callback to Uncharted 4.

-The after credits scenes are surprisingly pretty good, wish the movie had been more like this.

-There is one pretty cool cameo.

Cons:

-Besides Holland/Drake, the performances and characters are largely awful. Generic forgettable henchman that borderline on cringe (the scottish jokes did not hit at all), Chloe Frazer was horrible and a butchering of her character, the black girl was one of the worst characters of the last few years. Mark Wahlberg/Sully isn't quite as bad but is generally dull and Wahlberg is clearly miscast.

-The twist. Props to them for trying that in a relatively safe blockbuster (it was not expected) but Banderas was probably the second best performance in the movie so changing that dynamic with a much, much weaker character did not pan out. Also very little time was actually spent on any shocking/brutal nature of the twist so it ends just not working at all.

-Many of the video game callbacks trying to showcase real Uncharted video game moments are pretty bad.

-Some of the visuals are rough. 3rd act is not good.

-Script issues. A lot of stupid dialogue and moronic character decisions. Made zero sense that the villains would go after them with the ship and helicopter intact given how risky that was and the likelihood of destroying the only things they came for.