Los Angeles, Feb 28: It is pretty much a universally established fact at this point that video game movies can never truly succeed, but with “Uncharted” it might be a success into an yet uncharted territory with obvious respect for its source material that is very apparent. In terms of video game cinematic adaptations, while the movie did not 100 per cent capture the cinematic brilliance of the games given the Uncharted series’ brilliant design, graphical excellence and aesthetics they certainly did not fail either and with, the game being more than adaptable to a live action setting, “Uncharted” managed to do just that.
If anything, director Ruben Fleischer deserves great praise for his efforts for making the movie feel a great deal like the games, and in general it would like a good action adventure film for those who do not know about the games. Apart from it carrying the spirit of the game, the movie can be further be praised for its adherence to the cinematic quality and its desire to capture the aesthetics of the game, because unlike a lot of other live action adaptations, this shows a level of respect the prime example being the shot of Drake clinging to a bunch of cargo while at the risk of falling of a plane.
The scene from Uncharted 3 is one of the franchise’s most visually famous scenes and had been relentlessly used as a marketing tool to promote the movies. So at least the movie deserves credit for its effort in trying to capture the essence of the games, even if it did not fully succeed. There are several other scenes which seem they have been directly replicated from the games, which is a very nice addition indeed. A point of criticism in the story though is bound to arise, particularly as some of the these adapted alterations were simply unnecessary, such as portraying the relationship between Nathan Drake and Sully as more akin to friends rather than father son.
While Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg gave good performance as Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan- Nathan’s mentor, Tom Holland simply does not look like Nathan Drake, one of the reasons being Drake is significantly older while the age difference between Drake and Sully is enough to make their relationship more of a father son type, which is what it is supposed to be and is a big part of the games.
The movie portrays a young Nathan Drake teams up with Sully in a race against evil billionaire Santiago Moncada played by Antinio Banderas and ruthless mercenary Jo Braddock played by Tati Gabrielle to located the fabled treasure of the Magellan expedition. Speaking on the action and choreography, the movie carries not only the look but also the spirit of the game, though it does feel toned down, particularly in regards to the violence as the games feature a variety of weaponry.
Nonetheless, “Uncharted” is a very commendable effort and deserves a lot of praise for it managed to do what a lot of high budget cinematic video game adaptations fail to do, capture the game and feel true to it and as such Uncharted deserves great praise for it is a truly worthy film that does justice to the games even if it does not quite manage to live up to them. But then again, few movies can manage to live up to their video game counterparts.
