Friday, May 13, 2022

Uncharted - Another Adaptation of Popular Action Adventure Game with Treasure Hunt Background

When this movie was released back in February 2022, my wife and I were not having the courage to go to the cinemas yet. So we opted to wait till the film is available via streaming. Earlier this month, I noticed the announcement from Catchplay+ that it's going to release this movie on 12 May. And last night, we finally got the chance to see it. OK, I'll get right to it.

Brief Story Line

Nathan Drake (Tom Holland - Chaos WalkingOnward etc) was a treasure hunter who side job as a bartender. He had been eyeing for the gold treasure of the Magellan expedition centuries ago. So when a more senior professional hunter named Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg - Spenser ConfidentialAll the Money in the World etc) approached him to work together on finding the gold, he decided to go along with Sully. They would later be joined by Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali - The Wilds TV series etc) who had also been looking for the treasure.

The hunt would prove to be a real difficult task as they had to compete with Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas - Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard, Spy Kids movies etc) who had endless resources in his hands, plus the help from a ruthless mercenary Jo Braddock (Tati Gabrielle - Chilling Adventures of Sabrina TV series etc).

So how would the story conclude? You can find them all in this pretty exciting movie.

End of Brief Story Line

I have been a fan of treasure hunt movies ever since I saw Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom many many years ago. So whenever there is a similar kind of movie, I was always excited as usually it has plenty of action, adventure, riddle solving and some comedies as well. Therefore I was a bit disappointed that I was not able to see this movie during its theatrical run in Indonesia due to the pandemic. When I watched this movie on my TV, I noticed the real obvious CGI in the early part which sadly made it a bit less satisfying. I said in one of my posts previously that this problem seemed to be occurring with other movies released on different platforms too, which I am not sure the reasons.

Nevertheless, as I continued watching, the subsequent scenes where the action were not entirely done using CGI were more satisfying for me. My wife who was usually not very particular about such effect, also noticed the glaring CGI in here, but she was not really bothered by them. Good thing for me that the actions and the characters were still enjoyable to watch, especially the chemistry between Nate and Sully. I believe Tom Holland was pretty convincing as the young naive treasure hunter here.

Btw, this movie was adapted from popular Uncharted game series published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and available on Play Station (later also on other platforms). No wonder there was the logo of Play Station in the beginning. However, it looked like there were criticism on the various discrepancies (including appearance) between the game and the film. Although since I never played the game before, it was not a damaging factor for me personally, and my wife and I were still able to enjoy it.

Throughout the whole movie, there were few searching for clues scenes which were exciting to see. The actions were also quite suspenseful which included some gravity defying stunts like other similar game adaptations.  I liked the action sequence on the plane, but the part I liked the most would be the climax scene which was quite intense. There were a bit of comedy usually involving Nate and Sully's behaviors. Other than Holland, Wahlberg and Sophia Ali, I thought the rest were just so so. Tati Gabrielle sadly did not really convince me as a truly ruthless mercenary and Antonio Banderas was not too impressive either.

The film had a duration of 116 minutes which had an interesting mid end credit scene. It definitely looked like the producers were thinking of making sequels from this, and there might be a chance for it to happen. We'll just have to wait and see. This movie was directed by Ruben Fleischer whose prior credits included VenomZombieland: Double Tap and few other movies & TV series. So he had experience in directing action adventure with comedy. 

Overall this was a movie that in general my wife and I liked due to its adventures and some suspenseful actions. It was entertaining for us as it had the fun and comedic elements which we liked in a film. Only thing that I would have loved better was if we had seen this on the large screen in the cinema which might make the CGI less obvious. But I am still thankful that it did not take very long for the movie to be available via streaming. So if you did not have the chance to see the movie back then, you can enjoy it now from the comfort of your home on Catchplay+ and other platforms at a certain fee.

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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