Uncharted Parent Guide

Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) has been on his own since he was ten, when his older brother Sam (Rudy Pankow) ran off to avoid some legal trouble. Since then, his only contact has been the occasional postcard. But Nate has better things to do than pine after his brother and has made his way as a bartender in New York with a lucrative hobby: picking pockets. This little skill soon attracts the attention of Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), a thief on a much larger scale, who needs his help to pull off a job. Sully is seeking the lost treasure of Ferdinand Magellan’s famous crew, believed to be hidden somewhere in Barcelona. Before finding Nate, Sully had been working with Sam, who abruptly ghosted Sully after they found a diary filled with clues to the ultimate location of the gold. Eager to find the fortune and his long-lost brother, Nate signs on…but he soon learns that not everyone illegally hunting for historical relics is entirely trustworthy.

Although the individual ingredients of the film are promising, the result is somehow less than the sum of its parts. A madcap international chase for lost treasure is sure to be a good time, but the film seems incapable of sticking to a successful formula, instead indulging in long scenes of pointless interpersonal intrigue and betrayal. Those scenes could have been interesting had they not been so relentlessly predictable and detrimental to the overall plot. Mostly they just slow down the storyline so the film can bloat out to feature-length. Frankly, it would have been better were it about half an hour shorter.

I like Tom Holland, but he seems miscast as the somewhat more rugged Nathan Drake we see in the critically acclaimed video games. His boyish charm, which serves him so well as the pubescent Peter Parker in Spider-Man makes him seem unsuited to the dangers of the expedition on which he embarks and lends an unfortunately cartoonish quality to the film. I have a sneaking suspicion that the studio was more concerned with attracting the as many top tier celebrities as possible to the project, rather than casting leads who resemble their characters.

This sickly and implausible lovechild of Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and unfortunately, Fast and Furious, lurches through patches of excitement, but fails to consistently maintain a base level of entertainment. Apart from some scatological profanity and a fascination with alcohol, the film is broadly suitable for younger audiences, but will fail to captivate older ones. Unless, if course, you love watching treasure-hungry robbers carelessly destroy academically priceless centuries-old artefacts in the name of a quick buck. Then you’ll have a ball.