Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Cast: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabreille, Steven Waddington, Pingi Moli, Tiernan Jones, Rudy Pankow, Jesús Evita, Georgia Goodman, Joseph Balderrama, Manuel de Blas.
For many, film and video games are now interchangeable, one pushes the other onwards, they are the same behemoth just with different pasts driving them; and for others it is a tangled web, one designed for a generation that perhaps has not explored the rich history that has placed cinema at the head of entertaining and educating millions of people since it first gained reverence as the peak of the visual art form and remained so until its more agnostic sibling, television, stole its pace in the habits of billions.
Whether you see the future of film as one caught in the imagination and maelstrom of video gaming or have decided to place your attention solely on the independent film-making process of old, there is no denying its 21st century influence, and in the name of entertainment, of chasing the next blockbuster franchise, the silver screen adaption of Uncharted will no doubt rank amongst the initiated as being a prized possession.
The issue perhaps lays in its simplicity, to hark back to a different time, and to a franchise that laid the 80s foundation for the adventure genre to really grip the minds of the viewer, it is no Indiana Jones, it is possible to see its aspirations, to see the courage of its conviction, but ultimately fall because it does not have the universal appeal of its giant of comparison, nor does it seek the fundamental persuasion of its lead character.
The fact that Nathan Drake, played by the ever likeable Tom Holland, is a good thief, is about the only connection between what has been lorded, and what will arguably be forgotten in parts, for the modern eye has found a way to distil the hero and their flaw, one thankfully ignored largely by Marvel for example, but which in this case seeks to limit the danger of appeal to the realm of imagination.
The problem with video games being turned into films is the viewer arguably does not get to imagine how they would take on rogues and villains, because they have been largely trained to do it via a scripted piece of code, how many young teenagers for example might see themselves in the mirror as Nathan Drake when all they have to do is immerse themselves into a world of wires and invisible, almost sterile connection.
Whilst visually appreciative, the sheer coldness of performance leaves the viewer unbalanced, the action-adventure hero we need for the 21st Century does not come from a place of distilled code, but from the open furnaces of a person who you can believe will walk through Hell to save another’s soul. In that, film with a conscious, when taken from the belief in the hero as more than an idea on a screen, will prevail.
Uncharted perhaps, but not off the scale; the franchise, if it were to succeed, needs to remember the very essence of the action adventure, it needs to come from a place of heart and truth.
Ian D. Hall