“Fortune favors the bold,” the tagline for Uncharted promises. The film that follows does not test that claim so much as ignore it. Ruben Fleischer’s adaptation of the Naughty Dog video game series is a 116-minute chase that rarely stops moving and rarely gives a reason to care where it is going.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Tom Holland’s Nathan Drake Starts in a Boston Museum
The film opens with orphaned brothers Sam and Nathan Drake caught trying to steal a map made after the Magellan expedition from a Boston museum. Before the orphanage can expel Sam, he sneaks out on his own, promising Nate he will return and leaving him a ring that belonged to their supposed ancestor, Sir Francis Drake.
Fifteen years later, Nate (Tom Holland) tends bar in New York City and pickpockets wealthy patrons. Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), a fortune hunter who worked with Sam tracking treasure hidden by the Magellan crew, finds him and says Sam vanished after helping steal Juan Sebastián Elcano’s diary. Nate, no longer receiving postcards from his brother, agrees to help.
The setup is thin, and the film knows it. What it offers instead is motion: an auction heist, a golden cross, a fight with mercenaries, a flight to Barcelona. The pieces move. They do not connect.
Mark Wahlberg and the Problem of Sully
Wahlberg was originally set to play Drake in early development, back when the project had a different shape and a different lead. He plays Sully instead, and the film never decides what Sully is. Mentor? Rival? Comic relief? Wahlberg plays him as a man who has seen this movie before and is waiting for it to end.
Holland is game. To prepare for the bartending scenes, he was taught how to do shifts by the staff at the Chiltern Firehouse, and when filming halted during the COVID-19 pandemic, he kept training for the role. That effort shows in the physical sequences. It does not show in the dialogue, which gives him little to do but react.
The two share the screen for most of the runtime. The chemistry is professional. It is not electric.
A Cast That Deserves More Than the Script Gives
Antonio Banderas plays Santiago Moncada, the last descendant of the family that financed Magellan’s expedition, now a ruthless treasure hunter. He kills his father, Armando Moncada, to fund his expedition. Banderas brings weight to a role that has no room for it.
Sophia Ali plays Chloe Frazer, a fellow fortune hunter and Sully’s associate, who has the second cross. Tati Gabrielle makes her film debut as Jo Braddock, the mercenary leader working with Moncada. Gabrielle is the film’s best asset in its action scenes, and the film does not know it.
Steven Waddington appears as the Scotsman. Rudy Pankow plays Sam, Nate’s long-lost brother. Tiernan Jones plays young Nate. Pingi Moli plays Hugo. Nolan North, who voiced Nathan Drake in the video games, cameos as a hotel guest on the beach who talks to Nate and Chloe. Pilou Asbæk appears as Gage in the mid-credits scene.
The Magellan Treasure and the Crypt That Floods
The plot runs on clues. Nate, Chloe, and Sully follow Elcano’s diary to Santa Maria del Pi in Barcelona, finding a secret crypt behind the altar. Nate and Chloe enter and find a trap door. When they open it, the crypt floods with water. Sully helps them escape after subduing an ambush by Braddock.
Using the two crosses to unlock a secret passage, Nate and Chloe find a map showing the treasure is in the Philippines. Chloe betrays Nate and leaves to take the map to Moncada, but not before indicating that Sully is hiding something about Sam. Sully recovers Nate and reveals that Sam was shot and possibly killed by Braddock.
This is the film’s emotional center, and it arrives too late and lands too softly. The reveal should recontextualize everything. Instead it plays like a plot point checked off a list.
A Comparison of the Film’s Two Leads
| Character | Actor | Role in the story | What the film does with them |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nathan “Nate” Drake | Tom Holland | Bartender recruited by Sully; claims descent from Sir Francis Drake | Physical set pieces; little dialogue with weight |
| Victor “Sully” Sullivan | Mark Wahlberg | Fortune hunter who worked with Sam | Mentor and secret-keeper; tone never settles |
The table tells the story. One lead carries the action. The other carries the exposition. Neither carries the film.
Fifteen Years of Development and a Pandemic Shutdown
Uncharted entered development in 2008, when producer Avi Arad said he would work with Sony Pictures on a film adaptation of the franchise. What followed was a long stay in development hell, with directors and writers and lead cast members attached at various points. David O. Russell, Neil Burger, Seth Gordon, Dan Trachtenberg, Shawn Levy, and Travis Knight were each signed to direct at different stages. Wahlberg was set to play Drake in early development.
Holland was cast as Drake in May 2017. Fleischer was hired in early 2020. Filming began in March 2020 but was halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It resumed in July and finished in October, with locations including Boston, Barcelona, New York City, and Kiamba.
The film was originally set for release on December 18, 2020. It faced major delays. That history is visible on screen. This is a movie assembled from parts that were designed for other movies.
What Uncharted Gets Right and What It Cannot Fix
The action is competent. The locations are real. The cast is overqualified. The film has a tagline about fortune favoring the bold, and it does not have the nerve to be bold.
What it has is a franchise. The mid-credits scene with Asbæk’s Gage signals a sequel. The cameo from Nolan North signals respect for the games. The casting of Holland signals a younger audience. None of it signals a reason to watch this one.
The published critical score sits at 4.5 out of 10, with a Metacritic score of 45 out of 100. That is the right range. Uncharted is not a disaster. It is a film that never becomes anything.
The treasure of the Magellan expedition is described in the film as “the greatest treasure never found.” The same could be said of the movie’s point.
Score: 4.5 of 10.
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