Uncharted is a movie about a treasure hunter who gets dragged into a family feud over a map, and it spends nearly two hours proving that the game series it’s based on had the right instincts. The film, directed by Ruben Fleischer, wants to be a globe-trotting adventure with heart, and it mostly delivers the globe-trotting. The heart is a different matter.
The setup is simple. Nathan Drake, played by Tom Holland, is a young thief in London who picks pockets for a living until he meets his distant cousin Sam (Antonio Banderas) and learns that their ancestor Sir Francis Drake left behind a map pointing to El Dorado, a city of gold. Sam has been chasing this map for years, and he believes the key to finding it lies in a hidden diary. He brings Nathan into the hunt, and the chase takes them from Venice to Patagonia to a mountain peak in the Andes.
That’s the plot. It’s thin, and the film doesn’t bother disguising it. What it does instead is lean on action set pieces and a father-son bond that should be tender but plays more like a sitcom about a man who can’t stop lecturing his nephew. Holland carries the emotional weight with a mix of charm and wide-eyed wonder that mostly works, even when the script asks him to deliver lines about “the curse of the map” that feel like they came from a video game quest log. Banderas is a scene-chewer, and he chews. His Sam is a lovable rogue, but the film never quite decides whether he’s a mentor or a con man, and that ambiguity makes him less interesting than the games made him.
Trailer, via Sony Pictures Entertainment.
Venice Opens the Chase
The film opens in Venice, where Nathan steals a pendant from a wealthy collector during a charity gala. The pendant leads him to a hidden room, and there he finds the first page of the diary. The sequence is energetic, with a crane shot that follows Holland through a crowd of guests and a fight that ends with him hanging upside down from a chandelier. It’s a strong start, and it sets the tone for what follows: the camera loves motion, and the actors are told to run, jump, and swing whenever possible.
From Venice, the story moves to Patagonia, where Nathan and Sam find a second page of the diary buried under a glacier. The Andes follow, and the final act takes place on a mountain peak where the city of gold is supposed to be. Each location is rendered with care, and the production design is genuinely impressive. The film looks expensive, and it shows.
The Action Is the Star
The action sequences are where Uncharted earns its keep. A car chase through the streets of Venice is staged with real tension, and a rooftop fight in Patagonia features a stunt that sees Holland swing across a chasm on a grappling hook. The finale, set on the mountain peak, is a chaotic mess of explosions, falls, and narrow escapes that feels more like a video game boss fight than a movie climax. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. The sequences are fun to watch, even when they strain credulity.
Fleischer, who also directed Venom, knows how to stage a spectacle. The camera moves fast, the editing is sharp, and the sound design is loud. The film is at its best when it stops trying to be profound and starts trying to be exciting. The problem is that excitement isn’t enough to sustain a two-hour runtime when the stakes are mostly abstract. Nathan is looking for a city of gold, but we’re never quite sure why it matters beyond the map itself.
The Bond Between Drake and Sam
The relationship between Nathan and Sam is meant to be the emotional core of Uncharted, but it sags under the weight of its own predictability. Sam treats Nathan like a son he never had, and Nathan treats Sam like a father he lost. There’s a moment where Sam tells Nathan about his own past, and it’s meant to be moving. It isn’t. The dialogue is clunky, and the performances don’t elevate it. Holland sells the confusion and the affection, but Banderas plays Sam as a cartoon version of a mentor, complete with a catchphrase about “the map” that feels more like a punchline than a character trait.
The film also introduces Elena, played by Mark Strong, who runs a company that tracks down historical artifacts. She hires Nathan to find the diary, and she becomes a love interest for Sam. Her scenes are the weakest in the film. Strong is a good actor, but his character is written as a cold fish who warms up slowly. The romance between Sam and Elena feels forced, and it exists mainly to give Sam a reason to protect Nathan. The dynamic between the three of them is meant to be a triangle, but it plays more like a straight line with a bump in the middle.
The Supporting Cast Fades Into Background
The supporting cast is a mixed bag. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo plays Rafe, a rival treasure hunter who wants the map for himself. He’s the film’s villain, and he’s a flat one. Rafe is competent and ruthless, but he lacks the charisma to make his pursuit feel dangerous. His scenes are mostly functional, and they exist to give Nathan and Sam someone to chase and be chased by. The film doesn’t spend much time developing him beyond his desire for the map, and that’s a missed opportunity. A better-written Rafe could have made the chase more tense.
Olivia Munn plays Chloe, a former colleague of Sam’s who helps Nathan decode the diary. She’s a tech expert with a moral code, and her scenes are the closest the film comes to having a genuine character arc. She’s the one who figures out where the next page of the diary might be, and she’s the one who warns Nathan about the dangers of following Sam. Her arc is small, but it’s the most coherent thread in the narrative. The film respects her intelligence, even if it doesn’t give her much to do outside of decoding and warning.
The Problem With the Map
The problem with Uncharted is that the map itself is a mystery without a payoff. In the games, the map led to a specific location, and the journey was about solving puzzles and fighting enemies along the way. The film tries to replicate that structure, but it fails to give the map the same sense of purpose. We see pages of the diary, we see clues, we see locations, but none of it adds up to a satisfying reveal. The city of gold is found, but the film doesn’t explain why it’s there or what it means. It’s just a destination, and the journey to get there is the point.
That’s a structural flaw, and it’s one that the film can’t overcome. The action is fun, the locations are beautiful, and the performances are adequate, but the absence of a meaningful goal makes the whole enterprise feel hollow. The film is a series of set pieces strung together with a thin narrative, and that’s a recipe for a movie that’s enjoyable in the moment but forgettable afterward.
The Sound Design Carries the Pace
The sound design deserves credit. The film is loud, and the music swells at all the right moments. The score, composed by Brian Tyler, is bombastic and orchestral, and it pushes the action forward. The sound effects are sharp, and the foley work is detailed. When Nathan swings from a grappling hook, you hear the rope creak. When he falls off a cliff, you hear the wind rush past. The audio is a constant presence, and it helps sell the scale of the action.
The film also uses its locations to create a sense of place. Venice is wet and crowded, Patagonia is cold and open, and the Andes are massive and intimidating. The production design is meticulous, and the visual effects are well-integrated. The city of gold, when it finally appears, is a stunning piece of digital art. The film looks good, and that’s not a small achievement.
A Schedule of Set Pieces
| Location | Event |
|---|---|
| Venice | Charity gala and pendant theft |
| Venice | Hidden room and first diary page |
| Patagonia | Glacier and second diary page |
| Andes | Mountain peak and final confrontation |
That’s the full scope of the film’s geography, and it’s telling that the schedule is so short. The film covers three major locations in two hours, and it doesn’t linger anywhere. That pace works for the action, but it hurts the character work. The film is constantly moving, and that movement leaves little room for breathing.
The Final Verdict
Uncharted is a competently made action movie with a weak center. The set pieces are fun, the locations are beautiful, and the performances are adequate, but the film never finds a reason to care about its characters or its mission. It’s a good time at the movies, but it’s a good time that doesn’t leave much of an impression.
The film is a missed opportunity. It has all the ingredients of a great adventure movie — a treasure hunt, a family bond, a rival, a map — but it fails to assemble them into a cohesive whole. The result is a movie that’s entertaining in the moment but forgettable afterward. It’s a film that understands how to make a spectacle but not how to make a story.
Uncharted is a film that will entertain you for two hours and then vanish from memory. It’s not a bad movie, but it’s not a good one either. It’s a middle ground that’s easy to watch and hard to recommend. The action is fun, the locations are beautiful, and the performances are adequate, but the film never finds a reason to care about its characters or its mission.
The score is 4.5 of 10.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
