By TeeJay Small
| Published
Over the course of the last thirty years or so, video games have become so good-looking, so impactful, and so well-written that the best of them are effectively 15-hour-long movies. You’d think this would make them easy to adapt to the big screen, but apparently you’d be woefully mistaken.
Since the 1990s, audiences have been inundated with lackluster video game movies, bizarre studio notes, and downright disrespectful adaptations such as Borderlands, Rampage, and 1993’s Super Mario Bros. While we do get the occasional hit, nothing exemplifies the failure of film studios to grasp game adaptations quite like 2022’s Uncharted.
Uncharted is an adaptation of the PlayStation classic of the same name, which first released back in 2007. Over the course of four mainline games and a handful of spinoffs, the franchise follows the adventures of treasure hunter Nathan Drake. Drake is a borderline super-powered Indiana Jones type who spends his time uncovering lost pirate cities, locating buried treasure, and murdering thousands of enemy mercenaries without a moment’s hesitation. Ever since the first game released as a PlayStation 3 launch title, fans have been clamoring for a film adaptation, especially one that involves Nathan Fillion, who seems to be a dead ringer for the digital discoverer.
Released During Peak Tom Holland Fatigue
Unfortunately, the Uncharted movie we received might have been a monkey’s paw situation, as it completely failed to deliver on its premise. The casting is the most glaring issue of the film. For starters, Uncharted hit theaters right at the height of Tom Holland fatigue, so casting the Spider-Man actor in the main role seems like a giant mistake.
This could be easily forgiven if the film had procured the right actor for Sully, Drake’s mentor and right-hand man, but Sony fumbled that in spectacular fashion as well. Rather than giving us a grizzled, mustachioed, cigar-chomping elder such as JK Simmons, Bruce Campbell, or Bryan Cranston, Sony placed Mark Wahlberg in the passenger seat.
Mark Wahlberg Was Supposed To Be Nathan Drake
Wahlberg is so absurdly out of place in the film that watching Uncharted today feels like a fever dream. Still, a brief look at the behind-the-scenes history of the production helps to answer a few major questions. Apparently, Wahlberg signed on to portray Nathan Drake himself way back in 2010, when Academy Award-nominated filmmaker David O’Russell was still attached to direct.
At that time, O’Russell had cooked up some kind of off-the-walls pitch which included Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci joining the cast as Drake’s father and uncle, respectively. It sounds like something that wouldn’t gel with the game’s narrative at all, but at least it would be an interesting way to bring the character to the big screen.
A Ship Of Theseus Situation
Over the course of a decade, everything about the production changed, except for Wahlberg’s involvement. By the time the movie was ready to shoot, it had become a Ship of Theseus situation, resulting in the bland, poorly-realized adaptation we received.
So, Wahlberg aged out of the Drake role, became Sully instead, and made space for Tom Holland to do his confused little boy schtick. The writing is bland and forgettable, the stunts are half-baked recreations of the game franchise’s finest moments, and the direction is passable, but makes no lasting impact at all.
Fans Get It Right Where Hollywood Gets It Wrong
It’s a shame that the Uncharted movie couldn’t live up to the hype, especially since there are numerous unauthorized fan films on the internet that knock it out of the park. One viral fan film even features Nathan Fillion in the lead role, further exemplifying his willingness to bring the character to life. As it stands, we’ll probably never get another Uncharted film, and we don’t even have another Indiana Jones outing on the horizon to fill the treasure-hunting desire in our hearts.
If, for some reason, you’d like to see this train wreck for yourself, Uncharted is currently streaming on Hulu. If you have the means and the spare time, though, you’d really be better off playing any of the games instead.
