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Nathan Drake, the protagonist of the Uncharted series, holds a ring claiming to be an heirloom from his ancestor, the explorer Sir Francis Drake. The ring is engraved with "Sic Parvis Magna", which means "small places make big things". The development of this series also corroborates this statement, and the ordinary first work spawned three sequels, and one was better than the other.
But this "achievement of great things" is not reflected in the film version of "Uncharted Sea". This may have been the beginning of a Sony series of movies, but once again it was a failure for a game adaptation. I felt that the need for a sequel was basically small, and the whole film was still quite eye-catching with the second Easter egg of the film, and the treasure hunting duo Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan suddenly erupted in chemistry in the mouth, which made people wonder why there were no such vivid lines in the first two hours of the film. For a moment, I felt as if I saw the character in the game, but the moment came too late.
Throughout the film, Ruben Fleischer, director of Zombie Paradise and Venom, and screenwriters Rafi Judkins, Arte Marcomb, and Matt Holloway go their separate ways between the game's original characters and the film's original innovative characters, doing everything they can to cram them into an origin story. In the game series, the characters are more compact and powerful.
In the first game, Drake and Sully only had the image of thieves, and the developers began to expand the character lineup and flesh out their backstory in subsequent works. The series's villains are usually boring, but there are always some distinct motives, such as seeking the Tree of Life for immortality, or trying to break the deep friendship between Nathan and Sully. Such a lack of fun also appears in the movie version.
The film version of Uncharted gives a different feel, as if each screenwriter is responsible for a different element adaptation: puzzle solving, stealth, parkour and big action scenes. The plot is fragmented, making it difficult for the entire movie to introduce well or switch between multiple characters freely. But even without introducing the burden of multiple characters, the processing that advances the film's narrative still lacks excitement, without real danger, clever twists, or blood-boiling adventures.
Some of the action scenes borrow directly from the game, the most obvious and hyped of nature is the cargo plane battle in Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, where Drake falls from the plane and greets him with what seems to be a mortal ending. Ruben and the writers found a more convenient way to reconstruct the scene, starting with a car chase scene in which the player jumped into the fuselage as the plane took off, and in a live-action movie, they used the "pluggable" approach of a Hollywood blockbuster, with no tension at all under so many characters.
Their idea of trying to create familiar scenes for players is commendable, but the adapted version is neither meaningless nor emotionally engaging (and anyone who has played the series knows that Nathan Drake didn't escape the fate so easily).
The Uncharted games may rarely focus on realistic action, but the action in the film adaptation is also too mysterious (some sports car scenes may make Donald in "Rapid" feel self-conscious). No one on the creative team seems to have thought deeply about how chaotic it would be to switch back and forth between serious and light-hearted tones in a two-hour movie.
The whole film also does not leave any room for brilliant performance, and there is no opportunity for natural tacit understanding between the characters. Various fight scenes can be quickly edited, and obvious traces of green screen shooting can be seen. This is also a particularly disappointing point. You know, the four works of "Uncharted Sea" have been breaking through the functional limitations of PS3 and PS4.
The biggest failure of the whole movie is that the protagonists lack a sense of three-dimensionality, and it must be fair to Tom Holland here, in the scene without lines, his basic actions, including punching, climbing and hiding behind objects, are perfectly restored to the game, and it is amazing to see such a vivid Drake on the screen. Even the way Nathan and Sully separately enter the Barcelona church to look for clues seems to be carved out of a mold with the game, allowing the audience to look for it with the characters.
But some scenes are less brilliant, such as Sully walking into a New York bar, and Nathan serving drinks at the bar, cleverly picking customers, and the lines here are far-fetched, and the actors don't seem to understand how the characters spark between each other. The script also failed to provide them with any witty dialogue, making the performance even less impressive.
Mark Wahlberg had no intention of seriously recreating the character of Sully, so much so awkward to watch him deliberately imitate Sully's accent. Sully in the game is more like a sarcastic being than a greasy character like Wahlberg. Whenever Hollander gives a decent Drake look, Wahlberg's framed performance weakens that feeling.
The actors in the game adaptation do not need to match the appearance and sound, after all, the most important thing is whether the movie "Uncharted" can tell a treasure hunting story full of pleasing characters. But as it turned out, it failed. Sully is a more selfish and greedy man who recruits Nathan to find a lost treasure from a Magellan expedition, which Nathan is not interested in, so Sully proposes that he also wants to reveal the secret with Nathan's brother Sam. Nathan hasn't seen Nathan since he ran out of the orphanage where his brother grew up.
Nathan left behind some hidden postcards that Sam had sent over the years, indicating that he still cared about his brother (incidentally, without the crumpled handwritten letters as visual clues, this would not be Considered Uncharted at all). According to Sully, the final clue is hidden inside, and following the trail leads to a brotherly reunion, which is facilitated by Sully's greed for treasure and Nathan's desire to get together.
Nathan began their first DIY field mission as a rookie, clumsily carrying out his own plans, without even mastering the basics of jumping and suspension. This plot (inspired by Uncharted 4: The Thief's End) is somewhat brilliant, after all, Nathan is indeed in danger. But neither his own shortcomings nor the tension of life and death did not last long, and if the movie set what he was good at, he could become skilled in an instant.
Among the other game characters introduced in the film, Sophia Ali plays the best of the game characters, Croy Frese, who is also Sully's criminal cousin. Uncharted 2: Across the Seas suggests that Chloe and Nathan had a romantic past, but the film doesn't add anything interesting other than how the two met and Nathan's crush on her.
Subsequently, Uncharted uses all the characters and clues to create a story of trust, and "betrayal" becomes the main core of the story, but only to advance the plot. The thieves don't trust each other, which is consistent with the plot of Uncharted, but within two hours, the film may have more betrayals and betrayals than the 12 to 15 hours in the game.
Drake and Sully are pursued by Moncarda, played by Antonio Banderas, the son of a wealthy merchant and a descendant of Magellan's expedition. Moncada believes that he should inherit the treasure, and since his father does not intend to pass on the family wealth to him, he has decided to do whatever it takes.
Moncada's father's consideration of leaving his wealth to the people and thus taking responsibility for the family's stain may be even more jaw-dropping than all the action scenes in the film. So Moncada, who wants to find the treasure before Drake and Sully, hires a mercenary, Joe (Tati Gabriel, who looks imposing), to try to get a head start.
The producers have the right understanding of uncharted action scenes, whether it's based on some of the game's content, or some new content (such as characters fighting inside a pirate ship suspended in the air by an airplane). But the result is rather bland, meaningless and intriguing. Even the remixed theme song of Uncharted, which sounded in the midst of a fierce gunfight, was not enough to bring joy.
One of the few jokes in the film is when Nathan Drake realizes that even villains can betray each other, and he quipped, "It seems that this line of work is difficult to do with a partner." It's like what Drake in the game would say. Maybe one day, the game adaptation will no longer betray us, and really spend the effort to delve into the elements of the game that players enjoy, and finally turn a deeper understanding into a flashpoint on the screen.
Everyone in the film, except For Wahlberg, has to contribute to igniting these flashpoints, but just as Nathan always doesn't use the lighter he carries with him, small things don't always make big things happen.
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