Uncharted ★★½

TOM Holland and Mark Wahlberg make a decent pairing in Uncharted but the film itself is a little lacklustre.

This action/adventure is based on a video game, which usually sounds alarm bells from the outset.

They might be fun and engaging to play but historically they haven’t transferred to the big screen well.

This is also one of those films that was in development for a decade with the script re-written on several occasions.

All that being said, it is half-decent and doing pretty well at the box office, mainly because it’s the kind of ‘leave your brain at the door’ entertainment that will drag people in bigger numbers to the cinema during these testing, covid-impacted times.

Holland plays Nathan Drake, a bartender and pick-pocket who has a fascination with the history of exploration thanks to his older brother Sam whom he hasn’t seen since they were separated as teenagers at an orphanage.

Drake agrees to help an adventurer named Vic Sullivan (Wahlberg) find the location of a treasure that was allegedly sunk with the Magellan expedition vessels. They are aided by Sullivan’s feisty, sometimes-associate Chloe (Sophia Ali) and pitted against a ruthless Spanish billionaire played by Antonio Banderas and his henchwoman (Tati Gabrielle).

There are plenty of exotic locations to enjoy and some of the action is well-staged but suffers from over-reliance on CGI. The stand-out sequence is the mid-air battle across two Spanish galleons attached to helicopters which serves as the film’s climax.

Holland and Wahlberg have some decent banter and chemistry but there is little attempt to flesh out any characters apart from Drake. The attempt at a romance doesn’t work at all.

The end credits are a clear indication that the studio is hoping for a franchise but there will have to be a lot more effort put into the scripts.