Holland’s Nathan is, by comparison, the more engaging of the two characters, but the degree to which Uncharted attempts to rely on Holland’s boyish charm to carry it ends up hurting the film in a way that becomes progressively more noticeable as it goes on and more characters are introduced. Wahlberg, who was one of the frontrunners to play Drake over a decade ago, neither seems particularly excited about nor down on the idea of playing Sully - he just looms like a reminder of the Uncharted movie that could have been. But the bulk of Nathan and Sully’s banter falls flat due to an unfortunate blend of questionable chemistry and hackneyed dialogue that makes even the dullest of video game cutscenes shine by comparison. Long before it shifts fully into action mode, Uncharted tries to sell you on the idea of itself as a buddy adventure flick. Watching Holland and Wahlberg try to play off of one another in basically any of the movie’s comedic scenes is like gazing into a sharp crystallization of just how fraught Uncharted’s journey to the big screen was. Uncharted can’t decide who its main character is But what Uncharted inadvertently ends up doing instead is drawing attention to its own indecision about who its main character is and what kind of people they are. What Uncharted attempts to do in its opening scenes is convey to you how Nathan and Sam’s love for treasure hunting and their being ripped away from each other in their youth laid the groundwork for the adult Nathan to become the sort of person to be won over by Sully’s charms. But Nathan’s path to lost treasure actually begins back in his adolescence when he (Tiernan Jones in flashbacks) and Sam (Rudy Pankow) were just two wayward boys sneaking out of their orphanage to steal valuable pieces of history from museums, as children are wont to do. Technically, Uncharted opens on one of its surprisingly few major set pieces that take place towards the end of the movie before jumping back in time to focus on Nathan and Sully’s meeting.
Though Nathan, a lonesome bartender with a troubled past and no close family in the present day, knows better than to trust smooth-talking strangers who pick pockets better than he does, Sully’s able to earn the younger man’s trust and recruit him onto a big job by playing up his connections and similarities to Nathan’s long-lost brother, Sam.
Uncharted draws upon elements from multiple Uncharted games in order to build a story around a younger, more inexperienced Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) who’s sucked into the jet setting, tomb raiding lifestyle after a not-so-chance encounter with conman / treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg). Uncharted knows what it’s supposed to be - the problem’s that it is profoundly uninterested in being that thing. But unlike so many other adaptations in this class, which tend to feel hamstrung by a lack of understanding of what people like about the source material, you do get the sense watching Uncharted that everyone involved vaguely “gets” what all the fuss is meant to be about.
Uncharted isn’t the first movie this is true of. Much of it is due to the brittle screenplay and writing.Columbia Pictures’ new Uncharted movie from Venom director Ruben Fleischer is a testament to the idea that the longer much-buzzed-about adaptations of beloved franchises linger in development hell, the more likely they are to emerge from it - that is if they ever do - as warped misfires that might have been better kept in the drafts.
BRAHMOTSAVAM MOVIE REVIEW EPIC FULL
Actually, everything in Brahmotsavam is full of life, but the audience in the movie hall is sombre. He is someone like Aman Mathur of Kal Ho Naa Ho, but here the hero is not dying, but full of life instead. He is handsome he is a charmer, and most of all, he is pious. This one shot is enough to see through the character. When Mahesh Babu shows up on the screen, rather than a heavy BGM, a pepped-up version Madhurashtakam plays, and the hero is seen wearing a white blazer. One thing the directors of Tamil and Telugu film industries excel at is the innovative methods they come up with to introduce their heroes. There is heroism, but it is of a different kind. In Srikanth Addala's Brahmotsavam, it is all mellowed down. Last time we saw Mahesh Babu on the silver screen, he was busy sending goons in the air, and mouthing a lot of one-liners throughout the film Srimanthudu. Cast: Mahesh Babu, Sathya Raj, Kajal Aggarwal, Samantha Ruth Prabhu