Movie Review: Uncharted

Over the weekend I went to see Uncharted with my girlfriend. I was surprised that the theater was nearly sold out. I had probably only seen one preview for it. Ostensibly Tom Holland is pulling Spiderman fans to the theaters.
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Sloppy is the word I'd use for this movie. Sloppy writing, sloppy plotting, sloppy storytelling, sloppy character work, and a sort of general disdain for believability. So, yeah, gimme a popcorn movie with eye candy and tension and…stuff, but does it have to be so sloppy?

The movie in a nutshell is that the Scooby Gang is on the trail of lost South American gold. Of course, so is our cliché bad guy played by Antonio Banderas. But don't worry. They won't bother with building any tension with that bad guy. He's just the sugar daddy that can supply the toys that this movie's visuals demand.

We open with Tom Holland in that preview scene where he Kong-jumps from palette to palette in 400 MPH wind behind a cargo plane. It's so god damned impossible that I can't watch it with any interest. Anyone being dragged behind a plane would be hard pressed to hold on. They certainly can't leap against that wind from palette to palette like a preening gymnast. I watched it, of course, but it wasn't affecting to me. It was just ridiculous piled on ridiculous. There is no, oh crap that guy might shoot him, because the entire scene is bullshit. It's just a question of what ridiculousness will they show next, a shrug.

Then we get to Holland being recruited by Wahlberg. I won't bother with the details, but it tracked about as well as Holland Kong-jumping in 400mph winds.

The best bit is probably them knocking around Barcelona trying to find the map to the treasure. That involved a lot of fun Indiana Jones style exploration with interesting eye candy.

Anyway, the Scooby Gang, riddled with mistrust as it is, eventually breaks up and separately get to the treasure about the same time as the bad guys. In a shot straight from The Goonies, there are two Spanish Galleons sitting in the back of a nearly closed grotto with sunlight streaming onto them. It was a a glamour shot of two wooden ships that have come through 500 years of weathering completely unscathed. And yes, they sat there, visible from above for 500 years with no one finding them and the ships' magical wood never succumbing to the elements.

Not only did that wood not succumb, but it's strong enough that two straps on each ship is enough for it to be hoisted into the air by some mythical helicopter capable of lifting a ridiculous tonnage of ship.

It's stupid.

What you get in this movie is a string of startling visuals which completely lack verisimilitude. They constantly will pull you out of a plot that itself is asinine and populated with characters doing things humans don't do.
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This movie's quality will increase proportionately with your level of intoxication. Do not watch it, but if you must, don't watch it sober.