Download Uncharted: Live Action Fan Film
Toni Jarels
The Uncharted Live Action Fan Film is a 2018 action-adventure short film based on the Uncharted video game series by Naughty Dog. Directed by Allan Ungar and co-written by Ungar and Jesse Wheeler, it was released on YouTube on July 16, 2018, and stars Nathan Fillion, Stephen Lang, Geno Segers, Mircea Monroe, and Ernie Reyes Jr.[1][2]
Allan Ungar and Nathan Fillion were introduced to one another by a mutual friend in January 2018 after Ungar expressed interest in speaking to Fillion about the project, which was based on the Uncharted video game series developed by Naughty Dog.[4] Principal photography on the film began May 7 in Los Angeles, California and lasted for five days.[5] The opening scenes were shot in Palmdale, California and the exteriors of the mansion were shot in Santa Clarita. The interiors were shot in Beverly Hills while the final scene was shot in Malibu, California.[6] Fillion trained for the role and also performed most of his own stunts.[7][8] According to Fillion and Ungar, most of the crew did not know what they were working on until Fillion showed up in wardrobe because the production was set up under the fake title Breaking and Entering, which is a reference to a chapter in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.[9]
Fillion released the film through Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, after dropping some teases on his social media handles.[10] It reached over 2 million views in its first two days.[11] Since its release, fans have taken to social media campaigning for Netflix or YouTube Premium to turn it into a digital series.
The series is full of action set pieces that are as bombastic as they are cinematic, which would seem like a perfect fit for a film adaptation. Unfortunately, the film itself fails to deliver on many of the aspects it tries to replicate.
Tom Holland does a fine job at capturing the spirit of Nathan Drake. He makes light of many of the situations he finds himself in throughout the film, while also showing a maturity in many of its more dramatic scenes that never feels out of place.
Our villain is just as shallow; while Banderas does bring a level of intimidation to the role of Santiago, his character barely goes deeper than reminding us how his family are the only ones entitled to the treasure.
To be clear, my expectations were low. The cast has been thoroughly ridiculed since it was first announced, and the trailer didn't inspire much hope; Nathan Drake, who is supposed to be 31 in the first Uncharted game and 40 years old by the last, is played by Tom Holland, a boy who will look 16 years old for the rest of his life. At one point in the film there's a "15 years earlier" flashback where the child actor who plays babby Nathan Drake actually looks about the same age as Tom Holland does as an adult. The final pinch of salt in the gaping wound that is the Uncharted movie is the taunting cameo of Nolan North, who both looks and sounds far more convincing as the protagonist.
The film pays homage to the games several times and it is at it's best when it's playing on the videogame tropes that made the games so enjoyable - there's a National Treasure/Indiana Jones-esque joy to watching a bunch of characters solve the puzzles and traps in ancient catacombs around the world, and the action sequences are straight out of the Fast & Furious playbook; they shine the most when the film abandons logic and realism and embraces the ridiculousness of the virtual world. This is undercut by consistently poor writing, with characters randomly and arbitrarily killed, and very little development of any of the series favorites. While the writers clearly are attempting to mimic Indiana Jones, they misunderstood that the charm of the character is that he's primarily, first and foremost, a huge nerd; virtual Nathan Drake is also a huge nerd, but the Uncharted film devotes far too much time attempting to make him "cool" by having him throw bottles around behind a bar and do pullups with no shirt on. One can't help but feel this is the 2022 equivalent of making a character beatbox or skateboard in a desperate attempt to make them edgy, a lazy shortcut to any actual character development.
Unsurprisingly the Uncharted film is a bit of a letdown. I think it will be enjoyed by a lot of people (It's got a 90% approval audience RottonTomatoes score right now, and only 40% critical) but the people who enjoy this movie seem unlikely to be the same people who enjoyed the videogames. Credit where it's due, if you're looking for lighthearted entertainment then this will satisfy the National Treasure/Da Vinci Code crowd, with a loose plot wrapped in pseudo-intellectual historical nonsense that is essentially just a pretense for over-the-top action sequences. It's extremely family-friendly; at one point a character has his throat cut and there is no blood spray at all?! That may just be a personal gripe as someone who works in the film industry, but if you're not going to have a visceral spurt of blood shoot out of a gaping neck wound then why even put it in the movie at all?
One can't help but feel that one of the most cinematic videogames ever made deserved a little more love, but i'm sure the people involved in making this film will feel extremely vindicated by the audiences around the world who are crying out for lighthearted action movies to break up their monotonous doomscrolling.
Yeah, the throat cut was just bizzare. In the first shot there's literally no blood at all, and then a bit later they show the actual wound and it's like a red line with two tiny trails of blood leaking out. Also, Wahlberg playing Wahlberg..... Just such a strange choice. The movie also doesn't go into any supernatural stuff (which admittedly is one of the most controversial parts of the games), which I think could've spiced it up a bit.
It seems to succeed at what it's trying to do though, and for a videogame movie it's far better than the standard, but it seems more focused on making a "successful" movie rather than capturing the potential of a good Uncharted movie.
All 5'6" and 145 lbs. of Tom "Babyface" Holland was miscast as 6' 220+ lbs. Nathan Drake, and Mark Wahlberg is a terrible actor, basically playing himself in the movie. The director is middling and the writers are some C-tier TV hack writers who basically robbed / stole liberall from Uncharted 2, 3, and 4 to cobble this turd of a movie together.
Truly awful movie. The casting is terrible and the acting across the board was just dreadful. The main thing going for it was that it was loosely connected to the games and of you take that away it somehow becomes worse. Just absolute garbage that doesn't even come close to the level of other blockbuster action movies
Anyways I watched the movie I thought it was decent, It's an average treasure hunting movie better than the 3 tomb raider movies, not as entertaining as the National Treasure movies. Its forgettable just like the 2005 movie Sahara
If you want a better execution of the Indiana Jones formula, I recommend The Lost City. Sandra "America's Sweetheart" Bullock and Channing Tatum solving ancient puzzles and quipping is way more fun than the Uncharted movie.
As someone who thinks that the Uncharted games are ridiculously overrated, this was a fun, dumb movie. It was aggressively PG-13; that neck slash was hilariously tame, as others have said. As is common with most movie trailers, the best scenes were in the trailer.
I didn't hate Tom Holland as Drake, though he is too young. The combination of elements from all four games made for weird pacing. If this movie wasn't based on a popular game franchise, it would've been a middling but serviceable adventure movie. Instead, it was a middling action movie that failed to live up to its name, but was probably about the best we could expect after years of development hell.
1) Getting paid--Tom will make more money from this one Uncharted movie than ALL of the original voice cast / actors in the video game franchise... combined, multiplied by 10. That's a fuckin' shame. (The same goes for Mr. "Can't Act" Marky Mark.)
2) Being in bed with Sony / Spider-Man. Sony is desperate for an MCU / Fast & the Furious franchise of their own (besides Spider Man), something they can make billions off of for the next decade plus.
@nameredacted: I think Tom Holland could be a modern Keanu Reeves. He seems like he's got plenty of physical ability for stunts and action and is likeable and good looking. I assume Marvel and Sony are keeping him completely bubble-wrapped but if he ever got the chance to do something action heavy I think it could be great.
Another significant physical critique was how filmmakers pulled off the scene in which massive wooden ships were carried by helicopters. The whole scene was hard to believe, and even though the main action scenes were done practical, it was evident that the flying pirate ships were CG elements.
Overall, many people might disagree with our opinion. Audiences love adventure movies and enjoy watching a classic treasure hunt. Also, if you are a fan of the game, you will definitely enjoy this movie since many scenes were faithfully recreated from the game. Uncharted is available to watch on Theaters. Give it a chance, watch it and develop your own opinion.
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I guess Three Kings was kind of an action movie but I never thought of it that way, I think it was more of an experiment on action/war picture. I mean at the time it came out, most people who saw it only talked about the bullets into the body sequences.
Oh I know who he is now. I would be willing to see him give it a go. It does need to be a relatively unknown actor. keep the casting cheap and the rest of budget can go on the filmmaking process so if it becomes successful at the box office it makes more than double that it costs. then we have a franchise on our hands. a good videogame/movie franchise. the first good one.
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