Movies based on videogames are either entertaining or eye-rolling. An interactive videogame that works at home on your PlayStation may not offer the same dopamine rush when translated to the one-way interactivity of the big screen. For every “Detective Pikachu” that hits the mark there’s a dozen “BloodRaynes” or “Mortal Kombat: Annihilations.”
“Uncharted,” a prequel to the wildly successful PlayStation series starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, and now playing in theatres, is the latest entry in the videogame sweepstakes.
Holland plays Nathan Drake, who, unlike Spider-Man, the actor’s other cinematic alter-ego, uses his sticky fingers to steal stuff, not scale the outside of tall buildings. Either way, both characters are adventurers who live outside the margins. In Drake’s case, it comes naturally. He’s a direct descendant of 16th century pirate Sir Francis Drake.
By day Nathan is a bartender in New York, by night he’s a thief. Day and night, he hopes to reunite with his long-lost treasure-hunting brother Sam who he hasn’t seen since he was ten years old. Big brother hit the road, with a promise to return, leaving behind memories and some cryptic clues to the location of $5 billion worth of Spanish explorer Ferdinand Magellan’s lost gold. “The gold isn’t gone,” he said, “it’s lost and if it is lost, it can be found.”
When fast-talking slickster Victor ‘Sully’ Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) asks Nathan to help track down the lost treasure, he agrees, hoping to find the gold and information on his missing brother. “There’s only one rule,” says Sully of their dangerous mission. “Don’t get caught.”
The pair, along with fortune hunter Chloe (Sophia Ali), travel the world in search of two crosses that serve as a key to the mystery, all the while trying to stay one or two steps ahead of ruthless rich guy Moncada (Antonio Banderas), who has a personal connection to the gold, and his team of mercenaries.
“Uncharted” mixes and matches the adventure elements of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Tomb Raider” and “National Treasure” into a generic action movie that loses its way early on. Not even the combined charisma of its stars, Holland and Wahlberg, can put it back on track.
Both play thinly sketched versions of characters we’ve seen before and better. When he’s on-screen Wahlberg plays a riff on his trademarked sarcastic smart alecky character but this is a Where’s Waldo style role for him. He disappears for long sections as Holland takes center stage.
Holland plays Nathan as a cocky young man with a special set of skills. Sound familiar? It’s like watching Peter Parker do parkour without the webs but with an unnatural gift for figuring out puzzles that have confounded others for centuries. He’s fun on screen but he’s not doing anything here that feels new.
Together they banter in playful dialogue that often has the all the charm of an in-gown toenail.
Then there are the action scenes. The movie opens with a frenetic fight scene, heavy on the CGI, that sees Nathan flying through the air, battling bad guys. It’s high-flying action, but don’t worry if you are five minutes late getting to the cinema, the scene is repeated later in the movie. The large-scale action scenes are loud, frenzied but often feel like leftovers from Pierce Brosnan era 007. They fill the screen, but the movie’s flippant, light tone ensures there is very little jeopardy involved for any of the main characters.
“Uncharted” does have a pretty good villain, and no, it’s not Banderas who does little other than speak in a low whisper. Tati Gabrielle as the ruthless killer and schemer Braddock brings some spark to her scenes, but not enough to kickstart this inert action flick.
The busy actor — Goggins soon be seen in the TV remake of L.A. Confidential and the Marvel blockbuster Ant-Man and the Wasp — drew on personal experience to create a backstory for his character. Like the villainous Vogel, Goggins’s job frequently takes him away from his son Augustus and wife, filmmaker Nadia Connors.
“My in for this experience was thinking about the day (Vogel) said goodbye to his family,” he says. “He’s a father and has two daughters. I just kind of meditated on saying goodbye to them, kissing his wife, walking out the door for what Mathias Vogel thought would be a year of his life and culminate in some great discovery.
“One year turned into two years, which turned into four years, and hopelessness set in. You meet this guy seven years into this experience and he has a real opportunity to get off this island. People will do whatever it takes to get back home and see the ones they love.”
The last time we saw archeologist-adventurer Lara Croft on the big screen she looked like Angelina Jolie and saved the world by dunking a bad guy into a pool of acid.
The new Tomb Raider takes us back — back to a time when Lara Croft was an emo 21-year-old whose biggest adventure was navigating London’s busy streets as a bicycle courier. This time around she bears a striking resemblance to Swedish Oscar winner Alicia Vikander.
The reboot also comes with a new villain. Mathias Vogel, played by Hateful Eight star Walton Goggins, is a member of evil organization Trinity and an all-around bad dude. He’s been stranded for years on a remote island searching for the tomb of an ancient entity whose touch caused instant death.
His job is to uncover her resting place, discover the secret of her deadly power and unleash it on the world. Like I said, he’s a bad guy, but Goggins says, “I can’t judge him.”
Not even if he ruthlessly shoots people point blank?
“If I sat back in judgement of him then what am I doing for the audience?” Goggins asks. “I am just an impartial interpreter and that’s what I should be even if I am playing a good guy.
“I don’t think you want to pat yourself on the back every time you read a line. ‘Oh my God! I’m such a great guy. I just saved this girl.’ No, you are just in the process of telling the story so that the audience can feel what they want to feel.”
The busy actor — he’ll soon be seen in the TV remake of L.A. Confidential and the Marvel blockbuster Ant-Man and the Wasp — drew on personal experience to create a backstory for his character. Like Vogel, Goggins’s job frequently takes him away from his son Augustus and wife, filmmaker Nadia Connors.
“My in for this experience was thinking about the day (Vogel) said goodbye to his family,” he says. “He’s a father and has two daughters. I just kind of meditated on saying goodbye to them, kissing his wife, walking out the door for what Mathias Vogel thought would be a year of his life and culminate in some great discovery.
“One year turned into two years, which turned into four years, and hopelessness set in. You meet this guy seven years into this experience and he has a real opportunity to get off this island. People will do whatever it takes to get back home and see the ones they love.”
For Goggins, coming home is the best way to leave a character in the rearview mirror. “I have a seven-year-old waiting at home for me,” he says. “There is no room for anything other than him…. I used to really revel in that experience of bringing the character home and living and stewing in it. You romanticize being alone, having a glass of wine and thinking about it, but it is not necessary.”
The last time we saw archaeologist-adventurer Lara Croft on the big screen she looked like Angelina Jolie and was seen dunking a bad guy into a pool of acid, dissolving him and saving the world in the process. A new film, simply titled “Tomb Raider,” takes us back. Back before the leather bodysuits and twin Heckler & Koch USP Match pistols, back to a time when Lara Croft was an emo twenty-one-year-old whose biggest adventure was navigating London’s busy streets as a bicycle courier. This time around she bears a striking resemblance to Swedish Oscar winner Alicia Vikander.
Although born and raised at the swanky Croft Manor, when we first meet Lara she is scraping by, studying MMA fighting, when she can afford the gym fees, and delivering food via bicycle. A fortune, courtesy of her late father Lord Richard Croft (Dominic West), awaits but for seven years she has steadfastly refused to sign for her inheritance, fearing that if she does she will have to accept that papa, who disappeared without a trace somewhere in the Sea of Japan, is truly dead and gone.
“Your father is gone but you can pick up where he left off,” says Croft family executive Ana Miller (Kristin Scott Thomas). “It’s in your blood.” “I’m sorry I’m not that kind of Croft,” replies Lara.
And yet, when she discovers a, “If you’re watching this tape I must be dead…” tape from dear old dad detailing his plan to find a remote Japanese island, home to a deadly ancient witch, the dutiful daughter sets off on a dangerous mission—to find the island and her father.
To do that she travels to Japan and recruits Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) who warns her of the danger ahead. “That’s right in the middle of the Devil’s Sea,” he says. “You may as well tie a rock to your leg and jump overboard.”
Armed with nothing more than a backpack and one of her father’s notebooks the pair find the island only to be met by a suspicious character named Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins). “You shouldn’t have come here,” he says. “But I’m glad that you did.”
“Tomb Raider” contains lots of backstory, mumbo jumbo about global genocide, Queen Himiko Witch of Death and supernatural organization that controls much of the world, but this is Lara’s journey from bike courier to international woman of mystery. At the beginning of the film she is nothing like the polished Croft of the Jolie films. She’s scrappier, undisciplined. Her two greatest powers are loyalty to her father and fearlessness. And jumping. Lots of jumping. As played by Vikander, Croft never met a chasm she couldn’t leap across and that skill sure comes in handy.
Unlike Jolie’s iconic, stylized take on the character, Vikander plays her as self assured and independent but directionless. A young person trying to make her way in the world, thirsty for life experience. It’s a nice reinvention of the character, although a post credit scene suggests she is headed toward Jolie territory should there be a “Tomb Raider 2: A Career in Ruins” next year. Still, she’s a spirited female action hero in a male dominated field.
There are big action sequences, but as the stunts get bigger they don’t necessarily get better. Vikander, flying through the streets of London, cutting through traffic while being chased by her courier friends, is as exciting as any of the CGI exploits that come later.
“Tomb Raider’s” story and action are fairly generic but Vikander carries the day, reshaping a character we already thought we knew.
