My Review of "Uncharted"

Uncharted has just come out to theaters recently. Admittedly I am an Uncharted fan as I've played through all of the Uncharted games on the PlayStation. I've even finished them multiple times as each generation of systems will re-release the same old games. I'm a sucker for these collections.

So when I heard that they were making a Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection on PS5 I had to sign up. Again these are remakes of Uncharted 4 and Uncharted Lost Legacy that were originally made on the PS4. To upgrade them to the PS5 versions I had to pay $15 Canadian. What I didn't know was that this upgrade would include theater tickets to the new Uncharted movie that just came out.

When they gave me the code to go to the movies I jumped at the chance. Since they're vouchers for up to $30 in value I tried to find the most expensive experience I could find and that ended up as AVX D-Box. This is the top of the line visual and audio that you can get at the theater. D-Box means that the movie will dictate some sort of rumble or movement of your chair to give you a bigger experience.

It's kind of a very clever way for Sony to help build up the box office numbers for their movie on opening weekend. Ah Sony, you don't think I know what you're doing? I'm not mad about it. I'm trying to get the most out of it.

First off the movie takes a lot of things from the video game but not exactly everything. They did change up a few things and the actors had their own portrayals of our beloved characters. This is automatically a no-no to a lot of die hard fans but I get it. I have to view this movie as a film of its own, it just so happens to have some of the same mythology as one of my favorite PlayStation franchises.

We get to meet our usual heroes. Nathan Drake of course is the main protagonist. Then there's Sully his father figure/good friend. Finally we have Chloe who is a big character throughout the series. The three of them are meeting each other as this is when Nathan is young and living in our modern day.

Just like the game they are going to go through a lot of puzzles and escape rooms around the world. I can already tell that this movie would probably have done better as a game but still it has a lot of entertaining qualities.

Although the characters act a little different from their video game counterparts they do have their own charm throughout the movie. Pay attention to the movie and you'll see a few cameos from the actual video game voice actors. The quick banter between Drake and Sully is iconic in the game and done in a different fashion in this movie.

Again it's not terrible, it's just different from what we're used to. Artists should have freedom to make their own interpretations of the characters despite their fanfare. I know I'm a lone minority in that thought process.

As I said before I could see how this movie could fit a video game better than a movie. We have such outrageous situations in this movie that you will have to leave all logic at home when you're watching this. This is how the game worked. Laws of gravity don't apply, clothes will dry off in two seconds and never get dirty. Even the cold ocean water doesn't really affect anyone.

Although those are some crazy deal breakers for some people what it does allow for is some seriously crazy scenarios for our heroes. We have some ridiculous non-sensical escape rooms and dramatic action sequences that are over the top fun.

The AVX and the D-Box kind of elevated some of the fun for this movie. The AVX allowed for some seriously good atmospheric sound. When they were in the sewers I could hear drips coming from the ceiling. Very cool! The D-Box is admittedly gimmicky but it did elevate some of the action sequences. It was similar to how the rumble controller can make you feel a little more immersed into a video game. For the price I don't know if I could justify all that to all viewers though.

This by no means makes it a spectacular movie though. We just haven't had a big exploration movie since the last DaVinci franchise, the National Treasure Franchise and the Indiana Jones Franchise movies. It's kind of a welcome change of pace with the usual stuff that we've been getting nowadays.

Overall, I had an okay time though I still feel that this movie would be better if you streamed it from your home. Seeing it in the theater will of course elevate the fun but this is kind of a mediocre movie. That's why I have to give this movie a 6.5 out of 10. It is a passing mark and fans of the game will most likely watch this movie regardless of my ratings.