The new spirited, if vacuous adventure film from Ruben Fletcher (Zombieland) seems to channel Indiana Jones through National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code.
The maker of Venom relays a green-screen exhilaration of physicality and insouciance trough Tom Holland’s Nate, ensconced with arcane myths in Uncharted from the PlayStation series that unfolds in origin story fashion.
Holland doesn’t limit him much peril to the part as an orphan, now barman who knows how to pick his way to a swank Big Apple loft. Mark Wahlberg is the shady handler in Sully (a bit younger than the PC character and originally stated in the Holland role over a decade ago when the project met its share of obstacles).
A ginormous bounty of 16th Century gold is what the duo is after as Nate has a connection to one Francis Drake. Like the cherished Steven Spielberg serials there’s others on the trail after an auction. Antonio Banderas is the slick, if aloof Moncada with a formidable top minion in Braddock (Tati Gabrielle) and her menacing cohorts in tow. Clues lead to Barcelona where Sophia Taylor Ali’s feisty old connection to Sully appears before further information takes them to the Philippines.
A live-action digital cartoon begins with aerial eye-candy from a cargo lane that becomes a go-to-set-piece. With more than its share of booming incendiary sights and outlandish stunts converging to wild excess at the high point with gleans and aircraft.
Wahlberg may not be as engaged with the material in the buddy side of the intermittent action element; maybe the straight-man to the wisecracking Holland not stretching much from his quiet popular Peter Parker MCU character. If Banderas (The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard) lacks antagonist spark, Gabrielle and all offer mission-oriented distaff empowerment.
A flight of fancy revels in the acrobatic and pictorial without realizing the more realistic, bantering rollercoaster fun of the source. But, in a pretty familiar, even plodding course of Uncharted that may not matter to those who don’t mind leaving all the abounded stuff at the concession stand.