As technologies have advanced, many will now take for granted the unique appeal of a well scripted video game, offering - where one single movie may struggle - to give depth and breath to a creators visions. Characters, stories, pathways and dilemmas can be interacted with across hours and hours of gameplay; and the most unique thing about being a gamer is that no one individual experience is the same. Even if the game only has one real ending, one point of success, how you reach that point is different for every single player who engages with it.
Uncharted is not just a game, as the franchise has so far produced five individual titles, each outdoing its predecessor with an incredibly detailed level of characterisation and development that you just couldn't find in ten films. When it originally launched on PlayStation in 2007, 'Uncharted: Drake's Fortune' was a well received action adventure game, chronicling the globe trotting adventures of fortune hunter Nathan Drake. Drake believed he was descended from Sir Francis, and searched for the ultimate lost treasures, across countless countries battled with devious and ruthless enemies. But it was the games sequel, 2009's 'Among Thieves' which made Nathan Drake a household name and really helped PlayStation recover.
What is easy to forget now, is that at the time, Sony were really struggling with the PlayStation 3. It needed heroes - mascots - characters who could help it sell video games. And Nathan Drake was that kind of character, with developer Naughty Dog and Nolan North (the voice behind) poised to take over, nothing could stand in their way. When Drake made his final appearance on the franchises fourth instalment, 2016's suitably named 'A Thief's End' we were seeing so much more to Drake than just swinging from platforms and shooting bad guys. The character had grown, he had developed relationships, and he was a better person for it.
For all these reasons and more, I was slightly cynical when I first heard that Tom Holland was to play Nathan Drake in a much anticipated live action reboot, with Mark Wahlberg to play the role of 'Sully'; Drake's mentor, father figure and partner in crime combined. With these characters and their stories meaning so much to me, it was difficult for me to believe that anyone (except perhaps Nolan North or Nathan Fillion), would ever be the right person to portray Drake. Holland, given I'd just seen him play Peter Parker in Marvel's 'Spiderman', was much too young and Wahlberg - though I liked him - also didn't seem to be the grumpy Tom Selleck type casting I had had in mind.
That said, as one of my guilty pleasures is the 'National Treasure' films with Nicholas Cage, I was always fond of any film which takes the general premise of Indiana Jones and tries to put its own spin on things.
Unfortunately, the film falls short, in failing to capture the very essence of the franchise in favour of a much more modern Hollywood box tick. Several of the games more memorable sequences, such as Drake falling from an aeroplane without a parachute or stealing a priceless relic from a packed auction house, are lovingly recreated - only for them to feel cheap and immaterial. Specific direct characterisation, backstory and references from the games are used to justify certain plot points, and whilst we can accept that not everything that happened in the game is going to happen (or even be the same) in the film, the absence of other material - such as Nathan's wife Elena and the death of Nathan's brother Sam, is a huge oversight in my opinion and instead doesn't provide the character with any substance or grounding.
At one point, a plot twist introduces a new direction in the movies antagonist, and given that we've spent almost two third's of the film until this point following the original antagonist's motives, it seems to come out of left field - and more of an exercise in Hollywood's commitment to diversity and inclusion than anything else. In one sense, I should be surprised that both Drake and Sully have not been recast by the actors playing them, even if Sophia Ali's Chloe Frazer is definitely not representative of her original character model. Many might already point, however, to the fact that Frazer was already "repurposed" between her initial appearance in the 3rd game and her reappearance in the 5th - to include Indian heritage which seemed itself like a very much "tick the box" exercise on behalf of developer Naughty Dog ('Last of Us 2' anyone?).
Like most soft reboots of the modern age, the film sets us up for a sequel; something that we may, or may not, receive based purely on box office returns. As video games have always strived to become more like movies, in return films are now deciding to become more like video games, an altogether unwise and unwelcome development.
Thread carefully.