Uncharted

Coming at this film from a non-gamer perspective, I was (and am) only superficially aware of the base IP that spawned it. Probably, this freed me from any quibbles others might have about casting or characterisation or dialogue or anything else that particular subculture could get exercised about. But, that's a double edged sword, in that I had to google some stuff like; who that dude on the beach was; what Pilou Asbæk's doing at the end; and is that character supposed to be Aussie or Kiwi or Pom, or some kind of Commonwealth amalgam? Answers on the back of a postcard.

As a palate cleanser of sheer dumb-arsed frippery, Uncharted ticks all the boxes. It's reasonably short for this kind of blockbuster (at a touch under 2 hours), the leads, Tom Holland and Marky Mark Wahlberg, seem to be having a right old giggle, there are some passable parkour snatches (making use of Holland's Spidery fleet-footedness), and the final helicopter/ship transport sequence is pretty mint. Antonio Banderas is fast becoming a great character actor, with his superb voice work, and all in all, the steps taken in search of Magellan's gold are succinctly plotted and fun to boot. Bond would have approved of the transport plane sequence too - frenetically action-packed but with a light twinkle to proceedings.

It displays its Indiana Jones influence extremely clearly (he pops up in dialogue), but there were times when my youth at the Pearce air base cinema screenings of films like High Road to China or Race for the Yankee Zephyr came flooding back. More recently, the Nick Cage National Treasure films also inform the DNA.

Ok, so I had a diverting time watching this. Sure, there's nothing really fresh or ground-breaking to see here, but it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's pretty spectacular in parts Sometimes, that's all you need.

See also:

Of all the films mentioned above, I seem to recall that Brian G. Hutton's High Road to China (1983) was the most impressive, but Race for the Yankee Zephyr (1981), directed by Swinging 60s actor, David Hemmings, could be a fun, nostalgic rewatch.