Director: Ruben Fleischer
With: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Banderas, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle
Screenwriters: Rafe Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway

While working as a bartender, thief Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) is approached by veteran treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) and offered him the chance to recover a lost fortune and find his missing brother in road course. Jumping at the chance to bring his brother home, Drake teams up with Sully on a mission that takes them across the world and throws them directly into danger.

Unfortunately Unexplored doesn’t swim in uncharted territory – perhaps it would have done better if it was, and didn’t have to face comparison to the much-loved PlayStation games it was based on. As with all adaptations from Valuable Source, the film came with high expectations. the original Unexplored video games are already cinematic in their own right, setting a high standard from the start. Adding more competition to the mix, the Unexplored the movie didn’t just have to worry about doing justice to its source material, either; any new entrant to the treasure hunting genre is already automatically faced with the legacy – and bar – set by the IndianaJones movies.

Incidentally, IndianaJones served as inspiration for the original Unexplored video games. All in all, there was no shortage of fantasy inspiration for those behind the film version of Unexplored to watch in their efforts to do something truly spectacular. And yet, despite years of development, the film doesn’t quite manage to step out of the shadows of the long-cherished content that came before it. Even with a huge budget and a few top prospects, Unexplored seems to completely misread the success map, straying from a number of key checkpoints along the way and ultimately failing to secure that elusive treasure that makes its source material so special.

Nevertheless, no matter how well it lives up to the games, Unexplored still ticks all the boxes when it comes to a fair action adventure movie. Containing all the key ingredients of a classic scavenger hunt, there are enough stunts, globetrotters and double crosses to entertain an audience for 1 hour 56 minutes. It just lacks that crucial ingredient that turns metal into gold and makes the real magic happen.

That’s partly down to the dialogue, which is distinctly witty in the games, but falls so flat in the movie that it could well have been knocked over and crushed by the rock of The Raiders of the Lost Ark. The exposition is cut and dry, keeping the plot going and doing little more to add color to the script. It also doesn’t help that there’s a distinct lack of comedy – in the dialogue, as well as the plot, the film misses many opportunities to really lean into the fun.

Unfortunately, the performance doesn’t do much to add much sparkle to the screen. Both Tom Holland and Mark Walberg have proven themselves to be perfectly capable of being charismatic on screen individually, but together they fail to create much chemistry, whether they fight or find their way to each other. friendship. There is a feeling of going through the motions; At times, Mark Walberg’s Sully looked more like Mark Walberg going on a treasure hunt than the iconic Sully himself. Unfortunately, there’s not much chemistry between the other characters either; while there are a few good individual moments here and there, the on-screen relationships are bland at best, and forced and awkward at worst. Fans of the games will be disappointed to see that many of the characters’ iconic personality traits have also gotten lost in translation. In the Unexplored games, Sully is known for his wit, humor and strong personality. In the movie, he’s known for… none of that.

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At least the plot is constantly in motion. Sully and Drake, along with gold hunter Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), fight, face traps, and try to outsmart bad guys, goons, and each other as they make their bid to gold. They collect clues, unravel riddles, go through tunnels, cross the globe; the movie includes all the features of your basic treasure hunt starter pack.

Although Unexplored may be fundamentally simple, viewers will be pleased to know that it’s not entirely devoid of fun and unbridled spectacle. The final twenty minutes picks up the ball rolling again with an extravagant battle of pirate ships in the skies, finally tapping into some of the spark that fuels its source material – if only the film could have bought more displays of such a brilliantly marvelous shameless and bold for the screen.

While it doesn’t capture all the magic at the heart of the games it was based on, Unexplored always delivers the promised adventure. However, with the original games and the IndianaJones movies to watch back for inspiration, it could have been so much more. Fans of the games are welcome to enjoy the ride, but temper their expectations; Unexplored may be an adventure, but it’s more of an adventure in which you escape with your life instead of leaving with the gold.

What did you think of Unexplored? Tell us in the comments below!