Tom Holland’s Uncharted Is Getting One-Sided Reactions
They're all saying the same thing, should you listen?
This article is more than 2 years old
The reviews for Tom Holland’s new action adventure film Uncharted are in and there isn’t a lot of disagreement from critics. There are perhaps a few dissenters, but for the most part a consensus has been formed. According to the critics, if you want to see a fun, action-packed, edge-of-your-seat Tom Holland blockbuster, then the good news is that Spider-Man: No Way Home is still in theaters. Uncharted, on the other hand, should be renamed — based on what the reviewers are saying — Unoriginal, Unwatchable, Unimpressive or quite possibly, Unprofitable.
Does everyone agree that Uncharted is bad? Of course not. But you could argue that it’s telling when the most positive reviews of a movie aren’t all that positive. For example, George Simpson of The Express says that Tom Holland’s latest “is still far from a bad movie. It’s fine.” Who wouldn’t want something like that on their gravestone? “He wasn’t a complete jerk. He was okay.” Then there’s CNET‘s Richard Trenholm who writes that Uncharted “may pilfer from assorted better films, but it’s a victimless crime.” So it’s a rip off, but the film has not, in fact, killed anyone or burgled any homes, so we’re good. Total Film‘s Matt Looker says the video game adaptation “makes a decent play” for replacing Indiana Jones, but there’s lots of room for improvement. And if there’s a word you want used to describe something after you spend $120 million and over a decade of development on it, it’s “decent.”
Now remember, those were the positive reviews. The negative ones make those sound like Christmas cards. Writing for The Independent, Clarisse Loughrey opens her two-star review with “Abandon hope all ye who enter here,” and you really don’t need to read anymore after that, do you? The oft-repeated phrase is a reference to what’s supposed to be carved into the entrance of Hell, per Dante’s Divine Comedy, so there’s no real chance she’s got a thumbs up waiting after that, is there? Movies4Kids‘ Jo Berry calls it a “diet version of Indiana Jones” while Kevin Maher of The Times praises Tom Holland, while warning that not even he can “save this Tomb Raider knockoff.”
The most consistent swipe taken at Uncharted is that it’s a pale reflection of better films. It’s in this arena that the best trash-talking about Tom Holland’s latest we’ve seen so far comes from Danny Leigh of The Financial Times. Leigh writes that Uncharted “feels uptight, joyless even when riffing on much-loved old favorites. If you can’t actually enjoy lifting bits from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jackie Chan’s Police Story, you should leave them where you found them.”
As a result of all these merciless takes, Uncharted currently holds a green, splatty 41% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Whether or not the reviews have any significant impact on ticket sales remains to be seen. Tom Holland is still riding high from Spider-Man: No Way Home, and Indiana Jones 5 is still over a year away from its release. Uncharted may prove to be something audiences are hungry for, whether the critics warn them away or not. We’ll find out more next Friday, when Uncharted hits theaters.
