In 'Uncharted,' Tom Holland is the Ghost of Mark Wahlberg Past
#165: "Uncharted," "Drive My Car," "Indiscreet," "Us"
Edition 165:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: My favorite videogame franchise got turned into a movie…sort of. Plus I finally got access to the illusive Best Picture nominee from Japan, and reevaluated a great movie from 2019. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” what the heck are Jesse Plemons, Lily Collins and Jason Segel up to?
Uncharted
The true Spider-Man pointing meme of 2022 is not Tom Holland, Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire staring each other down in No Way Home. It’s Holland fighting beside Mark Wahlberg in Uncharted.
Aside from the obvious — they’re both short, same hair, similar faces — Holland and Wahlberg also hold a similar appeal (at least during this stage of Wahlberg’s career): capable in action sequences, comfortable acting against CGI green screen, quick with a quippy lines, relying heavily on their likability, and presenting as family friendly. With respect, I question each of their ability’s to play any character other than themselves.
That persona is a deliberate and carefully considered choice. It’s exactly what the marketplace values right now.
Holland is of course the star of a movie that just this week passed Avatar as the third highest grossing movie domestically all time (and is on pace to reach the rarified air of $2 billion-plus worldwide). And Wahlberg is a movie star vestige of the era when a lead actor could muscle any project over $100 million.
Together, they opened this movie well above industry projections ($44 million) and as of writing have a big fat hit on their hands ($143 million and climbing). Sony will almost certainly attempt to build this out into a franchise.
The irony is not lost on me that Uncharted is adapted from a blockbuster videogame franchise that was itself created to be an interactive version of the Indiana Jones movies (“Uncharted” lead writer Amy Hennig told me as much back in 2020).
In our world ruled by previously successful Intellectual Property (IP), that’s no surprise. The tragedy is that a movie created and marketed as a throwback to adventure movies of years past is neither as exciting as Indiana Jones or as clever as something like National Treasure.
Its success is another reminder how far over the rainbow we are in the disconnect between artistic quality and commercial appeal.
Critics savaged this movie for its cartoonishly flat characters and hacky writing, while audiences seemingly couldn’t get enough (to borrow the very flawed Rotten Tomatoes metric, it’s at 40% with critics and 90% with audiences).
Truly, it’s disheartening to see just how uncomplicated blockbuster storytelling has become. It’s as if we’ve collectively returned to the filmgoing sensibilities of the silent movie era, when a hero need only be dashing and wearing a white hat to be loved. Joke with your comic sidekick, flirt with the pretty girl. Villains wear all black, get their butt whopped by the hero, shake their fist and shout “I’ll show you” as a cue to audiences to begin applauding.
The only difference is the advent of modern CGI, capable of producing mind-numbing displays of action that far exceed any screenwriters imagination (and in fact many of these scenes aren’t written at all but rather conceived by stunt and tech coordinators).
The climax of this movie features our heroes fighting across two ancient pirate ships, exactly something you might’ve found in a movie 30 years ago, except now those ships are dangling via ropes from dueling helicopters navigating through the canyons of some South Pacific island. The stunt is incredible spectacle, and exactly that: mind-numbing.
The casting of Wahlberg Sr. and Wahlberg Jr. in the lead roles here necessitated a total departure from core elements of the videogame franchise. Nathan Drake, an aging rascal with a hero complex in the games, is now a young, plucky boy-next-door; Victor “Sully” Sullivan ditches his signature mustache and cigar along with his gray hair to become in the movie basically a co-hero to Drake rather than a sidekick.
Still, I advocate for any and all movie adaptations to stand on their own merits, rather than being chained to their source material. So although “Uncharted” was my favorite videogame franchise of all time, and was itself a 40+ hour cinematic and interactive masterpiece, I won’t complain too much about how they stripped out anything that made it more complex than what you’d find on Saturday morning cartoons.
(Fans of the videogames will always have Nathan Fillion’s short film, which totally nails the characters. The full thing is on YouTube if you’re interested.)
It’s telling that a movie with this much action shows exactly zero blood and vanishingly few actual deaths (except for a couple that Holland’s Drake actually apologizes for). The only character who doubles crosses Drake, and thereby displays a single motivation that is not obvious upon first glance, within minutes triple-crosses back in order to line up a romantic interest (no sex or even kissing though, of course).
For Holland, whose attempts to break out of the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man persona with The Devil All The Time and Cherry fell flat, that whitewashing reinforces him as America’s sweetheart for a while longer.
Sad sacks like myself can’t help but wonder what might’ve been if this movie had been adapted way back in 2010, when auteur David O. Russell (director of Three Kings, Silver Linings Playbook, The Fighter) reportedly wrote a script and there were rumors that Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci were attached. Oh, what might’ve been.
At least I can sleep well in full confidence that my movie star comparison skills are on point. Lest you need any more proof, want to take a guess who was reportedly tabbed to play Nathan Drake back in 2010?
Yep, you guessed it.
Mark Wahlberg.
Something New
Drive My Car (Select Theaters): In recent years, The Academy has been plagued by an inability to define itself. In theory, the awards ceremony is supposed to be a night when the eyes of the country turn towards its celebration of the year in movies, but as that monocultural reality slips further and further into the rearview mirror there is now a fork in the road. Should the Academy attempt to regain its cultural relevance by recognizing the movies that casual viewers do care about (this year’s hobby horse being Spider-Man: No Way Home), or should it double down on recognizing what its members think are the highest artistic achievements of the year, appealing to the smaller niche of movie nerds (like myself).
This Japanese slow-burn drama, nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture, makes for a quintessential test case. It’s total box office take sits at just $4.5 million, with only $1.5 million coming from the United States. Nobody has seen this movie. Even after the nominations, it is almost impossible to find.
Now that I’ve seen the movie, I can see why. There’s almost no commercial potential. It’s three hours long, yet feels like five because there are no large set pieces or moments to serve as time posts for the story. It’s beautiful but dripping with pretentiousness, requiring an almost divine reverence for Anton Chekhov’s play “Uncle Vanya,” which our protagonist theater director is staging with a cast all speaking different languages (an essential detail that could easily be missed by U.S. viewers since everything is in subtitles anyways). He deals with the trauma of losing his wife and the complicated feelings he had toward her with zero emotion, making this a three-hour study on repression as much as anything else.
Of course, critics loved it. My guess is that one or two actually understood it and responded strongly, and the rest wanted to seem like they were also cool enough to get it so they offered their praise.
While I fully support The Academy deciding to maintain its credibility by choosing art over commerce, awarding this as the movie of the year would be a mistake. (And as I type this, The Academy has shot itself in the foot again by deciding to not televise eight Oscars categories on the telecast, a play for mass appeal. You can’t have it both ways, Uncle Oscar!)
Something Old
Indiscreet (1958, Amazon Prime): I always struggle on the best way to sell older movies to people. How’s this: the guy who directed Singin’ In The Rain (Stanley Donen) made a romantic comedy starring the guy from North By Northwest (Cary Grant) and the girl from Casablanca (Ingrid Bergman). If that trio doesn’t convince you I don’t know what will.
Grant is a dashing diplomat, introduced in flash to Bergman’s famous stage actress in one of those old school googly-eyed movie moments. They’re destined to fall in love, but Grant lies and tells her he’s married (this does little to stop the two from dating). It’s a delightfully charming rom-com with the kind of doomed romance premise that would predict dozens to come in the decades that followed. This movie is also known as one of the first to use the split screen technique when Grant and Bergman are lying in bed talking to each other on the phone, to make it look as if they’re in bed together — a technique that has been copied in dozens of movies since. And if you need one more reason to stream it, hey, it’s only 90 minutes long! Take the plunge.
Something to Stream
Us ($VOD): Apologies on picking out a movie that’s not available on any of the major streaming platforms, but the release of Jordan Peele’s trailer for Nope got me excited to revisit his 2019 horror thriller, which I admit I didn’t love upon release. But now, fully removed from the post-Get Out expectation cycle, my opinion totally changed.
This time around I was able to see that this movie puts experience ahead of message, seeking to scare and delight and impress audiences moment-to-moment. We looked to Peele as some kind of social commentary rabbi, but it simply wasn’t his goal here, which renders what the movie lacks in narrative clarity and airtight logic a moot point. And though the iconic elements and social impact of Get Out couldn’t be replicated, it’s clear to see a progression in the filmmaking chops of Peele, who is turning out to be one of the foremost visual stylists in this new wave of filmmakers. Simply put, this movie is a hell of a ride.
Trailer Watch: Windfall
I love love love trailers that manage to lay out the entire premise of a movie without revealing anything about what the movie truly is. This claustrophobic chamber piece sticks three excellent actors (well, at least two) into a house and turns up the heat. What happens next is anyone’s guess.
In a lot of ways this may be the future of movies. There’s no way this could’ve been a show, or even a limited series. It can be pulled off on a small budget, with small ambitions. And it’s being released straight to Netflix (March 18!). Will definitely get featured in a future edition of this newsletter.