Ruben Fleischer
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Uncharted is at least spiritually faithful to the games and makes for a decent bit of matinee fun in the vein of National Treasure or 1999’s The Mummy , but without the controller in your hand, it lacks the magic ingredient that makes it so special.
“Cherry” and “Chaos Walking” were disasters for Holland and considering “Uncharted” is passively watchable thanks to its gritty “Sahara” meets “National Treasure” vibes, it’s already one of the better video game adaptations by default because it at least tries to have fun even if you’d rather go home and play the games instead.
The action, which recalls the National Treasure films and openly name-checks Indiana Jones, takes place for a while under the streets of Barcelona, where the two keys are needed to access centuries-old locations that then point the way to additional locations.
However, the film struggles to develop meaningful character depth and emotional complexity amid its barrage of elaborate globetrotting set pieces that are its very reason for existence — settling for a standard-issue buddy comedy in the vein of the National Treasure or, um, Tomb Raider franchises.
It’s goofy and completely nonsensical, but it’s also a funny and thrilling adventure akin to The Mummy , the Jumanji films and National Treasure.
It’s a personality-free jumble of Indiana Jones, James Bond, National Treasure , The Da Vinci Code , and the more obnoxious Pirates Of The Caribbean sequels, serving up less inspired variations on fights, stunts, and clues you’ve seen before… minus all the distinct fun of navigating them yourself.
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
Directed by Edgar Wright
influenced Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), Zombieland (2009)
Themes Plot Characters
“Double Tap” is the follow-up to Fleischer’s popular 2009 postapocalyptic comedy “Zombieland,” which joined 2004’s “Shaun of the Dead” in the zombie subgenre that added wit and sight gags to the usual slate of undead gore.
Director Ruben Fleischer's original 2009 comedy came along at the ideal time, as the zombie genre was just reaching its modern peak — a few years after Shaun of the Dead, a year after the zombie first-person shooter Left 4 Dead, and just before The Walking Dead would become a television phenomenon.
Even zom-com classic “Shaun of the Dead” recycled the drawn-out routine where characters take a long time to catch on to the fact that an infected loved one is transforming into a flesh-eater too.
Shaun of the Dead (arguably the king of the subgenre) was a story about taking responsibility and maturing, that just happened to take place during a zombie apocalypse.
Ruben Fleischer's film wasn't the first zombie comedy, or the best one (I'd nominate Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead), but it was good fun and did decent box office.
Luke Wilson and Thomas Middleditch’s appearance as conspicuous mirrors of Harrelson and Eisenberg is a gag that starts out tired and obvious, grows into something very funny and absurd, before then dragging on too long and ending in an obvious punch line; Shaun of the Dead was wise to keep this gag to a brief aside.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Uncharted (2022)
Visuals Plot
It doesn’t match the visual luster of Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (1980) nor the slapdash lows of Paul W.S. Anderson’s The Three Musketeers (2011), but it gets the job done.
Rather than lean into the over-the-top bombast of it all, Fleischer apes instead from Tomb Raider, The Goonies, and – most of all – Raiders of the Lost Ark but with no style to call his own.
However, unlike FAST AND FURIOUS, or more to the point, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (a clear point of inspiration here, even though this is contemporary), UNCHARTED doesn’t know how to make us care for its characters.
“Uncharted” mixes and matches the adventure elements of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Tomb Raider” and “National Treasure” into a generic action movie that loses its way early on.
It cribs liberally from action movies ranging from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to "Pirates of the Caribbean" but has more in common with the recent "Red Notice" in the way it tosses a few stars together and then hopes for great things to materialize.
Based on the popular video game series (which somewhat dooms it from the start) and directed by Ruben Fleischer (“Zombieland”), the vanilla action adventure (★★ out of four; rated PG-13; in theaters Friday) is an Indiana Jones knockoff that pretty much misses everything “Raiders of the Lost Ark" did well.
The Untouchables (1987)
Directed by Brian De Palma
influenced Gangster Squad (2013)
Visuals Plot Characters
Better they should be looking for the heinous computer boffins who turned Gangster Squad from film noir homage into a lurid cartoon, something that seeks the drama of The Untouchables and L.A. Confidential but instead apes the empty theatrics of Dick Tracy.
The stylishly empty period crime drama Gangster Squad , from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, is ostensibly based on a true story, but it steals liberally from James Ellroy, Dick Tracy , and The Untouchables , and it seems hell-bent on topping its transparent inspirations in at least one crucial respect: the volume, intensity, and ubiquity of its wall-to-wall violence.
It is not The Untouchables , although it borrows enough plot points from Brian De Palma’s film that you’d be forgiven for getting them confused.
The cops-and-cons stuff is all cliché, and even Penn's over-the-top Cohen can't help but recall Robert De Niro's equally oversized turn as Al Capone in The Untouchables.
The true inspiration for “Gangster Squad’’ — like so many other period films these days — is actually other movies, principally Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables,’’ which was written by David Mamet.
Furthermore, Gangster Squad is aware of the legacy of crime, gangster and action films to have come since so there are also moments that seem to be direct references to films such as Dirty Harry (Don Siegel, 1971), Scarface (Brian De Palma, 1983) The Untouchables (Brian De Palma, 1987) and Lethal Weapon (Richard Donner, 1987).
There is a sense, both through elements of Hardy’s physical performance and some of Venom’s facial expressions, that Venom echoes The Mask .
Venom ends up reminding you of Jim Carrey’s The Mask.
To that end, as you may have heard already, “Venom” feels tremendously dated, seemingly plucked from a timewarp where superhero movies resemble ungainly things like “Ghost Rider,” “Spawn,” “Daredevil” and the likes (throw in a little bit of “The Mask,” “Dude Where’s My Car,” “Weekend At Bernies,” “The Wicker Man,” “Ghost Rider 2” and “Green Lantern” and this is the freaky Frankenstein that’s been created).
Far more entertainingly off-the-wall is Hardy, who appears to be channeling Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider via Jim Carrey in The Mask .
“Venom” is basically “The Wolfman,” meets “Brain Damage” with a hint of “The Mask,” and the writers work over time destroying every link the character has to the Spider-Man mythos.
He delivers a genuinely unforgettable performance, playing Eddie and Venom like a grotesque version of Jim Carrey in The Mask (or on the set of Man on the Moon ).
A riff on classic body-sharing fantasies dating back to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde — you could also think of it as “All of Me” with aliens — the movie tells a stale, workmanlike origin story, cursorily updated with drive-by references to climate change and fake news, and outfitted with cheaply serviceable visual effects.
It’s a good gimmick, mismatched buddies in one frame, as Steve Martin demonstrated in All of Me (1984).
And the central idea -- a journalist forced to share his body with an alien symbiote, whose presence grants him extraordinary powers -- actually brings to mind less the fringes of the Marvel universe than the 1984 comedy "All of Me," in which Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin found themselves in a similar squabbling predicament.
Think of this as an intensely violent version of “All of Me,” the 1984 comedy in which Lily Tomlin’s soul ends up in Steve Martin’s body.
Like Tomb Raider before it (and Indiana Jones before that), Uncharted borrows heavily from the adventure serials of the Thirties, digging deep into the romantic traditions of discovery and exoticised wanderlust.
However, the film struggles to develop meaningful character depth and emotional complexity amid its barrage of elaborate globetrotting set pieces that are its very reason for existence — settling for a standard-issue buddy comedy in the vein of the National Treasure or, um, Tomb Raider franchises.
“Uncharted” mixes and matches the adventure elements of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Tomb Raider” and “National Treasure” into a generic action movie that loses its way early on.
It remains to be seen whether Uncharted will work with those who are more devoted fans of the games than I am but, from a purely cinematic perspective, it’s an enjoyable adaptation in the vein of the surprisingly entertaining Alicia Vikander-led take on Tomb Raider which surfaced in 2018.
Like an alarming amount of recent video game movies — "Tomb Raider," "Mortal Kombat," etc. — "Uncharted" has decided to go the prequel route with its protagonist, aging down Nathan Drake to a twentysomething Holland, who still seems to be too young to be playing an orphaned bartender-turned-treasure hunter.
Mission: Impossible (1996)
Directed by Brian De Palma
influenced Uncharted (2022)
Characters Visuals
As for Wahlberg, he certainly still has a youthful physique and energy to match, but he’s not exactly a charismatic action star like Tom Cruise who’s electrifying to watch in those Mission Impossible movies.
Nathan hooks up with Sully in New York City, where the former is working as a bartender, impressing hotties with moves straight out of Cocktail—a nod that, along with the Mission: Impossible-style daredevil opener, suggests some wannabe-Tom Cruise energy.
Similar stunts in, say, the "Mission: Impossible" movies are at least somewhat tethered to reality, or at least the version of the reality the films have created, where "Uncharted" never seems any more real than the video game series on which it's based.
For every Mission: Impossible sequel where Tom Cruise actually straps himself to an airborne plane, we can have one Uncharted, where the camera moves just fast enough to make the CGI never too egregious.
The action sequences are similarly tame, but for one death-defying skydive out of a cargo plane that is composed almost entirely of goopy CGI and is many steps removed from the thrillingly real stunt work of a Mission: Impossible movie.
At its best, "Zombieland" features good one-liners (about Russell Crowe's Twinkie consumption, among other things), a terrific reference to "Deliverance" and a delightful cameo by Bill Murray, who plays himself.
There are witty references to Deliverance, Titanic, Ghostbusters,and Anaconda, as well as a better joke about Garfield than any joke in Garfield.
And there are a few welcome surprises — such as references to both "Deliverance" and "Ghost Busters," and the ending sequence set in an abandoned West Coast amusement park.
Cue the theme song to Deliverance and hand that man a crowbar.
The overall vibe is akin to the Nic Cage movie Vampire’s Kiss ; the one where Cage insisted on eating a real, live cockroach.
In some of the film’s finest moments – like Eddie voraciously devouring a bag of frozen tater tots or leaping into a lobster tank to treat the creatures as his own personal buffet table – Hardy’s performance hearkens back to Nicolas Cage in Vampire’s Kiss , a turn so off-the-wall that it has gained legendary status.
Even if we get a sequel to this one, the Venom series feels destined to be forgotten in the same vein of Ben Affleck Daredevil film and Nic Cage Ghostrider movies.
To that end, as you may have heard already, “Venom” feels tremendously dated, seemingly plucked from a timewarp where superhero movies resemble ungainly things like “Ghost Rider,” “Spawn,” “Daredevil” and the likes (throw in a little bit of “The Mask,” “Dude Where’s My Car,” “Weekend At Bernies,” “The Wicker Man,” “Ghost Rider 2” and “Green Lantern” and this is the freaky Frankenstein that’s been created).
Think the likes of Fantastic Four and Daredevil, Batman and Robin and Catwoman and you’ll have an inkling for the flabbergasting, directionless mania of this shockingly bad Sony outing.
Meanwhile, the relationships Brock has with the homeless woman on his street (PTA regular Melora Walters!) and the owner of grocery store he frequents often (Peggy Lu) are charming, feeling like the intimate small-scale world building one would see on Netflix’s Daredevil .
No se trata del equivalente moderno a la “Gatúbela” de Halle Berry o al “Daredevil” de Ben Affleck.
This is more like on the level of The Fantastic Four (either the 2005 or 2015 versions; both are equally mediocre), 2003’s Daredevil (the one with Ben Affleck) or 1983’s Superman III (the one with Richard Pryor and where the Man of Steel fights his drunken doppelganger), meaning this latest comic book adventure isn’t without its moments but overall is still nothing short of a misbegotten waste of time.
Deadpool (2016)
Directed by Tim Miller
influenced Venom (2018), Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), Zombieland (2009)
Visuals Themes Characters
Thus, the non-MCU superhero films that shake up the formula—the meta crassness of Deadpool and the Western-inspired vibes of Logan —are a breath of fresh air.
The film is utterly dissonant, recalling the weird camp of Batman & Robin , which illustrates a fundamental conflict between the presentation of what the Venom symbiote is and does and the filmmakers’ efforts to turn his story into a Deadpool -esque laugh riot.
It begins as a serious drama with some mild, tepid attempts at light comedy, but once Venom himself shows up, it turns into a neutered black comedy, a PG-13 attempt to replicate the sarcastic, metatextual vibe of Deadpool that only occasionally works.
But next to the much more visually and narratively elaborate entertainments that make up the Marvel Cinematic Universe — or even compared with other snarky anti-superhero movies like “Deadpool” — “Venom” feels like pretty weak poison.
Amid a plethora of family-friendly superhero blockbusters, this was the road less traveled that “Deadpool” took in 2016, whose success inspired “Logan” to follow suit.
For, when Eddie finally comes to terms with living with the parasite, there is a hint of a lively back and forth between the two — especially when Eddie refuses to jump from a building — that might have rivalled Deadpool .
Tom Holland reminds us of his versatility and inherent likability as he slips into the role of Nathan, a gymnastically inclined (hey!), street-smart hustler and bartender who’s pulling off some Tom Cruise-in-“Cocktail” level tricks behind the bar while working his pickpocket game on the upscale clientele.
Nathan turns into Tom Holland, working as a bartender in a trendy NYC joint (Holland swipes some of Tom Cruise’s “Cocktail” moves) but engaging in pickpocketing on the side.
They would be perfect in a remake of 1988’s Tom Cruise/Bryan Brown drama “Cocktail.”
We first saw him working as a bartender and knows a thing or two about flair bartending as if he’s pulling Tom Cruise’s Brian Flanagan in Cocktail (1988).
At any rate that may explain the images of his character, Nate Drake, a thief who moonlights as a bartender (or vice versa), pulling some smooth moves on the job, a bit of juggling tomfoolery that instantly triggers images of Cruise in “Cocktail.”
There’s even a touch of the Tom Cruise classic "Cocktail" in there too.
In fact, the dynamic is reminiscent of the one between Little Shop of Horrors ’ hapless shop clerk and his bloodthirsty plant, if Seymour Krelborn spent all his free time doing bicep curls.
The parasite, Venom, has a tendency to insult Eddie, who doesn’t much care for Venom either, especially when Venom erupts from Eddie’s body as a toothy, lacquer-black, Tim Burton–esque fusion of Alien and Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors and bites off people’s heads.
Venom renders the anti-hero’s mano a mano fights against obsidian snot monsters with the latest CG globule technology, but the movie’s highs come when Hardy treats the Spider-Man spinoff like a Little Shop of Horrors remake starring mid-’90s Jim Carrey.
Venom “speaks” to Eddie in a guttural bark not far removed from the carnivorous plant in “Little Shop of Horrors,” and the inner banter between host and host-ee, while not reaching Nick and Nora Charles levels of wit, are reasonably amusing.
There are moments that are just plain silly – you practically expect the deep-voiced Venom to burst out singing “Feed Me” from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS – but since the movie never seeks to get too deep, this is amusing rather than a tonal violation.
Rather than lean into the over-the-top bombast of it all, Fleischer apes instead from Tomb Raider, The Goonies, and – most of all – Raiders of the Lost Ark but with no style to call his own.
But aside from a couple of predictable twists in allegiance, the script (by Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway) does relatively little with that idea, in part because the story feels like it has been cobbled together from snippets of more accomplished movies: A little Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure here, a little Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Goonies there.
However cynical one could become toward the prospect of another breed of Romancing the Stone (1984), The Goonies (1985), or National Treasure (2004), Uncharted defies all odds, despite its gaming origins.
It also mimics 1985's The Goonies at moments but does so in a much more serious manner.
“Uncharted,” a new movie based on the PlayStation video game, cribs heavily from adventures like “The Goonies” and its holy grail, “Indiana Jones.”
As a fan, I can’t help but think of personal favorites like Aladdin (1992), The Mummy (1999), National Treasure (2004), Indiana Jones (first three), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl , The Goonies , The Treasure of the Sierra Madre , and The Da Vinci Code .
Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Directed by Jon Watts
influenced Uncharted (2022), Venom (2018)
Characters
Performance-wise, Holland is fit as hell and game for anything, but Nathan’s vocal expressions and mannerisms too often evoke Peter Parker and comparisons to Spiderman .
Holland is 25 years old but still presents on-screen as an overeager teenager, recalling his work in the Spider-Man films; every line is delivered as an anguished yelp or a pleading sigh.
It’s hard to shake off the feeling that I’m watching him acting all witty and boyishly reckless like Peter Parker in Spider-Man: No Way Home, which was only released two months ago in December last year.
As much as Holland tries to inject some fun into his Nate character, Holland is just doing an older version of the teenage Peter Parker character that he plays in the “Spider-Man” movies.
“Uncharted” is part of the valiant effort to make a bona fide star out of Tom Holland separate from his extremely popular “Spider-Man” movies.
Somewhere lurking within Uncharted is a flicker of romance, but unlike Holland’s Spider-Man extravaganzas, Fleischer’s film can’t be bothered to humanize its characters with anything approaching engaging emotions or relations; the sole thing that matters is racing from one subterranean catacomb and buried cave to the next, the action punctuated by a few dull quips and some brooding over MIA relatives.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Directed by George A. Romero
influenced Zombieland (2009)
Themes Plot
Far from the canny social satire of George A. Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," and from the zany zombie movie homage of "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), "Zombieland" exists only to show zombies getting shot in the head, run over with SUVs, and generally murdered in fast and bloody ways.
Every zombie movie of the last 40 years already has an uphill battle, of course; each of them must be weighed against the genre-defining trilogy of films by George A. Romero begun with 1968's Night of the Living Dead , and zombie comedies in the last few years must not only contend with that insurmountable hurdle, but with another, nearly as damnable: the extraordinary Shaun of the Dead from 2004, arguably the funniest horror comedy ever made.
Zombies have been a staple for the horror film genre for many years, especially after George Romero’s excellent 1968 cult classic “Night of the Living Dead.”
Like most zombie flicks, this addition to an already overstuffed, undernourished subgenre more or less follows the gore-slicked path charted by George A. Romero in his sanguinary 1968 masterwork, “Night of the Living Dead” : the undead chase after the semi-alive.
He looks like a nod to the cobra-headed creature of the 1966 Hammer horror film “The Reptile.”
L.A. Confidential (1997)
Directed by Curtis Hanson
influenced Gangster Squad (2013)
Visuals Plot Themes
Better they should be looking for the heinous computer boffins who turned Gangster Squad from film noir homage into a lurid cartoon, something that seeks the drama of The Untouchables and L.A. Confidential but instead apes the empty theatrics of Dick Tracy.
Apart from the gore—and there's plenty—this is basically L.A. Confidential without the script: an upright police detective in 1949 (Josh Brolin) rounds up some like-minded renegades on the force (Ryan Gosling, Giovanni Ribisi, Michael Peña, Anthony Mackie, Robert Patrick) to wage war on real-life gangster Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn).
Gangster Squad is no L.A. Confidential, nor is it much of a history lesson, compressing some 15 years (part of which Cohen spent in jail) into a few months.
Working with cinematographer Dion Beebe, Fleischer dresses Gangster Squad in a film noir look, and saddles it with all the aspirations of, say, a Goodfellas or L.A. Confidential.
It's obvious, however, that Beall is mostly drawing on his experience with other movies, particularly the previous generation of revisionist period crime dramas, films like Brian De Palma's 1987 The Untouchables, which Gangster Squad's plot hews close to, and Curtis Hanson's 1997 L.A. Confidential.
To that end, as you may have heard already, “Venom” feels tremendously dated, seemingly plucked from a timewarp where superhero movies resemble ungainly things like “Ghost Rider,” “Spawn,” “Daredevil” and the likes (throw in a little bit of “The Mask,” “Dude Where’s My Car,” “Weekend At Bernies,” “The Wicker Man,” “Ghost Rider 2” and “Green Lantern” and this is the freaky Frankenstein that’s been created).
Far more entertainingly off-the-wall is Hardy, who appears to be channeling Nicolas Cage in Ghost Rider via Jim Carrey in The Mask .
Deadpool was a roaring success, but those erring more on the villainous side, like Ghost Rider, Catwoman and Suicide Squad, have all failed miserably.
The Venom design itself is impressive as a faithful recreation of the character, but in motion it ends up looking as goofy as Ghost Rider did on the big screen; some thins just don’t translate from page to screen.