When Sam and Nathan Drake were young, they always dreamed of becoming treasure hunters. It was in their blood, Sam told his little brother, because they were descended from pirates.
Unfortunately, Nathan never got to go on some wild adventure seeking a priceless fortune because Sam ran off without him to avoid juvenile detention.
But that all changes when Victor Sullivan, aka “Sully,” shows up seeking Nathan’s help.
See, unlike Nathan, Sully’s actually seen Sam here and there these past 10 years—worked with him, in fact—tracking down the lost gold of Ferdinand Magellan (the explorer credited with completing the first circumnavigation of the globe in 1522).
For Sully, it’s just a paycheck, a way to get rich quick. But for Nathan, it means finding his lost brother and fulfilling their family legacy.
Sully uses Nathan as a means to an end. In his line of work, you can’t trust anybody. And he basically admits he left a previous partner to die when things got hairy. However, Nathan’s goodness rubs off on the older man, spurring him to make some redemptive and sacrificial choices later in the story.
Sam abandons Nathan when they’re just kids, but he makes a vow to come back eventually for his little brother. Unfortunately, he never does anything more than send postcards to Nathan, and this creates a feeling of bitterness in Nathan towards his big bro.
However, Nathan eventually learns that there were extenuating circumstances that prevented Sam from returning—and that Sam may have even been protecting his kin by staying away. And this fosters a spirit of hope for reconciliation in the younger sibling.
Sam and Nathan grow up in a Catholic orphanage. As adults, neither are churchgoers, but Nathan feels extra guilty when breaking into a church—though, admittedly, this may be due more to his fear of punishment by the nuns than his fear of God.
Many of the clues to the Magellan treasure are linked to religious icons. Two keys are made in the shape of a cross. There are references to heaven and hell. Several clues are hidden in a church (and Nathan and Sully have to mildly desecrate it to find them). Nathan is nearly killed when he ignores a symbol called “the Eye of Providence.”
Someone sarcastically quotes “thou shalt not steal” from the Ten Commandments. A street performer is dressed as a devil-angel type character.
A man says he has faith in God (and crosses himself) but not in his son.
An exercise montage shows a shirtless Nathan. Some women wear revealing outfits and bikini tops. One woman’s formfitting top leaves little to the imagination. Innuendo suggests that two characters previously had a sexual relationship. People dance in a nightclub. Someone jokes about the drink “Sex on a Beach.”
Nathan and fellow treasure hunter Chloe share a bedroom one night. We never see them in bed together, and there’s nothing to suggest they did anything besides sleep. But Nathan harbors a crush on Chloe, so the fact that they shared the same bed could send some questionable messages to younger viewers. (Nathan is also shirtless when he wakes the following morning.)
Treasure hunters often get into fistfights, gunfights—and sometimes even swordfights. And you can imagine that they all sustain a number of injuries during these scuffles. (One woman is thrown through a glass wall, and Nathan bleeds after getting knocked unconscious with the butt of a gun.)
Several people hurtle through the air to their deaths after falling out the back of a cargo plane without parachutes. (More die later in a similar manner after being thrown from a boat carried by a helicopter.) Nathan accidentally kicks one or two enemy goons off the plane himself, shouting apologies for what he calls “totally reactive” actions.
To be fair, these men were firing guns and trying to kill him, but it’s still jarring when cargo crates smack into people, sending them to their deaths, if not killing them on impact. Nathan later unapologetically shoots a helicopter from the air with a cannonball, sending its occupants to their fiery deaths.
Someone is crushed by a falling boat. A woman slits the throats of several colleagues. A man commits patricide to stop his father from giving away their family fortune. We hear that a man was left for dead after he was shot. Death threats are exchanged.
Two people are nearly shot by arrows and drowned by booby traps. A boy is saved from falling off a balcony by his brother.
Nearly 30 uses of the s-word. We also hear frequent uses of “a–,” “b–tard,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “h—” and “p-ss.” There’s an incomplete “What the—.” God’s name is abused 10 times, and Jesus’ name is abused twice.
People drink alcohol. Nathan drinks a 500-year-old bottle of rum that he finds on a pirate ship. Nathan works as a bartender before Sully recruits him, and he displays his mixologist skills throughout the film. A girl smokes a cigarette. A man steals a cigar.
People lie, steal, pickpocket and double-cross each other. Someone says that money changes people, making them greedy and selfish.
Sam is nearly sent to juvenile detention for stealing from a museum (as it’s his third strike); but he runs away, avoiding capture. We hear that another man was discharged from the military for looting artifacts.
As a child, Nathan tries to imagine that he isn’t an orphan and that his parents are just missing, but Sam harshly tells him this isn’t true. Later, we hear that Chloe’s dad sold the first artifact she ever discovered as a child (rather than donate it to a museum) and that she never saw him again after that.
Nathan tells Sully that Magellan’s expedition was never about exploration but about money. And since Magellan’s crew hid the gold after his untimely death, his patrons never saw a single nugget.
Uncharted is based on the popular video game franchise, and it’s a pretty even mix of Tomb Raider and The Goonies.
Language is the most obvious issue here, with the s-word count reaching well into double digits. There’s also quite a bit of violence, with one character slitting throats as casually as she would use a letter opener.
However, it’s the totally pointless and seemingly random workout montage that caught me off guard with its obvious objectification of the lead actor. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to thinking of Tom Holland as Peter Parker, a high schooler, but his shirtless workout scenes felt icky—like I was watching a younger brother.
The film’s creators have unashamedly cashed in on Holland’s appeal to young, female audiences. And while this isn’t anything new in Hollywood, it’s definitely a subject worth discussing with your teens.
Because it’s easy to say “no” to a movie that has sex scenes or nudity. What’s harder to moderate are films that simply suggest someone’s desirability. It grooms audiences to think of that person in an adult mindset, further suggesting that it’s OK to objectify them and possibly others as well.
And all of this is really quite a shame since the film didn’t need any of those content problems to be entertaining.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
