Yesterday we got the first trailer for the new Mortal Kombat movie, but there's another big hitter in the video game world coming to the movie screen before too long in the Tom Holland-led Uncharted movie. Holland will play video game protagonist Nathan Drake, and while that name will be familiar to video game players, the Uncharted series isn't necessarily one that has become well-known in broader pop culture. So there may be a lot of potential fans unfamiliar with the character. Luckily Tom Holland has found the perfect way to describe the hero in a way that anybody will understand.
Tom Holland recently appeared on the Little Gold Men podcast, where the show's host was unfamiliar with the Uncharted video games. So Tom Holland explained who Nathan Drake was in the perfect way for any movie fan to understand, as he's basically the combination of two iconic movie heroes. In his words,
I think the easiest way to describe the film without belittling it in any way is like if Indiana Jones and James Bond had had a baby, it would be Nathan Drake. That is the way I keep describing the film.
The Indiana Jones connection is fairly obvious. Nathan Drake is a guy that travels the world on a search for lost places and mysterious artifacts. The plots of Uncharted games could easily be used for future Indiana Jones stories and there isn't a lot that would need to change. As far as the comparison to James Bond goes, there's certainly a connection there, and Drake is something of a suave ladies man. Although he's perhaps not as similar to James Bond as Drake thinks he is. Besides, Drake doesn't wear tuxedos too often.
As a video game, Uncharted is more like James Bond in its style of action. While Indiana Jones knows how to use a gun, straight up gunfights are more of a Bond thing. And that's ultimately the core of what an Uncharted game is; it's a lot of shooting dudes with guns.
Maybe it's because of Nathan Drake's similarities to James Bond that Tom Holland recently threw his name in the ring to potentially play that role once No Time To Die comes out and Daniel Craig officially retires. Craig largely got the role after the producers saw him in the movie Layer Cake and realized he'd be good. Perhaps Uncharted will be Tom Holland's audition to play James Bond.
Adapting video games for movies is tough because story is always a secondary consideration when compared to gameplay, but for movies everything flips around. You have to build a story that works that includes all the action that people expect. It's difficult to argue that any video game adaptation has ever really gotten right.
