Gal Gadot On The Nile And Potentially Uncharted Territory With The Latest Video Game Adaptation

Hello loyal listeners, after a slight hiatus we are back and busier than ever.  It feels like we are always playing catchup these days and episodes, this is no exception, but hopefully the last of these for a bit.  The February movie haul is here with the latest in a beautiful looking adaptation series of the amazing author Agatha Christie.  First we had Murder on the Orient Express in 2017 and in 2022 we are back with Death on the Nile.  Is Gal Gadot enough to keep this movie afloat.  

To round out the February movies list, it is another in a long line of video game adaptations.  Last year we had both Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.  With a new year brings another chance to break the stigma, I've seen plenty of these and none have really blown the doors off the cinema industry.  I love the Uncharted franchise as much as the Assassin's Creed games.  And even with the more out of left field casting of both Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg, I get that it is an origin story and the real question is will this movie be for die-hard's of the franchise, average movie-goer's, or both?  

Well let's check both of these out together and see if either packs the punch they set out to do.  And if you want to catch up with the poll's and other things we are putting out, you know where to find it all!  Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, and more on @NickNack_IC and @NickNackMovies!!!

Transcript

Nick Nack Goes to the Movies Pod S3E5

-Intro/Jingle

-Well listeners, another episode and it’s time to do the February movie roundup before we get too excited and can only talk about Batman things, The Batman to be specific.  And while I do love my super hero things, and scary movie things of course, I swear I have other interests.

-Having just came from a high school production of The Lightning Thief, which was a bit mid, I too remember my less than stellar audition my freshman year for an amazing show, And Then There Were None from the legendary Agatha Christie.  Well a few of her novels have been adapted, and while I talked briefly about the miniseries for And Then There Were None, two movies have been made for the Hercule Pwarow tales, first Murder on The Orient Express, and most recently, Death on the Nile, what we will be discussing today.  

-But besides mystery novels, I also love me some video games!  I have talked about Resident Evil a few times here, but I haven’t always gotten the chance to talk video games on here, I may one day end up doing some Twitch streaming to extend the Nick Nack brand, but TBD.  I bring this up as an intro to the whole I like video games and yeah, I am talking about the latest video game adaptation movie to come out, Uncharted, in the hopes that this one will help lessen the stigma of video game movies are bad.  So yeah, we are entering uncharted territory, but let’s take a pit stop on the Nile first.

-Actors

-So to start, I will try not to talk too much of Murder on the Orient express.  But that movie also had a ton of A-List celebrities too.  I feel like that one had more, I mean, it did have Willem Dafoe after all.  This has some of that, but other than Russell Brand, who did indeed take a picture down my shirt and tweet it, still a huge claim to fame at his brand X show filling.  But other than him Wonder Woman herself Gal Gadow, and Jennifer Saunders, who I will always think of in Shrek 2.  Other people are in this, but somehow that is really the main list that I can think of in this group.  But of course, we have to talk about Kenneth Branagh who once again plays the role of Pworow to perfection the second time around, he truly is one of the more fun parts to watch in these movies.

-Death on the Nile

-And these movies if there is one thing they crush, it has to be that they look gorgeous.  That first trailer for Murder on the Orient Express looked great, and the cast of course, but you have to like that.  The Believer song was a bit out of left field, kind of the antithesis for the best part of 50 shades of gray, the super cool version of crazy in love.

-Well I may not love the first one, and I did read the book too, this movie trailer did similarly just look really good.  And while I did not read this book, I honestly went into this with tempered expectations.  Look, I will be real here, I expected that this movie would look good and pretty but just not be good.  And while not perfect by any stretch, I think there were some improvements from the first iteration of these Agatha Christie adaptations.

-So if you stumbled into this movie just in the nick of time, like I did, you might think this is a random war movie or if you hadn’t seen it yet, maybe something with the prequel movie for the kings man series. 

-Throwback war things aside, there was a fun ruse about the mustachioed man being killed actually not being our lead detective and instead inspires him to grow his iconic facial hair.  

-This movie does jump around a lot more with settings where the first one pretty much the main stuff was all about the train excluding an introduction to the detective at work.  We are in London and then galivant all over Egypt before actually ending up on the Nile, which takes a bit longer than expected but does try to give a little more backstory to the eventual potential suspects.  Neither movie did an outstanding job making me super care for any of these characters outside of Pwarow and Bouk, the two returning members from the first movie, and really only Bouk played here by Tom Bateman, based on his connection to the lead.  

-This scene does try to introduce some romantic pairings and an eventual problematic love triangle between Gadot who the movies pretty much goes on the narrative that she is so attractive and rich it is hard for any guy to not fall for here after one slow dance encouraged by his up until that moment engaged partner.

-If there is one random thing in Death On The Nile that made me feel like I was watching Reign on The CW, yes this is a bad thing, it has to be the dancing in 1937 here felt way too modern, like if they were gonna go for grinding, why stop there?  Get 50 Cent from the Super Bowl halftime show and do love in the club, I was shocked and so taken out of this movie way too early on!

-But as weird as this was, the foreshadowing was honestly too on the nose for me, seeing Pwarow doing anything in this normally makes me smile, and him at the club living his best life eating deserts or him sitting down to do the same thing in Egypt just to get mad at someone disrespecting Worldwide monuments of historical magnitude, that was not only fun but a fun way to introduce Bouk, who does give the film a nice amount of levity and fun.

-Outside of this, no one really stole the show as everyone else was introduced, the eventual chemistry of Sophie Oh-kOW-Need-OH as Salome Otterbourne and Prarow fliriting was a nice touch to show that maybe he can settle down one day.

-I felt like I kept waiting for Russell Brand to do something more, and while he did fine, he never really made the mark I was hoping for.

-Now Guh-dow was a focal part of the movie early on, being the target for the mystery and the eventual first casualty, she was the Johnny Depp mobster role of the last role but of course more sympathetic.  I didn’t know a ton of her scored third of the remaining love triangle but Emma Mackey well as she gets more time to play in the creepier stalker aspects of her role.  She is newer in her acting career and I hope she gets even more time to work with some of these darker roles.

-I think once we get past this, things do get a bit more mystery movie formulaic. Nobody can be trusted but yet we still all go on a trip together, like if that is the case, just don’t go, cheese louise am I right?

-I feel like Egypt things never really matter a ton and like how Jason eventually goes to New York, both of these movies spend the most time on the boat.  While in that Friday the 13th movie, the boat stuff is the least exciting, here on the Nile, the movie prior to this just takes a while to get to the true mystery.  

-So look, this movie looks great, and even better when on the water, that Gal Gadot line is the epitome of this movie with enough champagne to fill the Nile, kind of goofy, but it is nice to see of course.  But yes, very goofy.

-I do think it’s wild that there is not more concern with the crazy stalker lady with a gun being on the same boat, like we knew this was an issue but somehow no one really does anything about it, which wile Gadot isn’t the first person to get shot, she is the first person to get got, much like once again Depp’s character in the train mystery murder thing.  

-Also, there is a private eye love mystery that at times feels a bit tossed in, honestly a lot of things are happening here, but at times none are super exciting.  But while the mystery stuff in orient express is at times a bit bland with the eventual reveal that they are all working together and no one is truly at risk, at least here there are some true stakes.  

-The interrogation scene truly reminds me how disinterested I am in almost every character in this mystery outside of the main few.  It sounds like I am super down on this movie, and at times, yeah, I am.  But it is better than the last of these, and it is fine at times, but just fine for the most part.

-But if there is one part I do like, when we do start axing off some characters, the saddest part that was probably the most shocking part of the movie had to be the death of Bouk. one of the few recurring characters and one of the only friends to Pwarow.  So yeah, things got personal, like a lesser but it felt like Sherlock lost his Watson a tad.  

-After this we kind of get the standard detective who is the killer with a ton of fakeouts prior, I knew the stalker girl had to be somewhat a part of it all, but there were some surprises about it with the original couple being a sort of, dare I say this too cheesily, but I am a Wisconsinite now, Bonnie and Clyde.

-The end is kind of what you would expect from a movie with star struck murderers who got caught, they in an act of passion don’t get taken alive.  And at least the end is kind of fun with Pwarow ending his story with a flash forward showing him without facial hair, fallen on hard times, and attending a concert of the woman he was crushing on.

-So in short, this was better than expected, but also kind of what I expected. Looks nice, a few surprises, but at the end of the day it was just okay.  But yeah if they make more I will do this all again.

-Actors

-But to the next movie at hand, the latest in a long line of video game adaptations, which we have more coming soon in the TV realm with another Resident Evil with Lance Reddick and another Naughty Dog property in the Last of Us with Pedro Pascal, who continues to crush it in everything he is in.  Both he and Oscar Isaac are two actors that are quickly becoming have to watch them in everything they are in.

-But we are talking all about Uncharted.  When it was announced to be Tom Holland, I am sure many of us were a bit shocked.  We could have had Nolan North or Nathan Fillion, but they wanted a much younger one, and in short, yeah it works, but It could have been even more up my alley with one of the other actors too.  That was titular lead Nathan Drake, and Victor Sully’s actor being Mark Wahlberg too was not the first choice for this.  I do like the idea of Bryan Cranston or someone older who has that humor streak but, Mark Wahlberg, like Matt Damon and Ben Afleck are always a bit harder to believer in certain things.  Both Wahlberg and Holland did fine, but it was clearly not what people expected.

-Let’s get it out of the way, Antonio Banderas did not add a ton to this movie for me, at all.  I did enjoy his brief first interaction with Holland, but that was all he did for me as the bad guy who has money but only does so much. 

-But one more fun thing, he is also in the stacked and hopefully alien free upcoming Indiana Jones sequel which also has baddie actor experts Mads Mikkelsen, Thomas Kretschmann, and more!

-Sophia Ali never did feel quite right in the role for Chloe Frazer, she always seemed so cold, where I feel like she was way more likable in the games, even when she was betraying Drake.

-It was a minor role, but I got a kick out of seeing Steven Waddington every time he was the Scottish muscle antagonist of the movie.

-Probably the biggest surprise, and while like a lot in this movie, she could have been better, I was excited to see Tati Gabrielle from both The 100 and the very well done Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.  She doesn’t necessarily feel like a true main uncharted villain like the classics from the first two games.  If they do end up doing the games in a ling franchise I am super excited for the castings of both Eddy Raja and Harry Flynn.

-Uncharted

-So, the casting was unexpected, but good enough for sure for an origin story of Nathan Drake.  I wonder if the expectations would have been different if this wasn’t an Uncharted game, but if it wasn’t, I don’t know if I would watch a random treasure hunter movie, there are enough good ones that a new unfranchised one may not be a big draw with The Mummy and Indiana Jones to name a few.  

-And that’s a big part of this franchise as kind of a hybrid of the two, not unlike Tomb Raider which has had a few goes at a video game adaptation, which are all somewhat fun to watch in their own rights.

-But we will get into that soon enough about the differences and omissions from the game and movie versions.  Now remember this is not an exact retelling of a game, or at least any I played, I have only gotten 1-3 in, never got the PS4 or 5 and went straight to the Switch for Animal Crossing.  

-So this movie starts off almost immediately with the same as the second and third games, a flashback of a scary moment that is near identical to the third game being up in the air trying to get back onto a plane with cargo flying all over the place before we see the beginning, so yeah that is kind of a fun start.  But remember, there is a difference to this and resident evil welcome to raccoon city, which pretty much is a retelling abridged version of the games where this is trying to be its own thing with the same licensed property and characters.

-So I never really knew a ton about Drakes brother, but here they introduce him early on, really the games didn’t touch on Drake’s past outside of the third which had him stealing from a museum early on, which is too a part of the story here trying to find some treasure or what not, treasure archeology movies all will have some form of this obvi.  Now I do love the little touches that while obvious are nice to see in visual form like his special ring and the whole Sic Parvis Magna.

-I do feel like these touches and more will make fans of the franchise and those uninitiated overall, not blowing the doors off anything, but gets the job done.  Unlike Assassins Creed which while I like the Michael Fassbender led movie, I love him, and I love those games more than most.  But the whole Animus angle was not it, at all, more past and less random business things please.  We will get into that and more video games in the future hopefully.

-So I do think the partnership works well enough between Holland and Wahlberg.  It doesn’t always scream true Nate and Sully, but it is fun enough with the level of mistrust, the old person jokes, which only make so much sense with Wahlberg not being that old in contrast.

-You probably guessed it, but there will always be some sort of, “hey is that Spider-Man?” When watching Holland as Nathan Drake, it is not so far off, but it is not quite right.  Still fun, but just not the same.  They honestly make Sully a little more villainous than expected.  Sure, he is a bit unsavory, but you know he has Nate’s back, and that was a dark turn.  Sort of the vibe I got from Sub-Zero being the more villainous ninja in the latest Mortal Kombat movie over Scorpion who was almost the main hero.

-So I do love the heist moments, those are once again, not always uncharted, but fun.  They do get the dumb luck stunts down with Nathan Drake, a staple of his character.  Especially when you realize the hit meter in the games isn’t him healing from bullet wounds, it is his luck wearing down as he gets in harrier situations, neat right?

-The brother angle I can’t speak a ton on without having the game experience, but I’m still iffy on his importance in the movie being felt but not seen.  I dunno, it more felt like one of those mcguffin’s like Private Ryan from the saving ww2 movie.

-So like I said, the first steeling scene has the best of Antonio Banderas in this movie, his banter with Tom Holland was just fun.  Steeling gold crosses and fisticuffs and betrayal was fun and visually exciting, and the intro to Tati Gabrielle’s Braddock with a little light flirting, all fun, but once again, they made Sully a bit more of a greedy dick than he needed to be, and the lack of the mustache for almost the entire movie, come on man.

-So, as a games fan, the only way I know how to do these reviews of video game movies.  The first game had Nate, Sully, and Elena, the second added Chloe Frzaer to the mix played here by Sophia Ali.  And the same way Sully was not nearly likable enough, eventually I grew to like Sully enough, but I never really felt that way with this movie take on Chloe.  Like she too seemed like more of a dick here than in the games. She did her own stuff sure, but she was always likable, here you didn’t get that vibe by the end of it really.  This game adaptation was close, and it doesn’t have to be the exact same thing, but some characters, franchise characters just were off the mark a bit, that might be a trend.  

-The backstabbing nature of treasure hunting is for sure a part of this world, and the irony of Banderas having his dad killed by Braddock to then get killed by her himself, that was a fun twist of fate, especially during his monologue.  I do have to say, Tati Gabrielle was pretty quality overall in this movie, might have been one of the more redeeming parts of this more just above average action flick that I am on the fence about buying a hard copy of, not like Scream 5 which I can’t wait to own.  But if you have yet to see it, you can watch it now on Paramount Plus if you have that streaming service.

-The action set piece moments were always pretty strong and the tension was good, the scenes with Wahlberg having to fight Braddock while Holland is drowning.  There were some weird humor moments like fighting in a pizza place and a night club, those felt a little out of left field.  Now of course the big action moment was just a rip from Uncharted 3 with the plane and crates teased in the beginning of the movie, just like the game.  Now this was fun and looked great, but it really was just a game retread that I wish wasn’t the biggest action set-piece, but I am sure non-game watchers would have enjoyed this a bit more.  

-Now one thing I truly loved as a gamer, and fan of this series.  If you know anything about videos games, you know the voice of Nolan North.  He is in so many things, one of the most known of course is the Uncharted franchise.  But few people know what he looks like, his live action career is not a bountiful as his voice actor one, but I only know what he looks like because of his brief portrayal as Spencer’s dad from Pretty Little Liars.  Yes that show, blame podcast guest Gen for getting me hooked, and blame me for needing to know who A was and thinking at times the thriller aspects would take center stage in a ABC show.  Spoiler alert, they did not.  But seeing him for even a moment in this movie got me hyped, even if no one else was freaking out about it.

-I guess the bigger action set piece moment might be the two ancient ships on helicopters being flown out with the treasure.  And like, that was very cool.  There is no doubt, that was cool.  The eventual resolution to Sully and Nate problems with his brother and his seeming death, which no one ever believed if I’m being honest, but that was an issue and by the end of it all somehow cool, I dunno, something felt missing a bit, but that is what happens when they make Sully so scummy.  But the action was great, even if the treasure had no supernatural elements like the Uncharted scores of old.  But they only get a small amount of treasure and not the whole haul, had to be expected.  

-But what else to say, it was a fun enough movie that had enough for gamer fans, but had some missing parts.  I think people who are fans of the genre might get a bit more out of this, as long as you can look at Tom Holland and not just see Spider-Man, or maybe that will do it for you and they can cast Zendaya as Elena in the sequel if that happens, really hoping for a resident evil sequel too.

-But before we get to the letterboxd ratings, have to say one brief thing.  Game of Thrones is great, that sounds like a random statement but here me out, I will get to my point.  So I know the last season was not the best, but I did enjoy the moments we had with euron Greyjoy played by Pil-lou Ass-bake.  He will also be in the new Aquaman movie, and I still have to see the Borgias which he was in too apparently.  But I bring him up because eye-patched him is in the post credits looking cool and he has a brief confrontation with Nate and mustachioed Sully that looked very fun, and very on brand with the games.  And they mention Roman, who is probably Gabriel Roman from the first game.  And I would like to see more Uncharted storylines so yes, get me that, deff left the theater excited for the future if it happens, like Wesker in the last resident evil with sunglasses and Ada Wong.

-Letterboxd ratings

- Death on the Nile – 3 stars

- Uncharted – 3.5 stars

-wrap and call to action 

-So it was late but better late than even later as they say, thanks for joining me for another movie theater catch up, and hopefully we will be back sooner than later with our newest iteration of the caped crusader under the cowl played by sparkly vampire and MY BOYYYYY, Robert Pattinson.  Are you following us on social yet? If not, you are missing out on our latest Twitter poll where you the fans voted 87.5% in favor of more excitement after the latest Fantastic Beasts trailer over Jared Leto’s Morbius.  But to stay abreast of all we have, check us out on Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, and more at Nick Nack Movies and Nick Nack Underscore IC.  So as always, cheers and until next time cinephiles.