Uncharted

“Uncharted” is most likely exactly as good as you hope it will be, and I say that as someone who hoped it was going to be a chases and stunts movie that was fun to watch. It achieves the primary goal of based-on-a-video-game movies, which is that the non-stunts parts like storyline and character don’t get in the way of the stunts parts, which are the reason we are there. There is just enough story and character to add enough emotion to the stunts to take the place of the engagement we feel when we are controlling part of the game.

It helps a lot that the two characters we are supposed to root for and identify with are played by Mark Wahlberg as Sully and Tom Holland as Nate, who bring their established star quality and connection to the audience to fill out the thinly drawn characters they are playing. Holland really takes over as a full-on action hero, even more than he is able to in the Spider-Man movies because there is no mask; he has to act his way through all of the action scenes and did I mention that the stunts are truly wild?

“Uncharted” begins with a “Fast and Furious”-level action scene that is absolutely bonkers. Huge chained-together cargo bundles are hanging out of a plane and Nate is hanging from one of them by a foot caught in the strap until he isn’t, and falls or jumps from one bundle to the other as bad guys are shooting at him and, yes, a fire-engine red sports car comes driving out of the cargo hold, which, let me remind you, is still in the back of a plane that is in the actual, okay green-screen but it looks actual, sky.

It’s the classic MacGuffin: lost pirate treasure. We don’t need to know anything else. We’re on board. Literally; pirate ships are involved and made to do things their builders could never have anticipated. There are objects that must be retrieved in order to find and access it. And there are people who team up and sometimes un-team up and sometimes fight each other to get it. That’s the storyline.

But mostly, there are some wild stunts, on land, water, and in the air. There are nods to (barely disguising lifts from) Indiana Jones, the “Fast and Furious” and “National Treasure” and “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, but hey, this is a movie where the heroes are thieves, so steal from the best. There are villains, meaning people who also want the treasure and are willing to take more extreme measure to get it. There is something between retaliation and revenge, the oldest of them all: “You killed my brother.”

The little hints of plot, motivation, and character never get in the way of the stunts, which are a hoot.

Parents should know that this movie has a lot of carnage for a PG-13, with video-game-like peril, injuries, and deaths. Many minor characters are killed without blood or consequences. Characters use strong language (many s-words) and drink, with scenes in bars.

Family discussion: How did Sully and Nate decide who they would trust? How did that change? How were their reasons for finding the treasure different?

If you like this, try: The Indiana Jones and “Fast and Furious” and “National Treasure” movies