Sony’s incoming Uncharted movie has been plagued with a bad rap from the very beginning thanks to its brazen attitude to adapting the smash-hit video game franchise from Naughty Dog. While everyone loves Tom Holland, he’s certainly not a direct match to Nathan Drake in the games, and Mark Wahlberg’s de-aged Sully doesn’t even have his signature facial hair. But is there are a chance that the film could actually surprise us and turn out to be pretty good?
That’s what this brand-new clip from the film (which you can view above) suggests might happen. The minute-long sneak peek gives us a tease at a fight scene that takes place in a cocktail bar. While Holland’s Drake uses his boss-level bartending to deal with a Scottish henchmen, his partner — fellow treasure hunter Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali) — tries to crack open a hidden door behind the bar. As it turns out, the scene isn’t half-bad.
Even taken out of context like this, there’s a unexpected assured energy and pace to the scene and Drake’s clever use of the booze around him to incapacitate his foe is fairly innovative. It’s also nice to see the Spider-Man star doing an action scene in his civvies for once, which reminds us how gifted of a physical performer he is. Holland might not have gotten his wish to make a young James Bond film, but perhaps he could play 007 in a few years after all.
We’ve seen in the trailers that Drake will be working as a bartender before Sully finds him and they set off for their adventure, but this is our first proper look at Holland showing off his skills. The British star has revealed that he took shifts in a swanky London bar in order to learn how to “mix cocktails, practice trick pours, and toss bottles around.” Now we know what scene he was preparing for.
From director Ruben Fleischer, Uncharted is coming to theaters on Feb. 11 in the U.S. and Feb. 18 in the U.K.
