What did you see this weekend? 'Uncharted' and 'Dog' were popular

by Nathaniel R

Tom Holland and Channing Tatum both proved continued drawing power this weekend as the video game adaptation Uncharted opened strong with  $51 million over the long weekend and the original comedy Dog opened to $17 million. Meanwhile international feature Oscar nominees Worst Person in the World and Drive My Car continued their arthouse dominance. Full "estimates" chart after the jump...

Weekend Box Office February 18-21 HOLIDAY WEEKEND 🔺 = new or expanding
OVER 800 SCREENS	UNDER 800 SCREENS
UNCHARTED	WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

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Review: "Uncharted" Stays Straight, Too Straight, On Course

by Jason Adams

When is a cannonball not just a cannonball? When it's a sight-gag aimed straight at Tom Holland's crotch, that's when. Rolling up out of nowhere in the explosive and overblown finale to Ruben Fleischer's fitfully entertaining but mostly lifeless video-game adaptation Uncharted -- which involves two full-sized pirate ships being swung below dueling helicopters careening through tropical passageways; don't ask --  the cannonball strikes me as more than just a cannonball and more than just a kick-in-the-nuts punchline. The cannonball becomes a Mousetrap-type puzzle-piece that Uncharted doesn't have the madcap skill to deploy in any interesting fashion. It's a what-could-have-been in the movie that never was.

Because a better filmmaker would've introduced that cannonball, or, even better, dozens of them, earlier...

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Is a Good Video Game Movie Possible?

Robert here. There has been a flurry of video game movie news this week. On Monday it was announced that new Spider-Man (or Spider-Boy, as it were) Tom Holland had been cast as a young Nathan Drake in the long gestating Uncharted movie.

We also got news that the Resident Evil film series which ended just this spring already on the reboot track. Not just a reboot but they're threatening an entire second hexalogy. (Does Resident Evil need 12 films?)  Meanwhile, the latest Tomb Raider reboot staring Oscar winner Alicia Vikander is trucking right along towards its March 2018 bow.

Movies based on video games have long been a profitable cash grab for studios, but they have a reputation for being bad to abysmal quality wise. Does this latest trio of features have any hope...

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