Sony Music Masterworks releases the score to the Uncharted movie with music by composer Ramin Djawadi. Based on the PlayStation video game of the same name, Uncharted sees street-smart Nathan Drake being recruited by seasoned treasure hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan in order to recover a fortune amassed by Ferdinand Magellan and lost 500 years ago by the House of Moncada. What starts as a heist job for the duo becomes a globe-trotting, white-knuckle race to reach the prize before the ruthless Santiago Moncada, who believes he and his family are the rightful heirs. If Nate and Sully can decipher the clues and solve one of the world’s oldest mysteries, they stand to find $5 billion in treasure and perhaps even Nate’s long-lost brother... but only if they can learn to work together...

If the soundtrack to Uncharted is anything to go by, the movie must be a very dry affair. I've played all of the Uncharted games in the franchise and one thing that has always struck me is how memorable the music is, not to mention how integral it is in setting the scene and right emotion.

What Ramin Djawadi delivers here is something I'd have expected to have heard on an average action TV series in the '80s/'90s. On the first play through I didn't detect a single segment of music that caught my attention, and certainly nothing that resonated with me on an emotional level. And this didn't improve over time. I've listened to it half a dozen times and I'm still not a fan. Djawadi is well known for delivering memorable scores (A Wrinkle in Time, The Game of Thrones, Iron Man, Person of Interest, Westworld), but it just feels like he phoned this one in.

It's so sad because this could have been a memorable, engaging and fun score. What we end up with is a dry and dull collection of background themes that go nowhere. It's a shame that Greg Edmonson wasn't given the gig. His music for Uncharted 3 is a million times more engaging that what Djawadi delivers here. Edmonson's score works better in the game than when heard in isolation... and I'm hoping that this is also the case with Djawadi's score.

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Darren Rea