Uncharted fans bemoan Tom Holland adaptation as HBO’s The Last of Us draws rave reviews

HBO’s live-action adaptation of The Last of Us premiered on Sunday (15 January) to rave reviews from critics and audiences alike.

As Louis Chilton wrote for The Independent, the series has broken the cardinal rule of video game adaptations – by actually being good.

The Last of Us – starring Pedro Pascal (Joel) and Bella Ramsey (Ellie) – follows the 2022 release of another beloved PlayStation classic adaptation, Uncharted.

Unlike The Last of Us, Sony Pictures’ Uncharted – starring Tom Holland as treasure hunter Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg as his partner in crime – was not received quite so positively.

“Tom Holland repeats his Spider-Man shtick in passionless video game adaptation,” read Clarisse Loughrey’s two-star review headline for The Independent.

Though the film mustered a more-than-respectable $402m (£329m) box office gross, fans were left disappointed at the result of what was supposed to be one of the best examples of the medium’s cinematic potential.

After The Last of Us episode one aired, Uncharted fans vented their frustration on Twitter.

“Uncharted fans watching The Last of Us get a [sic] HBO 1:1 adaption while they got Mark Wahlberg,” one fan wrote alongside a montage of Cillian Murphy’s Peaky Blinders character Thomas Shelby holding a gun to his head, screaming.

“The Last of Us making me realize what we could’ve had with Uncharted,” another fan bemoaned.

“I like the Uncharted movie but in comparison with The Last of Us as a faithful adaptation, it makes me want to cry,” wrote another.

On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the series currently boasts a “fresh” score of 97 per cent positive reviews – the highest ever score for a live-action video game adaptation.

In his four-star review for The Independent, Nick Hilton wrote: “Gamers might finally have a great adaptation on their hands thanks to HBO, which is simply operating on a different level to any other network.”

The Last of Us is out now on Sky and NOW in the UK and HBO in the US. New episodes arrive each Sunday evening at 9pm EST.