Borderlands review

BORDERLANDS: 

ELI ROTH VIDEO GAME ADAPTATION CRASHES AND BURNS! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: * out of 4

LIONSGATE

Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Greenblatt, Kevin Hart, Florian Munteanu, and Cate Blanchett in Borderlands

 

            The world of Gearbox’s popular video game series hits the big screen in Borderlands, the latest film from director Eli Roth (Hostel: Parts 1 and 2, The House with a Clock in its Walls, Thanksgiving). I’m no expert on the Borderlands video games though I have played a little of Borderlands 2 on The Handsome Collection and enjoyed my time with it. 

            So, I’m going into this mostly as an outsider and someone who enjoys many of the cast members attached to this film. Sad to say, none of these actors or Eli Roth’s direction could make this movie enjoyable for me. 

            I can’t say this movie angered me as I was watching it and I could see the effort in trying to make the film at least visually resemble the source material, but man what an obnoxious and unfunny sit this was despite its talented cast. Yet, this film still somehow manages to be a step up from an Uwe Boll shit-fest. 

            The film follows Lillith (Cate Blanchett-The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Thor: Ragnarok, Tár), an infamous outlaw who must return to the place she grew up with known as Pandora (Sadly, not the planet from Avatar because that already would have been a far better movie) in order to find the missing daughter of the most powerful man in the universe who turns out to be the explosive and mischievous, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt-Avengers: Infinity War, In the Heights, Barbie) who is also the key to a massive treasure hidden inside the Vault. Lillith forms an alliance with a team of misfits consisting of the already mentioned Tiny Tina, Roland (Kevin Hart-About Last Night (2014), Central Intelligence, Jumanji 2 and 3), Krieg (Florian Munteanu-Creed II and III, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, The Contractor), Dr. Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis-Halloween franchise, Freaky Friday (2003), Everything Everywhere All at Once), and a talking robot known as Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black-School of Rock, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Tropic Thunder) in order to find the treasure before the evil Atlas (Édgar Ramirez-Carlos, Zero Dark Thirty, The Girl on the Train) gets there first. 

            The film also stars Gina Gershon (Face/Off, The Insider, Thanksgiving) as Mad Moxxi, Bobby Lee (Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Pineapple Express, The Dictator) as Larry, Janina Gavankar (The L Word, True Blood, Blindspotting) as Commander Knoxx, Oliver Richters (Black Widow, The King’s Man, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny) as Krom, Cheyenne Jackson (United 93, 30 Rock, Love is Strange) as Jakobs, Charles Babalola (The Legend of Tarzan, Gretel & Hansel, The Outlaws) as Hammerlock, Benjamin Byron Davis (Red Dead Redemption 1 and 2, The Belko Experiment, Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Marcus, and Steven Boyer (Bridge of Spies, Trial & Error, Hustlers) Scooter. 

            Overall, Borderlands tries to honor the source material with visuals that capture the look of the video games and Easter Eggs that fans will probably appreciate, but it feels more like the film is showcasing these elements without really understanding why people enjoy the series in the first place. Again, I’m not an expert on the games but I understand why it’s a well-regarded franchise with its blend of imagination, action, and humor not to mention its characters…things this movie fails at representing on top of just not being an entertaining film on its own. 

            This is a non-stop barrage of tedious action scenes with no real weight or impact to them, shoot some guys here, blow something up there, punch a guy there, Ariana Greenblatt gets splashed with urine (That’s not a joke BTW!), standard sci-fi action that feels like a video game…and makes you wish you were playing this instead of watching it. There are occasionally some fun moments during the action like a decent chase sequence from Commander Knoxx and her army on Pandora in the beginning of the film and I got a few chuckles out of Ariana Greenblatt’s Tiny Tina using exploding plush dolls as weapons, but moments like these are very few and far between in otherwise generic action scenes. 

            Most of the characters are very one-note to the point where not much development is given to many of them. Kevin Hart is just his usual loud, fast-talking self, Jamie Lee Curtis and Florian Munteanu are just there, Jack Black is the comic relief robot who is sometimes entertaining, and Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina who I’m sure is probably a much better character in the games, but here she is insufferable with really awful quips, obnoxious whining, and has a case of the “Dumbass in Distress” syndrome in the last third despite her being armed with exploding plushies and giant rocket launchers. 

Cate Blanchett as Lillith is probably the closest to having any real development and to her credit, she’s not phoning her performance in. Despite not being the proper age as the character in the games, Blanchett’s Lillith is interesting enough as a movie’s protagonist that I at least wanted to see her arc of the story unfold. 

The comedy is painfully unfunny here which certainly isn’t the cast’s fault because every one of them has been talented and funny before in other projects. But here it’s nothing but quips, one-liners, pee jokes, Jack Black starting to lean into Jar Jar Binks territory with the material given to him, and simply because a lot of the characters aren’t fully fleshed-out and very few that are likable it’s hard to be invested in them let alone laugh at/with them. 

Borderlands isn’t Uwe Boll video game adaptation or Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li bad as there are attempts at trying to pay homage to the source material in terms of the visuals and costume designs, but this certainly isn’t a video game movie I’ll be revisiting again anytime soon. It just makes me with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 would just come out already and take the pain of this film away.