A ‘Borderlands’ Fan Wearily Reviews ‘Borderlands’

I’m not sure there’s a way to make a good Borderlands movie. And this is certainly not it.

Considering it’s being hailed as one of the worst video game adaptations ever in a sea of ​​bad video game adaptations most of a decade or more ago, I had to see Borderlands for myself. It’s not 2005-era Uwe Boll bad, and yet it’s not good at all. To talk about this, you should know from the start that I’m someone with hundreds and hundreds of hours in three games and a sequel, and that’s the perspective I’m coming from.

This is neither a good Borderlands movie nor a good movie. It feels like Gearbox and Eli Roth tried to split the difference here, making a mass-appealing PG-13 action movie, but making vague gestures in the games to get that crowd to show up, too.

But the end result is throwing the Borderlands games at a wall, watching them fall apart, and gluing back together a handful of barely recognizable pieces. Spoilers ahead, but not if you’ve played the games or know the basics.

Did you think casting would be a problem? Casting is a problem. In some cases it’s actually…okay. I think the single best actor’s character is Marcus, and all of his 90 seconds on screen. Krieg should just look like Krieg and say things like “I’ll lick your spine!” and he does it. I think Young Gamora/Young Ahsoka Ariana Greenblatt’s promising career will survive this, and she’d be an okay Tina with a much better script. Surprisingly, I actually kind of liked Jack Black’s Claptrap? He was really funny at times, and maybe more so than the games.

But Lilith and Roland, man, what were they thinking? Roland is Kevin Hart, who of course isn’t the stoic, burly soldier he should be, he’s Kevin Hart, maybe acting 20% ​​less than usual Kevin Hart-ish, but that’s about it. And just physically he is, without exaggeration, only slightly taller than Greenblatt’s Tina, and the film does nothing to pretend otherwise.

Cate Blanchett is absolutely the most amazing actress here as Lilith. I have no idea how they landed the two-time Oscar winner, other than perhaps boredom on her part and an inexplicable desire to recreate her character’s trajectory in Tar. But as a gamer, the age gap from her to OG Lilith is distracting. And not just as a casting decision, but also from a story perspective. The film has Tanis and Moxxi telling her about their time with her mother and reminiscing about her as an eight-year-old. Jamie Lee Curtis is 65, ten years older than Blanchet’s 55. Gina Gershon is 62. It’s just stupid.

The scenario bears no resemblance to any Borderlands game, except that it’s vaguely about finding Pandora’s Vault. They make the core of the story an out-of-canon rewrite of Tina into a clone created by Atlas using Eridian DNA to open the vault as a “chosen one”, her only connection to her original character being her ears bunny and saying things like. “dealio.”

Tina is supposed to be the “Daughter of Eridia” prophecies, but of course we all know where this is going. Lilith begins the film without Siren’s powers. About twenty minutes in you’ll know that she, not Tina, is the chosen one in question and gets those Siren powers at the end. Flame on. The vault opening ends up being nothing but floating domes and tentacles, a hint of a boss fight from the corresponding non-fight games in the movie.

The script is not good, but neither is the action. This is what I’ll now call “Rebel Moon Syndrome” where a PG-13 cut neutralizes the action of something that should clearly be rated R. Soggy, soberly-rated games give way to bullet-crashing action. armored vehicles and people who fall. Again, I think they were going for the ticket boost here with the lower age rating, but it hurts the movie. Not that terrible move would have saved him, but it would have been better than what we got in this cut.

This project feels like pure ego. Look at these big stars we got to play these characters even if they don’t make sense! Borderlands fans will show up no matter what, even if the story and characters are very different! We’re launching the Borderlands cinematic universe to expand beyond those pesky players!

This will die here. Alone. No more movies. Nothing like that should ever be tried again. In any other world I can see a cute Borderlands animated series that probably worked on Netflix. But whatever A-list blockbuster this was supposed to be, despite the few brief moments where it works, it largely doesn’t, and it actually worries me about Borderlands 4, if that’s the kind the studio thinks is good right now.

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