I’m not sure there’s a way to make a clever Borderlands movie. And that’s not it.
Since it’s one of the worst video game adaptations ever made in a sea of bad video game adaptations, most of them from a decade or more ago, I had to see Borderlands with my own eyes. This isn’t a bad Uwe Boll from 2005, and yet it’s not smart either. To communicate that, you have to know from the beginning that I’m someone with a lot of hours in 3 games and a previous sequel, and that’s the attitude where I come from. of.
This is not a Borderlands movie or a movie, period. It feels like Gearbox and Eli Roth are looking to split the difference here, making a PG-13 action movie for the mass market, but vaguely pointing out which games they should try to get that crowd to show up too.
But the end result is to throw the Borderlands games against a wall, watch them break, and glue together a handful of recognizable pieces. Spoilers are detailed below, but not if you’ve played the games or even know the basics.
Did you think casting was going to be a problem?Casting is a problem. In some cases, it’s actually . . . It is ok. I think the most productive character portrayed is Marcus, and all of his 90 seconds of screen time. Krieg just has to look like Krieg and say things like, “I’m going to lick your spine!”And it does. I think the promising career of young Gamora/young Ahsoka Ariana Greenblatt will be like that, and she would be a smart Tina with a much better script. Interestingly, actually, I prefer. . . Did you like Claptrap by Jack Black?Actually, it was fun at times, and probably more than games.
But Lilith and Roland, man, what were they thinking? Roland is Kevin Hart, who of course is not the burly, stoic soldier that he is, he is Kevin Hart, acting maybe 20% less than usual, but only that. And physically he is, without exaggeration, a bit taller than Greenblatt’s Tina and the film makes no attempt to pretend otherwise.
Cate Blanchett is easily the most confusing cast here as Lilith. I have no idea how they cast the two-time Oscar winner, other than perhaps boredom on her part and an inexplicable preference for recreating the trajectory of her character in Tar. But as a player. , the age difference between her and OG Lilith is distracting. And not just in terms of the casting decision, but also from a story point of view. In the film, Tannis and Moxxy tell her about the time they spent with her and her mother at age eight. Jamie Lee Curtis is 65 years old, ten years older than Blanchette, 55. Gina Gershon is 62 years old.
The script is unlike any Borderlands game, as it’s loosely about locating Pandora’s Vault. They make the story an out-of-canon rewrite of Tina as a clone made through Atlas who uses Eridian’s DNA to open the vault as the “Chosen One”, her only connection to her original character is her rabbit ears and she says things like “dealio”. . ” »
Tina is destined to be the “Daughter of Eridia” according to the prophecies, but of course we all know where that leaves us. Lilith begins the film without Siren’s powers. You’ll know after about twenty minutes that she, not Tina, is the chosen one in question and that she gets those mermaid powers at the end. She calls on. The vault opening ends up being nothing more than floating cubes and tentacles, a trace of the games’ boss fight without a corresponding fight in the film.
The plot is rarely very good, but neither is the action. This is what I’ll now call “wayward moon syndrome,” where a PG-13 cut neutralizes the action of anything obviously R-rated. Gory adult games give way to bullets hitting armor and other people falling. Again, I think their goal was to liven up the box office here with a lower age range, but that hurts the movie. Not that a bloody action would have saved him, but it would have been greater than what they gave us with this cut.
Borderlands
Look at those huge stars, we have to play those characters even if they don’t make any sense!Borderlands enthusiasts will be there no matter what, even if the story and characters are very different!We’re launching the Borderlands Cinematic Universe to expand it. Beyond those annoying players!
He will die here. Only. No more movies. Nothing like this is worth trying again. In some other world, I can watch a cool Borderlands animated series that would have possibly worked on Netflix. But whatever big blockbuster it was intended to be, despite a few brief moments where it works, it usually doesn’t. and I’m worried about Borderlands 4, if that’s the kind of thing the studio thinks is smart now.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
Get my science fiction novels, the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
A community. Many voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
Our network aims to connect other people through open and thoughtful conversations. We need our readers to share their perspectives and exchange concepts and facts in one space.
To do so, please comply with the posting regulations in our site’s terms of use. We summarize some of those key regulations below. In short, civilians.
Your message will be rejected if we realize that it seems to contain:
User accounts will be locked if we become aware that users are engaging in:
So how can you be a user?
Thank you for reading our Community Standards. Read the full list of posting regulations discovered in our site’s Terms of Use.