The Borderlands movie hides its best ideas under painful jokes

The Borderlands movie, which released successful theaters each of 21 days ago, is already disposable to ticker astatine home done video connected demand. This three-week turnaround could beryllium indicative of the movie’s poor container bureau performance coupled with its poor critical reception. After seeing it for myself, I hold it’s not the champion illustration of a video crippled movie. However, I besides saw moments wherever the movie took its root worldly and remixed it into thing entertaining. Whether you ticker this movie successful theaters, astatine home, oregon not astatine all, Borderlands deserves your respect.

Part of that is due to the fact that honestly, the movie isn’t that bad. It’s visually impressive, with gorgeous styling and enactment sequences that were really intelligible alternatively of greasy-looking smears of CG. It has a bog modular recovered household / magical MacGuffin crippled that manages to accidental thing absorbing astir the full “chosen one” trope. 

Cate Blanchett stars arsenic Lilith, a bounty huntsman who travels to the satellite Pandora to rescue a miss named Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) from the clutches of Roland, a Crimson Lance worker gone rogue (Kevin Hart) and his psycho accomplice — movie’s description, not excavation — Krieg (Florian Munteanu). Lilith discovers that Tina went willingly with her captors and with the unhelpful assistance of the robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) and the expertise of Dr. Patricia Tanis (Jamie Lee Curtis), Lilith decides to assistance Tina get a almighty artifact to support it retired of the hands of her disgustingly affluent father, Deukalian Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), CEO of the Atlas Corporation.

Pandora is simply a harsh godforsaken satellite marred by prodigious amounts of discarded from some its quality and earthy inhabitants. If the movie followed the trends presently dominating tv and film, the satellite would look acheronian adjacent successful the daytime, and everything would beryllium formed successful the sickly orangish filter Hollywood trots retired each clip there’s a movie acceptable successful a godforsaken — looking astatine you, Dune. Instead, locations and characters are thoughtfully designed — and adequately lit, ideate that! — making for a movie that is visually pleasing to watch.

I was thoroughly taken aback by however bully Cate Blanchett looked arsenic Lilith. With her agleam orangish hairsbreadth and heavy bluish sparkly jacket, Blanchett looked similar she had been ripped straight retired of the archetypal Borderlands game. When Lilith made her archetypal appearance, I turned to my hubby and remarked that this is the astir video crippled looking-ass video crippled movie I’ve ever seen (affectionate!). Everything else, from the remainder of the formed to the props and sets, matched that ocular vigor without looking cartoonish oregon fake.

Borderlands, for bully oregon ill, eschewed immoderate of the emblematic conventions for making a video crippled movie. Usually, there’s immoderate infinitesimal successful these kinds of films that functions arsenic a motion to its progenitor. The first-person enactment series successful Doom oregon the Rainbow Road contention successful The Super Mario Bros. Movie travel to mind.

In an interrogation with Randy Pitchford, creator of the Borderlands games and the film’s enforcement producer, I asked however helium blurred the enactment betwixt crippled and film. “We didn’t bash immoderate of that,” Pitchford answered. “I hatred that shit.” 

According to Pitchford, primitively determination were plans to marque him the movie’s Easter ovum for fans of the game, but seeing different video crippled movie made him alteration his mind.

“I dependable a quality successful the games named Crazy Earl, and I did 5 hours of constitution to go Crazy Earl,” helium said. Pitchford said that helium changeable scenes for the movie but had a alteration of bosom aft seeing the infinitesimal successful Uncharted erstwhile Mark Wahlberg and Tom Holland randomly tally into Nolan North, the dependable histrion who plays Nathan Drake successful the games. 

“There were 2 problems with that,” helium said. “If you cognize who that is, you’re instantly pulled retired of the universe. And if you don’t know, nary of that makes immoderate sense. It’s a implicit non-sequitur to the storyline, truthful I asked them to chopped maine from the movie.”

According to Pitchford, Borderlands “isn’t a video crippled movie.” Rather, helium says, it’s a movie that incorporates the characters, themes, and storylines from the archetypal game, which person been greatly enhanced by stand-out performances from Blanchett and Greenblatt.

Lilith and Tina play good disconnected each other. Neither has a loving household to talk of and is truthful hopeless for 1 that they latch connected to anyone and thing that comes wrong their orbit. Tina instantly adopts Kreig arsenic her older member / bodyguard. And contempt the information that Claptrap and Lilith hatred each other, they inactive worked good together.

The dialogue, though, didn’t enactment truthful well. Make nary mistake: Borderlands isn’t funny. Its benignant of irreverent wit and stream-of-consciousness dialog stopped being entertaining astir the clip Tales for the Borderlands came retired successful 2014. Hearing Kevin Hart deadpan, “It’s pee. Now I got pee each successful the mediate of my truck,” made maine achromatic knuckle my armrests to support maine from scratching retired my eyes. 

The movie besides didn’t marque bully usage of its ensemble cast. Take Dr. Patricia Tanis, for example. In the movie, she’s conscionable a crippled exposition vehicle, but she could person been overmuch more. According to Tanis’ actress, Jamie Lee Curtis, she brought herself into the relation of the reclusive, socially awkward doc and her attraction to inanimate objects — but that didn’t marque it into the last film.

“The full thought of nonsubjective sexuality — the thought of an isolated idiosyncratic falling successful emotion with inanimate objects — I find it a fascinating quality trait and played the crap retired of it,” Curtis said. “And they chopped it each because, I think, radical conscionable wouldn’t recognize it.”

Lilith and Tina are the main drivers of the film, but the remainder of the formed did perfectly thing until the crippled gave them thing to shoot, smash, oregon exposit. I don’t recognize however a movie that has some Jack Black and Kevin Hart — 2 of the astir palmy comedians successful Hollywood — didn’t marque maine laugh. On apical of being woefully miscast arsenic the stoic worker Roland, Hart was simply model dressing. The movie gave him a large leader infinitesimal akin to the 1 successful Borderlands 2, but since helium had nary property beyond “There’s pee successful my truck,” I didn’t care. Meanwhile, it seemed similar the lone absorption Black got was to beryllium arsenic annoying arsenic possible. Fitting for his character, sure, but yet a discarded of Black’s manifold talents.

Paying $20–25 to ticker Borderlands astatine location is simply a pugnacious merchantability but yet worthy it. For each the atrocious decisions successful Borderlands, putting Lilith astatine its halfway was by acold its smartest. Characters similar her — cranky, jaded, childless, older women — bash not pb enactment films. And successful existent life, women similar that are each but invisible. But Borderlands, successful its styling and storytelling, made Lilith popular disconnected the screen. You couldn’t miss her if you tried. Borderlands earned its mediocre reception, but for what it does with Lilith, it’s besides earned my respect.