Posted in: Games, Lionsgate, Movies | Tagged: Borderlands, cate blanchett, jack black, jamie lee curtis, kevin hart

Review: Borderlands – How Can Something So Thin Be Utterly Glorious?

The Bleeding Cool Borderlands Review asks how something can be so thin it's translucent and can be so utterly glorious. Welcome to Action Karen.

Last night, I joined Tiny Tina's Funfair at the Cineworld Empire IMAX screen at London's Leicester Square with my youngest daughter ahead of a screening of Borderlands, the new movie based on the popular game franchise, out on general release today. So what do I think? Let's dive straight in; after all, it's that kind of film.

I don't think I have ever watched quite so gossamer-thin a movie and yet been so entertained throughout. There really is nothing to this film. There are no emotional depths, stakes, or convoluted plots worth speaking of. What twists there are have been telegraphed 40 clicks away, and my sixteen-year-old was telling me everything that was about to happen, and she was right. In terms of structure, it makes Deadpool & Wolverine look like Godfather II. Super Mario Bros had much more going on.

Borderlands Is Uncompromising, Dumb and Over-The-Top

But what Borderlands does is something rare. To have an uncompromisingly dumb, over-the-top, balls-to-the-wall action movie starring a woman in her mid-fifties, playing the kind of grizzled old-school bounty hunter who shoots first, punches second and only then gets around to asking questions, if she can remember what to ask. And played uncompromisingly by Cate Blanchett as if she was Bruce Willis – and you totally buy it. Every blow lands, every throw makes an impact, and each bullet fired hits its target. She's basically Clint Eastwood, and it really works.

Throw in a 65-year-old Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis and a 62-year-old as Mad Moxxi, and this makes for a radically different-looking cast for this kind of film, which makes it interesting in and of itself. And it shows that they can be just as dumb, paper thin, and artistically bankrupt as all the rest – and as fun. If anything, it gives the film a better approach to worldbuilding, assuming that these women have lived a life in this world; they have a shared history that goes back decades, something that something like Valerian could have done with their casting choices. Borderlands is Action Karen, and none of them need to play mothers or wives of anyone. They just… are. There is also a strong contrast with Tiny Tina's sixteen-year-old Ariana Greenblatt, straight out of Barbie, who remains a cartoon figure throughout, sweetly throwing toy rabbit explosives, and so much the better for it. She may be the closest we ever get to a proper Tank Girl these days.

And yes, plenty of liberties are taken with the game, including the much older Lilith. Characters are dropped, and new ones are added. And the Vault lore is different, but at its basic, Borderlands, the movie is thematically that of that game, mercenaries of all manner coming to the apocalyptic wasteland of a planet that is Pandora. Once a holiday planet, it now only caters to those who want to try and find the Vault left by the ancient alien Eridian race, which may reveal untold riches, weapons, technology, and many clues left by alien minds along the way. In terms of movies, it shares its structure with a very simplified Ready Player One. Just as the game uses specific rendering techniques to mirror comic book storytelling, so the movie uses narration to speed up exposition and events, getting into the action as fast as possible, like corner boxes in a panel.

Some Familiar And New Angles On Familiar Characters

But yes, game characters Brick and Mordecai are dropped, as characters from different versions are dropped in together,  Lilith, Roland, and Claptrap joined by Tiny Tina, Krieg, and Dr. Tannis. The iconic lootbox elements of the games aren't touched upon, and Kevin Hart and Jack Black are… Kevin Hart and Jack Black, and do both raise some amusement. Do also pay attention to the Claptrap POV scenes voiced by Black as the text scrolls around everything this Wall-E reject scans, Robocop style, for a couple of easily missed jokes. The film definitely does try to be funny, but Guardians Of The Galaxy, which shares some elements of this film, was much funnier. It also had proper structure and characters, which were at least two-dimensional. Borderlands really doesn't get close. But does it need to?

Video game physics is obeyed as people get thrown like rag dolls, make impossible turns in their vehicles, and survive point-blank gunfire even when they are running around topless. The guns are less imaginative than the game but do the job. We get fun use of technology from holo masks and Claptrap, whose motivation to get his owners killed so he can be freed, does seem to suggest that all technology in this world is enslaved. Of course, the issue doesn't get raised further; it's not that kind of film.

The action jumps from one environment to another. It isn't afraid to gross out the characters and the audience with the details – including the exact percentages of urine and fecal matter they get sprayed with. Indeed, the character with the most character laid out in this film is the planet Pandora itself. Oh, and then the movie throws the lore up in the air like one of the many dead bodies the characters plough through, and it all goes Dark Phoenix on us. Why not? This movie has been everything else. No one really has a character arc; the closest you get is Lilith, and while she has changed in one way and every important way, she remains the same as in the first reel. No learning, no hugging. But impressive nonetheless.

Oh, and yes, there is a small beginning-of-the-credits scene with Claptrap that is worth staying a few minutes for, but there is no end-of-credits scene. The movie isn't that long, so your bladder shouldn't be bursting, but there's no reason to stay aside from respect for all the Hungarian filmmakers.

Borderlands, directed by Eli Roth, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Crombie, starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, and Jamie Lee Curtis, is released from Lionsgate today in the US and the UK.

@thatrichjohnston Off to see Borderlands in London's Leicester Square at the Empire #borderlands ♬ original sound – Rich Johnston

Borderlands

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Review by Rich Johnston

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5/10

I don't think I have ever watched quite so gossamer-thin a movie and yet been so entertained throughout as with Borderlands. There really is nothing to this film. No emotional depths, stakes, or convoluted plot worth speaking of.

Credits

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Director

Eli Roth

Writer

Joe Crombie

Actor

Cate Blanchett

Actor

Kevin Hart

Actor

Jamie Lee Curtis

Actor

Jack Black

Actor

Edgar Ramírez

Actor

Ariana Greenblatt

Actor

Florian Munteanu

Actor

Gina Gershon

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