By Seth Lukas Hynes
Borderlands
Starring Cate Blanchett, Ariana Greenblatt and Jamie Lee Curtis
Rated M
3/5
Despite persistent rumours of the “video game movie curse”, there are now many good movies based on video games, but sadly, Borderlands, directed by Eli Roth, isn’t one of them.
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) travels to the lawless planet of Pandora to find Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a powerful man’s missing daughter, and uncover an ancient treasure.
Normally a prestigious dramatic actor, Blanchett takes extremely well to a swaggering, over-the-top action hero role as Lilith.
The fun ensemble cast play very thinly-written characters, and Jamie Lee Curtis has almost nothing to do as the eccentric scientist Tannis.
The film has a grungy yet vibrant aesthetic in keeping with the games, but also abrupt, erratic pacing and flimsy world-building.
The humour, while not particularly crude or obtrusive, is quite blunt, and while I found Jack Black amusing as the cynical yet chipper robot sidekick Claptrap, your tolerance may vary. Macguffins are common in video games – say, finding items as a path to a greater goal – but don’t translate well to film, with Borderlands piling Macguffins upon Macguffins.
The disappointing action sequences are severely choppy and lack weight or tangible danger.
The film only really has one good action scene, and I’d bet it was directed by Tim Miller during his reshoots (not Roth, who is inexperienced in action cinema), as this lone scene conveys a decent sense of force and cause-and-effect.
The film’s climax is an admittedly cool blast of godlike power, but getting to it is rather tedious.
Lighthearted but empty-headed and neither unpleasant or very exciting, Borderlands is playing in most Victorian cinemas, but you’d probably be better off playing the source games.
