In the past a film having a video game as source material meant it was generally guaranteed to be terrible.
However, as games have become more narratively sophisticated and CGI has merged the two mediums’ visual language the quality of game adaptations has lifted considerably.
Sadly, Eli Roth’s Borderlands, based on the cult sci-fi shoot-em-up series is a return to the bad old days of substandard fare.
True to its source, Borderlands follows a motley crew of misfits on a quest on the planet Pandora. Unlike Avatar’s lush world of the same name, this is a harsh wasteland, left to rot after the fall of the advanced Eridian civilisation.
Myth dictates that somewhere on the planet is a mysterious Eridian “vault” containing an unknown power thousands of “vault hunters” have failed to locate and unlock by finding “keys”.
On this world are tearaway teen Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), rogue soldier Roland (Kevin Hart), and ‘psycho’ Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a trio apparently on the run from Tina’s intergalactic oligarch ‘father’, Atlas (Edgar Ramirez). He will spare no expense to get her back, nor to find the vault he believes will allow him to control the universe.
Atlas hires hard-bitten bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) – who upon reaching her quarry discovers there may be much more to her mission. They are also joined by talkative robot Claptrap (Jack Black) and reluctant group matriarch Dr. Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis).
As you’d expect from a computer game franchise, they go through the landscape vanquishing various enemies, most notably Atlas’ minions, led by Commander Knoxx (Janina Gavankar).
First to the good things. It’s nice to look at – colourful and cartoonish but with a veneer of sleaze. Roth’s references to other, better, movies are heavy-handed but fun. Movie fans will be able to spot scenes that lean on everything from Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, to Mad Max and The Fifth Element. Though really it aims to be a Guardians of the Galaxy clone.
The cast is also great. Kevin Hart is in sincere rather than annoying form. Greenblatt is enjoyably quirky as Tina and Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis are, well, Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis.
What lets them down is a script so leaden it could be used to line a church roof. Horror specialist Roth and Joe Crombie are credited as screenwriters but watching it I’m sure Basil Exposition from the Austin Powers movies must have done an uncredited rewrite. There’s genuinely a moment where we stop and read a “mining manual written by a bureaucrat” to tell us all where we are going next. Roth’s direction even offers up its own spoilers – with big moments of action or peril crudely telegraphed before they happen.
Black’s robot too must be one of the most annoying characters ever committed to screen – the irritating electronic lovechild of Jar-Jar Binks and Scrappy Do with a dose of Clippy, Microsoft Word’s exasperating assistant. In the game he is clearly a way of giving the player information and quests. On screen you wish there was an off button so he doesn’t keep dad joking and explaining the plot over every scene.
That’s indicative of the problem with Borderlands and why it’s a return to a time before the likes of The Last of Us and Fallout showed us video game spin-offs could do depth and narrative. It’s something of a box-ticking exercise in transposing the game’s lore to the screen without any attempt to craft a story that draws you in, or whose twists aren’t utterly predictable.
Still, fans of the franchise may enjoy it as something that visually captures the cult appeal of the game. If you’re not a huge devotee though, it’s one to avoid, as not half as much care has been given to anything else. Audiences and its excellent cast deserve better.
