Borderlands is definitely made for a specific audience! It’s made for the gamers who have enjoyed the games from Gearbox games since 2009. That is not a bad thing for this movie definitely knows its audience, but for the average moviegoer, it will be confusing and feel like a very messy story! We’ll get to that in a moment! I admit that I am a big fan of the Borderlands games. I’ve played them all and I like this movie more than most critics, but I’m a gamer. I am the target audience for this movie and while it is not the best movie based on a video game, it’s definitely not the worst. However, I found this movie to be very lacking compared to playing the games. I know that’s always the case. Anytime you make a story based on a video game, playing the game is always better. Even as good as the Last of Us series is compared to the game that it’s based on, it’s still better to play the game. Truth be told, I have a very love-and-hate relationship with this movie. It feels like Borderlands, it looks like Borderlands, but the story could have been a whole lot better compared to playing the games.
What I really like about this movie is the unique cast. I honestly didn’t see Cate Blanchett playing Lilith. It was an unusual choice and that’s nothing against her acting ability because she’s a phenomenal actress. But because she is phenomenal at her craft, she did play a great Lilith. However, Kevin Hart as Roland is a very unusual choice. He’s essentially Kevin Hart in this movie, the same kind of character we’ve seen him play time and time again. Now Jamie Lee Curtis playing Tannis… that was different and she nailed it. And I certainly like Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina. Except for Kevin Hart, I feel like they do get the casting right. Even Gina Gershon as Mad Moxxi. But no matter how good your cast may be, you still have to have a good story and the story within the movie feels entirely too short. It feels more like DLC in a huge open-world game and that’s probably the biggest disservice to Borderlands because it’s a great world filled with kookie and interesting characters. They really made the movie look like a Borderlands game right down to very specific details of the planet Pandora. But I don’t want a movie to look just like a game, I want to feel like I’m playing the game and unfortunately, this movie does not deliver in that aspect. But Jack Black voicing claptrap is enough of a distraction to make you realize that playing Borderlands is better than watching this movie.
We always compare gaming movies to its predecessors. The Mortal Kombat movie that came out a few years ago, was just a big dumb fun movie with your favorite Mortal Kombat characters. It worked, you could enjoy the movie as pure entertainment and not be disappointed and still want to go back and play Mortal Kombat all night. I watched this Borderlands movie and all I want to do is just play the game… Now from a marketing standpoint, if you’re trying to get people interested in the games, then the movie might work.
It makes me wonder whether there was a 3-hour version or a two-part movie that Eli Roth made and then the studio told them to make a short movie just to out out in the theaters Or maybe this is one of those films where it’ll be better for Lionsgate to take the loss instead of actually putting out a decent movie. Maybe the only reason Gearbox is behind the is the free publicity for gamers who haven’t ventured into the Borderlands games yet. But if that’s the only reason to put out the movie as is then that’s a huge loss because the world of Borderlands should make for great stories. For me, it would have been better to do a 6-hour limited series or a season 1 as you put all these characters together where they will clearly go on adventures together. If the whole plot line is finding some secret vault with super alien technology that can make the world a better place or make a villain Uber powerful then that’s a story that should be drawn out a little bit in a series because there’s more to this story than what they told in 100 minutes. The production value is one of the best parts of the movie, but we could have gotten a better story or at least made this story better with a series on a streaming channel. However, the cast is entertaining enough which makes this movie worth watching at least once and then go play any of the games. There are a lot of parts to like, but it’s not enough to make it a great movie. It’s average at best. But at the time I published this review, I’d be going back to finish Borderlands 3… At least the movie made me want to play the games again.
