An hour after leaving a screening of the brand new Borderlands film, directed by Eli Roth (Hostel) and starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ariana Greenblatt, I’m watching a blinking cursor in a clean Google Doc, urging inspiration to strike.
Absolutely a live-action film based mostly on the wildly profitable edgelord online game franchise from 2K and Gearbox would encourage a pair hundred phrases, proper? Absolutely the star-studded forged, which incorporates a number of Oscar winners (and Jack Black), would immediate a spark of creativity. Absolutely the colourful visuals, cacophonous explosions, and poop and pee jokes would destroy the author’s block dam, sending forth a surge of witty phrases and succinct sentences. However I’m at a loss.
Borderlands isn’t just dangerous, it’s miserable.
On the border of a breakdown
I noticed Borderlands at an early screening at Alamo Drafthouse, throughout which cosplay was inspired. Nobody wore costumes, and the theater was solemnly silent, as if we had been about to observe archival video of the deadliest WWII battle or discovered footage from 9/11. R-rated trailers aired earlier than it, prompting me to query if this film, directed by Roth (recognized for his gory, gross violence), was rated R (it’s not).
Earlier than I’ve an opportunity to double-check the score, Cate Blanchett’s voice echoes by the theater. “Way back, our galaxy was dominated by an alien race,” she intones, sounding bizarrely flat for an extremely proficient actor who endeavored to ship a enjoyable, frenetic efficiency in one other superficial flick: 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok. I’m instantly assaulted by aggressive, slap-dash cuts and shimmery CGI photographs of weapons, neon indicators, and Psychos, as Blanchett (who performs Lilith, a personality who impressed early-twenties me a lot I bought certainly one of her quotes tattooed) offers us the plot overview with as a lot power as a ‘50s housewife who repeatedly mixes temper stabilizers and martinis.
Lilith tells us that the Eridians laid the muse of this galaxy, then disappeared, forsaking a secret vault hidden on the planet Pandora, inside that are highly effective relics of the long-lost civilization. “That appears like some wacko B.S., huh?” Blanchett asks. I stifle a groan with an enormous chew of my burger. Relatively than giving moviegoers the free-wheeling wanderlust that the Borderlands video games supply, the movie is extremely linear and simple: Lilith, a bounty hunter, is employed by the top of arms producer Atlas Industries to trace down his daughter Tiny Tina on the planet Pandora.
We’re launched to virtually all the foremost forged quite rapidly: Hart as Roland, Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Florian Munteanu as a Psycho named Kreig. Roland breaks Tiny Tina out of some form of facility by the use of a reasonably bland motion sequence, throughout which he punches a guard and calls him a “faux Stormtrooper-ass bitch.” I assume which means Star Wars exists within the Borderlands universe? It doesn’t enhance after this.
When you advised me Borderlands used AI for its dialogue, I’d consider you with out query. Practically each line that’s uttered with the form of faux peppiness I’d reserve for my elementary college cheer competitions is both a limp-dicked “edgy” joke that wouldn’t warrant a single Reddit upvote or a cliche phrase like “I’m too previous for this shit” and “This has been a actually lengthy day.” I may depend on one hand the traces that had been totally real—or at the very least not dripping with a lot snark they had been virtually sticky. There is no such thing as a humanity right here, simply humorless people.
When a needle-drop of Muse’s “Supermassive Black Gap” bleeds right into a scene by which it’s taking part in over the audio system in a Pandoran bar, I practically slam my head onto the desk. What are we doing right here?
We have to discuss Tina
Blissfully, Borderlands isn’t that lengthy of a film, and the breakneck velocity at which the movie is paced means we meet Jamie Lee Curtis’ Tannis simply earlier than I would like a pee break (I chugged a beer). Curtis performs her with a socially awkward twitchiness that I didn’t count on from the actor, and whereas it’s at the very least an try at imbuing the character with a character, it’s extremely grating. However once more, she tried—Blanchett is phoning it in, Hart has no enterprise taking part in the straight man, and Greenblatt is doing one of the best she will with materials that’s based mostly on a white character doing a blaccent (which the movie, fortunately, avoids). However even she will’t save a line learn that requires her to say “badonkadonk” within the yr of our lord 2024.
And likewise, to not be ageist, however why the fuck is everybody so previous? Lilith is 22 years previous within the authentic Borderlands recreation and Tannis is in her thirties—other than the star energy afforded by casting Blanchett and Curtis, the one motive for growing old up these characters is to allow them to play matronly figures to Greenblatt’s Tina.
And therein lies the principle downside: centering Tina. The plot revolves round her believing she is the kid of Eridia and the important thing to opening the vault, and the movie hinges all the emotional weight on a personality who wears a bunny-ear headband and throws explosive teddy bears at folks whereas spewing one-liners like a sugar-crazed 11-year-old in a Fortnite foyer. She doesn’t encourage any type of empathy, even with Greenblatt’s valiant efforts and Blanchett’s solely actual performing going down of their scenes collectively. It’s like making a Gears of Conflict film with a Carmine brother on the heart—it’s going to be annoying from the soar.
All of this takes place in a bizarre CGI world that often seems first rate however is extra typically an illegible green-screen mess of explosions or muddy, darkish, murky nonsense. Lilith’s flame-orange hair and comedian e-book costume set in opposition to a dusty, bland panorama and broken-down industrial buildings is visually and tonally jarring—it’s just like the filmmakers bought midway to creating a film impressed by the cel-shaded world of Borderlands after which dumped all of it onto the units used for the Halo sequence. Talking of costumes, I’d like to know what the finances was for push-up bras. Tannis, Mad Moxxi, and Lilith all have their breasts pushed up so excessive they’re practically of their throats—it’s so desperately 2006, so harking back to the Victoria’s Secret Style Present, that I couldn’t assist however giggle. Boobs, am I proper?
By the point the movie ends and Jack Black’s Claptrap pops up on display in the course of the credit to lament the lack of his Easter egg, I’m able to go house and cleanse my palate. I would like some correct aughts trashiness, some costly needle drops, and a few questionable costumes. I get house, plop down on the sofa, and activate Gossip Woman. Not less than this has character.
The Borderlands film isn’t so good it’s shocking, and it’s not so dangerous it’s price a hate-watch. It’s merely unhappy. It looks like the results of a bunch of fits who sat round a shiny mahogany desk (like in that one Key and Peele sketch) and reminisced concerning the early aughts, a time earlier than the monetary disaster, a time when the time period “cancel” was reserved just for tv exhibits, a time when Muse was one of many largest rock bands on the planet.
It’s devoid of humanity and character, regardless of attempting very, very laborious to determine that it’s quirky. It’s the lady with frozen peas on her head within the grocery retailer aisle—she’s so crazzzzzyy, love her! It mustn’t exist.
.