By Grace Brake Staff Writer
I remember when I first played Borderlands, the second one to be exact. The humor, the graphics, the characters. All done in a unique and fun way. However, the same cannot be said for the movie.
There were warning signs though. The casting did not fit at all. Example, Tannis in the games is a 20-year-old woman. In the movie she’s played by Jamie Lee Curtis who’s in her 60’s. The trailer got so much backlash online due to the casting and the fact that Eli Roth was the director. His work isn’t very well received in the movie industry.
I wanted to give this one a chance. As much I disagreed with the casting and the direction it seemed to go, I was hoping that this wasn’t terrible. Maybe it was going to be so bad it’s good. Unfortunately, even with going in with no expectations, I have never been more disappointed.
The story follows a little of the plot of the first game. Basically, in the game, there is said to be a vault full of treasure and these people called Vault hunters go to find said treasure. The game also is a commentary on corporate and how it tends to be exploitative of regular people. The movie lacks corporate commentary.
Keep this in mind, the movie is an adaptation of the game. Deafferenting from the original source can work and has worked wonderfully. The Borderlands Movie doesn’t execute this well. It was very hard to follow, and I got lost easily. Imagine this for someone who is being introduced to the Borderlands Ip.
The dialogue was cliche and not written well. I don’t blame the actors for this, but the acting was stale. It was clear nobody wanted to be there. Example, as much as I love Kevin Hart, his character Roland isn’t played well. Roland in the games is no nonsense soldier and the leader of the Crimson Raiders. Hart has played serious roles before like the character Matt Logelin from the Netflix film Fatherhood. In this instance, it felt like Hart and the other actors were just going through the motions due to not having anything great to work with.
The action scenes are also slow and don’t have high stakes. These scenes of being repetitive and felt dragged on. It was mostly just moving, shooting, and a little melee. The low stakes are also due to characters being boring or annoying. None of them are written in a way to make you care about who they are or what could happen to them.
If you want an introduction to the Borderlands for yourself or the people you care about. I recommend just playing the first game and appreciating all the effort and work put into this amazing game. Even if you are a regular movie watcher, I would recommend skipping this one and looking for something with actual passion instead.
ECC Cornerstone 