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Fast-Paced Video Game Fare That Could Benefit From Taking A Breather

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Summary

  • Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Lilith in
    Borderlands
    is pitch-perfect, balancing badassery with vulnerability in later scenes.
  • Jack Black delivers comedic gold as Claptrap, adding fun to the ensemble.
  • While the world-building is easy to follow, supporting cast members lack moments to shine, and some jokes fall flat.



Eli Roth is going for accuracy when it comes to the world-building of Borderlands, and it must be said that the movie absolutely carries the spirit of the Gearbox game series. Borderlands follows the bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) on her journey back to her home planet of Pandora, tasked by the tech billionaire Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to retrieve his daughter Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) from her supposed kidnapper Roland (Kevin Hart). Along the way, Lilith meets a robot named Claptrap (Jack Black) programmed to protect her, a Psycho named Krieg (Florian Munteanu) who considers Tina his best friend, and her own long-lost family friend Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis).


If that sounds like a stacked cast, you don’t know the half of it. The movie characters may differ from their original counterparts in significant ways, but the actors fully commit to the bit and help bolster the heightened reality of the universe. By the time the credits rolled, I mostly wished I had gotten to spend more time leveling up with the merry band of misfits instead of immediately jumping to the final boss. Borderlands rushes through too many plot points for its own good, but it’s saved by its supremely likable cast and willingness to lean into video game moments.


Cate Blanchett Keeps Borderlands Focused In The Best Way Possible


In a recent interview with Screen Rant, Jamie Lee Curtis explained that Cate Blanchett was the number one reason she agreed to be in Borderlands, and the proof is in the final product. From her opening narration to the final sequence of triumph, Blanchett commands the screen and demands my respect and attention. There have been instances where a respected actor can turn out to be too good for the popcorn movie they’re in, accidentally weighing down the work instead of elevating it, but that is far from being the case here.

Blanchett knows exactly what movie she’s in, and she seems to be having the time of her life fitting herself into the mold of a video game heroine.


She’s not the only performer giving it their all — in fact, Curtis herself is no slouch, Black keeps the comedy rolling as Claptrap, and the dynamic between Greenblatt’s Tiny Tina and Munteanu’s Krieg deserves special attention. They are all also aided greatly by the production design and costumes, of course, which are straight out of the Borderlands world without veering too far into the territory of parody. If anything, the movie should have applied that same attention to detail that it lavish on the set design to its screenplay.

Borderlands Could Stand To Be Longer To Take Advantage Of Its Video Game World

That’s not to say that Roth and Crombie’s screenplay fails some test of real-world or internal logic, given that the basic plot is quite easy to follow and takes full advantage of what the fictional planet of Pandora has to offer. The issue is rather that Borderlands seems to have noticed that audiences are tired of movies being overly long and self-indulgent, and thus it course-corrected in the opposite direction. The movie is a tight hour and forty minutes, and it gets the job done, but it leaves a lot of potential gold mine material on the cutting room floor.


As I alluded to above, the metaphorical mother-daughter bond between Tannis and Lilith has all the ingredients needed to be Yondu and Peter (from Guardians of the Galaxy) levels of epic, but the script didn’t give it room to cook. Similarly, Krieg’s fierce protectiveness of Tina is touching and tender from their first scene together, but there isn’t enough screen time dedicated to exploring that connection. This need for speed spreads out even to the supporting characters, such as Commander Knoxx (Janina Gavankar), whose relationship with Roland is given roughly two lines of dialogue. Gina Gershon in particular is severely underutilized as the fiery but loyal Moxxi, who could use her own spinoff.

The pacing also leads to a few jokes not landing despite the actors themselves delivering them well, simply because the setup is lacking or the characterization has not been fully established. But the overall experience is still a fun one, and I for one would welcome another big screen trip to Pandora.


Borderlands arrives in theaters on August 9 and has a runtime of 100 minutes. The film is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language, and some suggestive material.



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