Borderlands

While this scrappy sci-fi comedy-actioner is nothing special, it’s also not the disaster that some would have you believe, as the talented cast keep things entertaining throughout, even if the plot is fairly pedestrian.

Premise:  Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), a powerful tycoon, to rescue his daughter “Tiny” Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) who’s been kidnapped by Roland (Kevin Hart), a rogue soldier in Atlas’ private army.  Tracking them to her home planet of Pandora, Lilith’s path also crosses with Doctor Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), an archaeologist searching for a legendary vault hidden on Pandora, Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black), a wisecracking robot, and Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a “Psycho” previously imprisoned with Tiny Tina.

Review:

I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Borderlands is definitely aiming for the same kind of tone and energy as the Guardians of the Galaxy series – and I also don’t think it’s controversial to say that it definitely falls short of the heights hit by those films.  But at the same time, Borderlands seems to have acquired a reputation for being a lot worse than it actually is.

The film is clearly just aiming to be a fun ride, and the talented cast appear to be enjoying themselves playing larger-than-life characters in a stylised, primary-coloured sci-fi universe.  Double-Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett is clearly having a ball, while Kevin Hart gets a chance to play the straight-man rather than the comedy sidekick, for a change.  Ariana Greenblatt continues to impress in everything she’s in, and Jamie Lee Curtis also appears to be having fun just playing in this universe.  Florian Munteanu doesn’t get a great deal to do (playing a practically-mute, masked strongman), but he makes the most of what he’s got – but for me, the MVP was Jack Black who voices the CGI robot, Claptrap.  Cynics might find Claptrap annoying, but I genuinely found his quips and barbs funny, and they provided many of the highlights of the film.

“…a fun put-your-brain-in-neutral-and-just-go-with-it ride…”

All that said, it’s clear that writer/director Eli Roth doesn’t have the deftness of touch and mastery of tone that James Gunn brought to the Guardians of the Galaxy films – the plot contains few (if any) real surprises, the character development is never more than skin deep, and Edgar Ramírez‘s villain doesn’t really make any impression.  I also can’t comment on how faithful this film adaptation is to the Borderlands videogames (never having played any of the games in the series), and it’s possible that fans of the videogames may feel particularly let down by this movie.

But despite its shortcomings, I was never bored by Borderlands and it kept me entertained throughout.  The characters are fun to spend time with (no doubt thanks to the quality of the assembled cast), the action sequences were entertainingly staged, and the film as a whole was a fun put-your-brain-in-neutral-and-just-go-with-it ride.