Borderlands Review

 

Borderlands is a sci-fi action comedy movie, that's based on the video games with the same name. It's produced by Media Capital Technologies, Arad Productions, Picturestart, Gearbox Studios, and 2K and distributed by Lionsgate. Borderlands is written by Eli Roth and Joe Crombie and directed by Eli Roth.

The story is, a bounty hunter named Lilith has been hired to by a powerful man to find his daughter. She finds out the girl is on her home planet that she hasn't been to since she was a child. Now, Lilith along with her new band of misfits must not only return the kid to her dad, but also try to survive of the chaos that's coming after them.

Initial Reaction

Not I'll fully admit, not the biggest Borderlands fan. Hell, I've never even played any of the games. My only connection to this franchise is that one song Team Headkick did. So then why am I reviewing this? Well Eli Roth finally gave us Thanksgiving, and as a thank you I decided to see this movie.

Cons

There are three big problems with the movie. One of them being the humor. Really the only good moment was Tina saying "Time to make it rain, with your body parts!" Other than that...nothing. Every joke afterwards just fails. Then there's the action. Now after doing research, the Borderlands games are rated M for mature. So why make this movie PG-13? You could've had some way more intense and bloody action scenes, especially since we're in a day and age where people want more rated R movies. But what really got me about the action scenes and maybe it's just me, but it felt like some scenes were supposed to be more violent but they got edited so they can keep that PG-13 rating. Like it said, maybe that's just me, but it really did feel like that. The last thing for this section is the characters. These were some very bland characters. Even when Lilith and Tina are giving backstories, there's just not enough to make you care about them. And if they're not bland, then they're just forgettable. I know the movie had a villain, but I'm honestly drawing a blank on what his name was.

Middle Ground

Now I'll some credit to the cast. Even though the material they're given isn't good, they're clearly trying their best. Having said that, I do gotta agree with everyone when I say they're were miscasted. The biggest examples being Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis. There's no doubt they're talented actresses, but they were just too old to being playing Lilith and Dr. Tannis. Two characters who are in their 20s or 30s.

Pros

I'll give the movie this, it's short. So you won't be sitting down and watching this for too long.

Despite some of my more harsher criticism, I honestly wasn't too mad about the movie. Probably because again, never played the games, or maybe it's because I've seen much worse. Looking at you Uwe Boll video game flicks.

My final rating is, Bad, But Harmless.

Okay, that's going to do it for me. Come back on Monday, Aug 12th, my review of the final season of The Umbrella Academy. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.