Borderlands

There are seven games in the Borderlands series, games whose procedurally generated rewards and core mechanics and science fictional nihilism with Western influences could see them described as non-voter oater looter shooters.

I'm not going to say more effort went into trying to construct that sentence than Borderland's script. However there's noises that co-writer Joe Crombie is a) a pseudonym and b) that the pen behind that nom de plume Craig Mazin is disavowing any connection to the script. That's the Craig Mazin who penned video game adaptation The Last Of Us, an episode of which has been nominated for a Hugo award that puts it in the same august company as Dune the novel and Dune the film. They're not quite the Oscars of science fiction, but they are named after a person and they are a big deal. I'm not just saying that because as an attendee at Glasgow's 2024 Worldcon I voted on them.

He also wrote critically acclaimed historical miniseries Chernobyl. On the big screen he has credits for Hangover Part II and III. He's the Craig Mazin who's willing to be associated with Scary Movie 3 and 4. The man has range, I'm saying, but he's saying he didn't not put his name on this film.

The line "I wouldn't touch it with someone else's" might actually have fit into the juvenile humour in this ponderous and noisy exercise in cross-branded cynicism. Goodness knows there's so many other elements lifted from other, better, films crammed into it. The Borderlands videogames more or less defined a genre, they weren't the first outpost in it but they hit upon a formula that worked. Eli Roth who's actually willing to be associated with this as writer and director has clearly observed formulas that have worked but in his copying seems to have left out vital elements.

It's hard to maintain any kind of chemistry when acting on sound stages and at times what seems remotely. I say 'their best', but Cate Blanchett's voiceover makes Harrison Ford's for the (Hugo nominated) 1982 version of Blade Runner seem like a Puckish soliloquy. Blanchett's accent seems to wander. A line in the expository oration suggests that "a glimmer of hope shone through" but I only think it's "shone" because it's pronounced "shown". I was reminded of the line attributed to Harrison Ford on the set of Star Wars. "You can type this shit George but you sure can't say it!". I say 'attributed to' because while I don't doubt he said it I strongly suspect Carrie Fisher put those words (if not anything else) in relevant ears.

Many complaints about computer graphics in movies are actually about compositing. I thought this while watching because some shots are more clumsily constructed than those in Flash Gordon. It at least has the benefit of camp, but Borderlands has pitched its tent firmly on someone else's lawn. Well several lawns, most degraded from over-use.

I noticed, for example, what looked like a combustion chamber from a Rolls Royce Derwent turbojet. That's one of the weird holy urns from the Mos Eisley cantina, IG-88s head(s) too. There were about ten thousand of those engines produced, ten of those chambers per powerplant. I'm pretty confident the one seen here was meant to evoke something other than curiosity as to whether what had been cheap surplus in 1977 was a lucky find or if effort had been put into replicating the scraps and detritus that made Star Wars.

If it was the latter, it is one of the few places where actual effort appears to have been expended. That is of course a disservice to everyone who worked on this behind the scenes. Borderlands videogame studio Gearbox apparently did some visualisation work, and a lot of the concept art is theirs. I believe some of the dialogue must be too, and the characters, or at least versions thereof. I don't think all of the bits that feel like lifted game mechanics are from their work, but there's a bit of yellow-paint-syndrome and some platforming and a damage bonus from a wall run (even with projectile weapons) and a team buff and an invincibility power-up and so on. I do think if I were a fan of Borderlands I'd be more annoyed than disappointed. I've got nothing invested in this adaptation, but at times it seems nor have some of those involved.

We already have three Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and the charm of the first started to wear thin before hitting what now might be a rolled-up cuff in the trousers of time. This doesn't have the benefit of shared experience, at least to outsiders, and rather than let Borderlands stand on its own the film seems more intent on presenting inspirations individually.

If the game were a pie this is a collection of flour and egg and butter and fruit and sugar, but it's not even half-baked. It veers wildly in tone with cloying attempts at emotional moments and brightly coloured chaos lumpenly served alongside. Its pacing is a mess, and its plot, such as it is, makes Tetris seem a blockbuster and the second Sonic film seem a work of staggering originality. You could do yourself a favour and watch The Fifth Element instead, and in a film now pushing thirty you'd encounter a charm that Borderlands doesn't even have the wit to try to steal.

Kevin Hart's done several videogame movies now, though two Jumanji movies and this means he's now outstripping folk like Olga Kurylenko and Sir Ben Kingsley. His character appears to be dressed as one of The Expendables. Jason Statham's only done one videogame movie, but that was with Uwe Boll who's done loads of them. As unpopular as some of those have been, they do often have a sense of fun that this just doesn't.

Ariana Greenblatt has been in Star Wars TV show Ahsoka, and played another younger version of an alien as Gamora in Avengers: Infinity War. She's charming enough, though her first big fight bears a strong resemblance to one in Deadpool. Florian Munteanu is a big lad and as a former boxer he was a natural fit for the Creed series. Jamie Lee Curtis has videogame connections through her daughter, but Jack Black may have had the opportunity to voice the robot 'Claptrap' because of another side of the industry. In the games he was originally voiced by David Eddings, an executive within the firm who left the firm over arguments about royalties for the work and allegations that he had been assaulted. As it is Black may well have phoned it in, I don't doubt that all that Kung Fu Panda cash could buy a pretty good home recording studio. The character does appear in the credits, but in a way that made me miss the more entertaining minions putting in a longer shift over the writing at the end of Despicable Me 4.

The better moments in the film come from Claptrap's heads-up-display, the only thing that'd induce me to watch this again is to catch the text I missed the first time, and I'll wait for a YouTube deep-dive or stills on the relevant fandom wiki. 'Temperature: Currently Not On Fire' did make me laugh, but if I'd blinked I'd have missed it and I was at that point actively looking for things to enjoy. Again and again there are bits of detail in Borderlands that don't quite work. but they're the stem of an apple that hasn't been peeled or processed. Borderlands isn't raw because it's natural, it's raw because it feels unfinished. Greenblatt's character 'Tiny Tina' has a cardigan that's been aged and dyed and is decorated with a badge that... hasn't. It's a good bit of design, but it never looks right. It just doesn't fit. In that, it's literally emblematic of what's wrong with Borderlands. The film takes its name from a space defined by boundaries, but it doesn't even bother to colour inbetween the lines. The only numbers it is painting with appear to be financial, it's certainly neither fun nor fulfilling.