Borderlands

It was a relatively nice scifi adventure action movie.

It won't win any awards for best acting, best screenplay or anything else. But it was an entertaining movie, perfect Friday entertainment if you don't have sky-high expectations. It's a fairly short movie with a very straightforward story, which in itself can be quite nice all movies should be 3 hours long these days, but they really don't all have to be.

So no, not the best movie I've seen, but far from the worst. I was entertained, okay acting, the script is what it is, lots of action and adventure, . Especially good was the aesthetics that they got just right and the environments. A solid six in the rating.

I am a HUGE Borderlands fan, but despite how Claptrap looks and the world, there's nothing that would make you scream Borderlands. If you expect the worst movie, you will be dissapointed with a weird but overall fun aftertaste, but if you want to watch this because you are a Borderlands fan, you will want to pitchfork whoever made this, and it's even more shameful since Borderlands games have story, but nothing exceptional. It should be filled with dark humor, or just be true to the games, hell even if they would've done a "SHOOT ME IN THE FACE!" reference I would've gave a 6, but there's nothing. This won't make anyone buy the games, this movie will make people avoid them. Atleast it looks good, and with all the Cinema experience it'a tolerable. I don't want a Sequel, so don't give money to adaptations such as this movie, where the very thing they want to adapt is non-existent besides like some looks.

So right up front I'm HUGE borderlands game fan. Always have been. Now with that in mind I came in with certain expectations. And I'm going to give you an honest review.

First the casting, I thought it would be dreadful, but to my surprise even though it wasn't the best casting, the actors did an amazing job playing their respective characters. Having said that the ones I would change out are Tina, Moxie, and Roland. They all did their thing, and it was good for them no doubt, but sadly they were not the right casting for those particular roles.

And here's how you can tell. Tina in this movie is a kind of lost girl with explosives, but you get this sense that she kind of needs protecting, and in the game it was completely the opposite. Even the bandits wouldn't mess with her because she was so wildly deranged. That insanity is her defining trait, not having it killed the character. Moxie was more sexy than badass in the game, in the movie the sexiness took a huge backseat and the problem with that is that it IS her personality. You can't just change that in a character. Which brings us to Roland, I love Kevin Hart. And he did a great job portraying Roland, but here's the thing Roland was a completely different physique and completely different personality in the games. He was way more serious, and that's not Kevin's forte, of course it's not, he's a comedian. So like I said, those are just bad casting choices.

Now onto the actual movie, the story was... well not the version of the story we had in the games, which is weird because you know the established fanbase wants that story right? It doesn't have to be the same exact one but it has to be close and this one wasn't it. Now even all of this I can forgive, but what I can't forgive is the PG-13 garbage. Borderlands games are a hardcore rated R+ genre, you absolutely can't change it to PG-13, gut the script to have stupid lines that don't go at all with the scenes and expect anyone to like it. It doesn't work.

6/10 Great acting, mediocre casting/plot, terrible writing. PG-13 rating sunk it.

Oh come on - it's not that bad! True, there isn't an original thought in it's hundred minute duration and it does look like a very poor relation to a video-game, but it's "Mad Max" meets "Buck Rogers" vibe just about entertained me. It's all about "Lilith" (Cate Blanchett) who is a renowned bounty hunter charged by gazillionaire "Atlas" (Edgar Ramirez) with finding his kidnapped daughter "Tina" (Ariana Greenblatt). Thing is, she's already been rescued by "Roland" (Kevin Hart) and is in no great rush to return to the loving arms of daddy. Whilst trying to track her down, "Lilith" encounters the true star of the film - the robot "Claptrap", a sarcastic pile of scrap who decides to help out whether she likes it or not, so off they go a-child-hunting. Yep - it proceeds exactly as you'd expect, except for the frankly bamboozling contribution of Jamie Lee Curtis (and her red glasses) who does look like she's enjoying herself on set but, like Blanchett, is just a complete fish out of water as the banal dialogue and set-piece combat scenes pass the entire project into the hands of the CGI developers. This is nothing at all special or memorable, just a predictable action enterprise that takes "Robot Wars" to the desert, but if you aim low and take it in the spirit it's clearly intended then it's a perfectly watchable summer adventure.

Whoever let this get re-written and re-shot into PG13 hell should kicking themselves. It needed to be as deranged as the video games. What happened?? This could have been awesome but we got Jumanji without the Rock. (The Rock would've made this worse to be honest.) What I can give it a 4 for is the world-building, action sequences, effects, costumes and props. Not even Cate and Jamie-Lee could breathe life into some of the innane dialogue. Not even Jack Black's cheap CL4P-TP laughs were enough to add another star. I wanted to like this movie but I will stick to playing the games. Unless we somehow magically get that R-rated cut, write this one off.