When will Hollywood finally decide to stop making video game based movies? The amount of bland stories that are created for the big screen is absurd. As a huge video game nerd myself, I am usually looking for more content to be distributed. However, I don’t think making films of them should be the priority. Stick with the TV shows such as Fallout and The Last of Us.
Like I stated above, I play a lot of video games, but I was never the one that grew up with the Borderlands series. In fact, I have only played the first one and I don’t even think I finished it but I know enough about the lore. So with that being said, I was sort of in the dark when going to see this movie but boy do I have problems with it.
Whose idea was it to cast Kevin Hart as Roland? I get that the games were comical and the idea of having a comedian play the renegade soldier but to pick an overrated comedian is beyond me. I would have rather seen a much more talented actor such as Michael B. Jordan, Idris Elba, or even Denzel (my personal pick would have been Idris).
I had mixed feelings with the rest of the cast. I didn’t care for how Jamie Lee Curtis portrayed Tannis. Cate Blanchett as Lilith and Florian Munteanu as Krieg were fine, but nothing special. Ariana Greenblatt did okay as Tiny Tina but I didn’t care for how they wrote her character. I found her to be way too annoying and cringe. The only one that I think was casted correctly was Jack Black as Claptrap. I feel that his humor gives the same vibes as Claptrap from the games, however they made the iconic voice sound terrible in the movie.Â
The other problem I had with Borderlands was its story. It was entirely generic, bland, and super predictable. It bothered me that, in the games, there are a huge variety of different weapons the player could use or at least were in the game. That was one of its major selling points. In the movie, it seemed like there were only three in the entire universe. I would have appreciated a few more nods to the game in that aspect.Â
The pacing also felt off. First we were here, then we were there. But oh wait, let’s be at this place that has no significance for 20 minutes. Let’s just say I looked at my watch way too many times during the film.
It was hard to find some positives to this adaptation but there are a few. I think that the set and costume designs were done well. They stayed true to the games in these aspects which I didn’t mind. A couple of the action sequences were fun but wish there was a little more gore since the games were like that. And finally Claptrap was the highlight of the movie and gave me a chuckle every so often.
Final Thoughts
Was this movie a good adaptation? No it wasn’t. However, it did kind of want me to revisit the games at some point. I probably won’t watch this movie again until after I dive more into the lore and the games so I can pick up on the more subtle easter eggs. Kind of a waste of an hour and forty minutes of my life.
