Borderlands

There was a time in the very early 90´s when i used to play a lot of video games on my Amiga 500 computer. I did have Nintendo 8 Bit as well and at least quite a few games but i prefered to play video games on Amiga 500. I used to order games from a Swedish video game seller found close to the city of Malmö who used to sell all kinds of games for descent prices. I remember playing classic games like Another World, Turrican 2, North & South, 007: Licence To Kill ( based on the James Bond movie from 1989 ), Golden Axe, James Pond and i also remember i owned Alien 3 as well the official video game. Those were good days when you could spend the whole weekend playing games, knowing you had to study before Sunday ended for school starting all over again on Monday. I also remember one of the last Amiga 500 games i got before switching over to playing Super Nintendo was the official game of Batman Returns also based on the official film. Unfortunately i remember i was disappointed that Batman Returns on Amiga wasn´t that fun at all to play and i was a big Batman fan of the Michael Keaton movies at that time. As the 90´s moved on i finally upgraded myself by getting my very first Playstation 1 machine back in late 1995. I basically gave up on the Amiga 500 games since Playstation had so many cooler games ( especially better graphics in certain games ). During the 90´s the movie industry tried to make several games into movie adaptations and we all remember how bad Super Mario Bros from 1993 is. Even worse was the 1994 film adaptation of Double Dragon, i can´t even believe they allowed this project to happen. Luckily the 1995 martial art film Mortal Kombat turned out to be suprisingly good and i still enjoy that film. Since then a lot of different directors have tried to bring other games into film adaptations with very different results. One of the better film adaptations in my opinion is the 2006 film Silent Hill while the 1999 sci fi film Wing Commander turned out to be terrible. A lot of gaming fans have heard of the Borderlands games and i did play the first game when it came out on Playstation 3 back in 2009. I don´t really know why i never played the other games, i suppose i wasn´t spending much time on playing video games as i used to do in the past. So when i got the news that Hostel director Eli Roth ( director of the classic horror film Hostel, still a fun time ) was working on a film adaptation of the videogame franchise Borderlands i was curious. How would he pull this off considering his past with horror films mostly in his catalogue? I decided to give this film a chance by watching it on VOD instead of going to the cinema. Is this one of the better movie adaptations based on a videogame franchise or is Borderlands just as terrible as the 2021 film God´s Not Dead - We The People that made no sense at all?

On the planet of Pandora, Roland ( Kevin Hart ), a mercenary soldier apparently gone rouge, kidnaps teeenager Tiny Tina ( Ariana Grenblatt ) with the help of Krieg ( Florian Munteanu ), a "Psycho" who was insitutionalized  in the same facility. Meanwhile, on another planet, bounty hunter Lilith ( Cate Blanchett ) is contacted by Atlas ( Edgar Ramirez ), a powerful corporate magnet. He convinces her to rescue his daughter Tina on the planet Pandora. Lilith accept the mission and travel to Pandora where she meets Claptrap ( voice of Jack Black ), who will help her locate Tina. She manage to find her but this also causes other issues that Lilith didn´t expect.

How many of you remember the 2020 film adaptation of Monster Hunter with Milla Jovovich and Tony Jaa? In some ways you could say that Borderlands feels like a different version of Monster Hunter with a different world and more technology instead. I actually enjoyed the film Monster Hunter for what it was, just a simple B action monster movie that didn´t need a big plot. Plus Milla Jovovich as an action chick have proved herself to work well ever since the Resident Evil franchise. Borderlands is of course based on the video game of the same name and i would imagine fans of the games knows if this film have done something positive to surprise them. From the reviews i heard during it´s premiere week fans were not happy at all. I have personally only played the very first game on Playstation 3 back in 2009 so i can only speak from my own experience from that game and what my impression is of this film adaptation. First of all let me get into the positive and that is do think the desert looking planet have some similar look to the first game that i remember, at least where it looks like an enourmous scrapyard where you can find all kinds of supplies. I don´t mind actress Cate Blanchett in the lead role as bounty hunter Lily, it´s kind of fun seeing her do a role very different from we are used to see her do in her past. The world surrounding this planet with the monsters have a few charming moments. Ok, so let´s get to the negative. Considering this film have a group of actors that are supposed to have screen chemistry i didn´t really feel much of that at all. Not even Kevin Hart manage to entertain us and is actually very laid back than usual. The action scenes for the most part are either exciting or well done, it feels more like the same story we have seen so many times before in similar films except they try to add details from the video games of course. In fact i was even reminded of the terrible sci fi action comedy The Adventures Of Pluto Nash with Eddie Murphy in certain scenes of this film. The plot isn´t difficult to follow but honestly you don´t really care much about it and just want to see more action scenes instead. Borderlands is pretty much a sci fi action comedy that tries to look cool but doesn´t have either power or great characters to keep the film going for over 100 minutes. There was a time in Eli Roth´s career he made some good films and i still to this day enjoy The Green Inferno even though i know that film have been critisized. Borderlands may be one of director Eli Roth´s worst films so far and the best reason to watch this film is for Cate Blanchett. Skip this one unless you love the video games of Borderlands and watch Monster Hunter instead, i guarantee you will have a more fun movie night if you do.

Rating: DD