Lame is the name of the game

Johnson Thomas

Director and co-writer Eli Roth’s attempt to score with a ‘game’ franchise comes a cropper because his vision for the adaptation is sorely lacking in skill and imagination.

Lilith (Cate Blanchett), the main heroine, is quick with a gun, has a hard time taking orders and is saddled with a troubled past. She has attained notoriety as a bounty hunter in Planet Prometheus and is tasked with bringing back Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), daughter of a powerful figure, who has been kidnapped and is hidden in Lilith’s home planet Pandora, which she detests.

Once there, Lilith joins a motley crew of mercenaries, including an elite former soldier, Roland (Kevin Hart), and a deranged muscleman, Krieg (Florian Munteanu), and they try to outrun a large army of enemies while also dodging being eaten alive by humongous native creatures.

Roth tries way too hard to make this movie feel frenzied and weird, but it doesn’t stick. It’s just too flimsy and unexciting to be worthy. The humour is annoying, dialogues sound inane, the characters lack charm and are thinly written. The game itself is played without any flair. It all feels pretty tedious and annoying — with the cast behaving like cardboard cut-outs, rather than live characters. To add to that misery, the look of the actors is not an exact rendering as per the game. The narrative has a generic, often-seen-before plot and the repetitive shenanigans fail to ingratiate. The classic rock soundtrack, weird cats of characters, eye-popping colour schema make it look like Roth was aiming for a ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ feel. But it does not work the way he intended.

It’s obvious that a lot of post-production work went into the making, with uneven CGI coming a close second. Steve Jablonsky’s score also fails to assist the tempo or aid in increasing the tension. The exposition feels rather weak and unremarkable. Some of the backdrops look like digital screensavers. The resolute production design and fancy costumes fail to offset the weaknesses relating to shabby writing, poor character definition, and unremarkable performances. Even formidable actors like Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis have little to do other than play to type.

Jack Black may have attempted humour with his voice, but even the jokes fall flat. Roth’s attempt at gritty and bloody feels too lightweight to gain credence with the fans of the game. The rest of the ticket-paying audience is unlikely to gain any traction from an insipid routine set in a dystopian future with little to recommend it.

‘Borderlands’ is fairly captivating visually, but the uneven attempt to capture the chaotic spirit of its source material falls well short in comparison. The narrative is delivered in a rather casual, uninteresting form and the spirit of the game is rather lost.

Director and co-writer Eli Roth’s attempt to score with a ‘game’ franchise comes a cropper because his vision for the adaptation is sorely lacking in skill and imagination.

Lilith (Cate Blanchett), the main heroine, is quick with a gun, has a hard time taking orders and is saddled with a troubled past. She has attained notoriety as a bounty hunter in Planet Prometheus and is tasked with bringing back Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), daughter of a powerful figure, who has been kidnapped and is hidden in Lilith’s home planet Pandora, which she detests.

Once there, Lilith joins a motley crew of mercenaries, including an elite former soldier, Roland (Kevin Hart), and a deranged muscleman, Krieg (Florian Munteanu), and they try to outrun a large army of enemies while also dodging being eaten alive by humongous native creatures.

Roth tries way too hard to make this movie feel frenzied and weird, but it doesn’t stick. It’s just too flimsy and unexciting to be worthy. The humour is annoying, dialogues sound inane, the characters lack charm and are thinly written. The game itself is played without any flair. It all feels pretty tedious and annoying — with the cast behaving like cardboard cut-outs, rather than live characters. To add to that misery, the look of the actors is not an exact rendering as per the game. The narrative has a generic, often-seen-before plot and the repetitive shenanigans fail to ingratiate. The classic rock soundtrack, weird cats of characters, eye-popping colour schema make it look like Roth was aiming for a ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ feel. But it does not work the way he intended.

It’s obvious that a lot of post-production work went into the making, with uneven CGI coming a close second. Steve Jablonsky’s score also fails to assist the tempo or aid in increasing the tension. The exposition feels rather weak and unremarkable. Some of the backdrops look like digital screensavers. The resolute production design and fancy costumes fail to offset the weaknesses relating to shabby writing, poor character definition, and unremarkable performances. Even formidable actors like Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis have little to do other than play to type.

Jack Black may have attempted humour with his voice, but even the jokes fall flat. Roth’s attempt at gritty and bloody feels too lightweight to gain credence with the fans of the game. The rest of the ticket-paying audience is unlikely to gain any traction from an insipid routine set in a dystopian future with little to recommend it.

‘Borderlands’ is fairly captivating visually, but the uneven attempt to capture the chaotic spirit of its source material falls well short in comparison. The narrative is delivered in a rather casual, uninteresting form and the spirit of the game is rather lost.