Borderlands

A Border
Understanding

Borderlands
Directed by Eli Roth
USA 2024
Lionsgate
UK cinema cut

Warning: Some insinuated spoilers.

Well now, I’ve not played the video game Borderlands, which this film is based on, so I really can’t tell you how close of an adaptation this movie is. Not that close is my guess. I also have a problem with the films of Eli Roth... I don/t like them (the few I’ve seen by him) so I went into this expecting to be disappointed.

You might then ask why I went to see this movie in the first place?

Two reasons. Firstly the trailer was bright, colourful, had some nice stabs at humour and with a lot going on. Secondly, one of the main protagonists, bounty hunter Lilith, is played by Cate Blanchett... who I think is one of the greatest actresses of her generation. Not to mention that Jamie Lee Curtis is also in the movie. So I was going on trust that if Blanchett had signed on for it, there must be something to the script.

Now, I’d like to be able to tell you I finally loved a movie that Eli Roth directed. However, as I was coming home I looked up the trivia on this title and found that he’d shot the movie in 2021 and finished a cut early 2022 which was all in keeping with the violence and bleakness of the video game on which it is based. However, the studio didn’t go for this so they held it over for two years and got another director to come in and shoot/reshoot a load of scenes to try and dumb the movie down to a lower certificate... what in the UK is a 12A (says it all about how rubbish studios are and how their executives make bad decisions).

The punchline to all this is that, in spite of really terrible reviews coming in for this film (presumably written by people who have played the game and been disappointed by the deviations from the tone the film takes), I actually really loved the movie and I will definitely be picking up the Blu Ray at some point, if and when it arrives on proper physical media. I just don’t know if the parts of the movie I’m responding to are Eli Roth, the original director, or the next guy along.

But I did really like it and I even found Jack Black, playing the voice of the irritating robot character, to be less irritating (in terms of me being able to put up with him) and fairly entertaining also.

Yeah, it feels like a typical, late 1980s/early 1990s sci-fi action flick and I generally had a good time with it (especially with the always watchable Gina Gershon playing a character who, I can only assume, is somewhat influenced by the style of Mae West, in a couple of scenes). It’s pacey, humourous, has some nicely edited action sequences and does most things right (even if the trailer maybe gives away too much, it has to be said). The rest of the cast are all great too, including Kevin Hart as an ex-soldier, Ariana Greenblatt as ‘the chosen one’ and Edgar Ramirez playing a nasty villain.

Having said all that, though, it does have a couple of tiny problems.

Firstly, there’s a scene where Kevin Hart’s character sacrifices himself against overwhelming odds as a gazillion psycho killers jump on him. Later on, he just gets up and extricates himself from a pile of dead bodies. Did I miss something here? My best guess on what the hell happened (it’s never explained) is that the character was supposed to die there but the studio brought him back for the reshoots and didn’t bother to explain things. That is just a guess, though.

Secondly, there’s a so called twist near the end (which I’m assuming is also in the game on which it’s based) involving the character played by Cate Blanchett and a certain deus ex machina moment at a crucial point. It’s badly telegraphed and I think anyone paying attention to her character’s back story will be able to figure things out from about 20 minutes into the film. You can see it a mile off and... my best guess is that it’s an element from the video game and that they didn’t want to lose it. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the moment and its implications but... I’d almost rather the writers had changed their minds about this because, honestly, it’s hard not to guess that this is coming from very early on in the film.

But, other than those two small things, I’m happy to report that I really liked Borderlands and will be recommending it to people for sure. A cinematic throwback, maybe but, a nicely done one, I think.