Although Hollywood studios and Borderlands fans differ in every other way, they have one thing in common: They're both in it for the loot.
You see, Borderlands is a so-called “loot shooter,” meaning players make their way through strange worlds (in this case, the heavily guarded, treasure-rich planet Pandora) in the hopes of getting goodies that will make their characters more powerful. Unlike the movies, you can play and replay the same game countless times, and the experience will never be the same — which helps explain why Borderlands 2, which came out in 2011, continues to appeal to so many people after all these years.
Psychologically, the same principle—the variable feedback loop—is what makes little old ladies feed coins into slot machines, young men surf Tinder, and lab rats press a button that might yield a reward. But this stimulus-response phenomenon, as defined by B.F. Skinner, doesn’t really translate to the movies, where the only real variable is whether you get any pleasure from passively consuming a possession that normally rewards a completely different part of your brain.
Marketed to look like a cross between Suicide Squad and a Zack Snyder movie, Eli Roth’s version of Borderlands doesn’t have half the attitude or style its cyberpunk ad campaign might suggest. But here’s the real reason fans will be disappointed: It’s predictable, and thus negates the “what will it be?” appeal of the loot.
For those unfamiliar with the Borderlands series, Roth’s raucous sci-fi comedy will likely be familiar, as it sticks to the motley buddy formula, with a gang of bickering miscreants fighting their way through hordes of bad guys on a distant planet. For practical purposes, this could be a Guardians of the Galaxy ripoff, with the mischievous team having guns instead of superpowers.
While Lionsgate wants fans to think the movie was made for them, Borderlands is actually Hollywood’s latest attempt to cash in on a supposedly game-dead audience. Sometimes it works, as with last fall’s surprise hit Five Nights at Freddy’s , though that film targeted fans with Easter eggs and inside jokes, whereas Borderlands veers into the extreme. (The company is even giving it the IMAX treatment, though fans of the game’s cel-shaded aesthetic might prefer similar animation to live-action.)
The appeal of 2K’s biggest non-sports franchise starts at the casting level, with Lionsgate casting stars you’d never expect to find in a film like this. The casting of Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis was controversial, but the studio couldn’t have gotten two more talented people to play red-haired bounty hunter Lilith and tank-girl Tanis, respectively. Add in the potential for Jack Black to voice the sarcastic robot Claptrap and Kevin Hart to play (a poor) ex-soldier Roland, and we’re a far cry from the poor adaptations of the likes of Off-Ball and Paul W.S. Anderson.
In the game, you can choose from several of these characters or team up with friends to play in co-op, which translates well enough to the quest story that Roth and co-screenwriter Joe Crombie have crafted here. It’s not a particularly compelling quest: everyone in the Borderlands universe wants to get their hands on Eridian technology. They call themselves vault hunters, and despite Lilith Blanchett’s insistence that she has no interest in such treasure, they’re all after the same thing.
Lilith has convinced herself she’s on a nobler mission, having been hired by Atlas’ CEO (Edgar Ramirez) to track down his “daughter,” Tini Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). Nor is Lilith alone in the case, as Tina is widely believed to be the “key” to unlocking a vault containing a large amount of Eridian loot. The plucky teen clearly has no kinship with Atlas (who makes for a weak villain), but she immediately proves to be more dangerous than she appears. Not only is she accompanied by Roland and a shirtless, raging warrior named Craig (Florian Munteanu), she also throws exploding rabbit dolls and carries the biggest gun in the movie.
Blanchett has the daunting task of explaining much of Eridian’s backstory in a voiceover early in the film, and then hastily quips, “Yeah, that sounds like some weird shit, doesn’t it?” It’s as if the filmmakers themselves can’t get their head around the setting. When done right, such self-deprecating parody can serve as an excuse for tired storytelling. Unfortunately, Borderlands comes so closely on the heels of Deadpool & Wolverine that it feels like a complete failure.
Roth tries to maintain this irreverent tone for the rest of the film (as in the cheesy joke when Claptrap takes a moment after being shot by psychopaths to get rid of the bullets he swallowed), but very little of the humor actually works. It’s hard to blame the actors, who seem fully committed to their characters with extreme personalities, even if their outlandish costumes tend to say more than they joke.
The weakest link here is Greenblatt, who played the real-life girl in the “Barbie” movie. Now, as fan favorite Tina, she looks like the ultimate “weird Barbie”: her bleach-washed hair matches her stuffed bunny ears and the chic pink bandage taped to her nose. But every time she opens her mouth (especially in the scene where Thrasher’s trash is splattered), instead of listening to Tina, we see a child actress over-delivering her dialogue.
Blanchett is among the best at turning even the most ridiculous characters into compelling ones. Fans already know what to expect from Lilith, whose fate is supposed to be a surprise in Roth’s novel, but she plays the flamboyant vigilante without ever succumbing to over-the-top acting (as she did in Thor: Ragnarok ). Still, it’s hard to ignore the irony that, two years after Tarr , the star is playing a video game character, given that film’s shocking ending (in the low-key, where she conducts a video game’s music to a crowd of cosplayers).
Since players will undoubtedly have favorite characters among this crew, the film attempts to give each of the main characters a heroic battle against a more powerful opponent—or in Roland’s case, a small army of them. But as the film progresses, it becomes increasingly clear where things are headed. By the time Borderlands opens its vault, even the characters don’t seem interested in what’s inside.
