When I went in, I had my doubts about borderland, the latest hyped-up video game adaptation designed to lure moviegoers with a PG13 rating.
First of all, the series has a nearly decade-long history of failed attempts to crack its code, including Craig Mazin, who now shares a co-writing role with “Joe Crombie” (he is only listed once on iMDB, and according to iMDB, that’s Mazin’s pseudonym).
If this is the case, after the great success on the small screen with Chernobyl And The last of us, one could understand why he didn’t want to be associated with the final product. Then, original director and co-writer and story creator Eli Roth shot the film during the pandemic in 2021. But when two weeks of reshoots were required, he had to hand it off to someone else as he was committed to finishing last year’s horror film. Thanksgiving.
Tim Miller (2016) Dead Pool) took the reins and is named as executive producer. Finally, Lionsgate is throwing the film into a cinematic desert in August, reminiscent of the actually Wasteland that forms Pandora, the dirt planet where most of the film takes place.
So thank goodness for Cate Blanchett, who made this film before her acclaimed 2022 drama, Tar. As with everything she touches, she makes the main character of bounty hunter Lillith not only worth watching, but even credible. In the hectic world of borderland, that’s a tall order. After telling the plot of the film, we actually meet her in a bar on Prometha and quickly demonstrate her dazzling skills, which catches the eye of slick CEO Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), who hires her to bring back his missing daughter Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) from Pandora, which, as it turns out, happens to be an old hometown of Lillith’s, who still bears psychological scars from it. Nevertheless, the promise of quick cash leads her to take on the mission. However, the previous inhabitants of Pandora have completely trashed the place. It’s a toxic waste dump and now looks like something out of Furious, only worse. Nevertheless, she quickly finds Ariana, who fires explosive stuffed rabbits like napalm and is obviously a real challenge.
The bottom line is that Pandora is left with the so-called Vault, which could hold the key to the survival of the planet and the universe, and Ariana could Key She herself is involved in making this discovery, and her father, the titular villain, knows this only too well.
It was left behind by the now extinct Eridians, but it, according to myth (?), has enormous technological value in the right – and wrong – hands. In pure Guardians of the Galaxy Little by little, a motley crew emerges, each with their own motives. There’s Roland (Kevin Hart), who kidnapped Tina, Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Dr. Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), who has secrets of her own from the past, and Claptrap, a Wall-E wannabe robot, who is wittily voiced by Jack Black and has the best lines in the whole film.
Along the way, Lillith also meets helpful nightclub diva Mad Moxxi (a feisty Gina Gershon), who is thrown into this mess. They have to push an IMAX screen to the edge. full of colorful villains who are being pursued by many of Atlas’ companions, not to mention Atlas himself, who wants to create super weapons, because the game begins with the search for the treasure chamber.
The film that Roth primarily produced looks awfully good, is very colorful, very expensive, and full of guns and explosions galore. It barely slows down to breathe or, for that matter, to really make sense. I’ve never played the video game, which has been out for over a decade. But I have to believe it’s probably more exciting than the film Roth is helming here. despite a game that tries to do it well enough to create a franchise. I wouldn’t count on that happening.
Title: Borderland
Distributor: Lionsgate
Release date: 9 August 2024
Director: Eli Roth
Script: Eli Roth, Joe Crombie
Pour: Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Gina Gershon, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Jack Black, Haley Bennett, Edgar Ramirez
Evaluation: PG13
Duration: 1 hour and 42 minutes
