Its mere existence is a small cinematic miracle. After 20 years and many obstacles, the adaptation of one of the most famous video game franchises arrives in force in cinemas in August 2024. Can the Borderlands film and its Vault Hunters easily steal the box office? It’s high time to add a new chapter to the legend of Pandora.
Learn about the Borderlands movie
Borderlands is one of the most popular video game sagas. Created in 2009 by Gearbox Software, it began with a bang on PC and 7th generation consoles before continuing its crazy epic on the following machines. The success of the franchise is such that in 2024 it will have a main trilogy as well as several spin-offs for a total of 77 million copies sold around the world. Without much surprise (and given the lucrative potential of the license), a film adaptation project was started in 2015. However, you had to wait almost a decade to see the first theatrical screening.
The Borderlands movie is directed by Eli Roth – a position intended primarily for Leigh Whannell – and co-written as a duo with Joe Crombie. The American filmmaker radically moves away from his previous feature films, the most notable of which are Death Wish, Knock Knock And Thanksgiving in order to bring to the big screen the bubbling universe equal to no other from Gearbox Software. To achieve his goals, he can count on the combined talents of a top-notch cast whose sole presence Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart And Jack Black proves the importance of this film for Lionsgate and 2K whose allocated budget reached 110-120 million US dollars.
The synopsis of the Borderlands movie: Lilith, a bounty hunter with a troubled past, reluctantly returns to her home planet, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy… Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas, the most powerful man (and the most contemptible) of the universe. To get there, Lilith will have to form an unexpected alliance with a joyous team of misfits: Roland, an experienced mercenary; Tiny Tina, a pre-teen with a penchant for demolition; Krieg, Tina’s muscular protector; Tannis, a whimsical scientist; and Claptrap, a very talkative robot. Together, these unlikely heroes will face the worst alien species and dangerous bandits in order to discover Pandora’s most explosive secrets. – SND
The cast of the Borderlands movie: Cate Blanchett (Lilith), Kevin Hart (Roland), Jack Black (Claptrap), Edgar Ramírez (Atlas), Ariana Greenblatt (Tiny Tina), Florian Munteanu (Krieg), Gina Gershon (MAd Moxxi) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Dr. Patricia Tannis)
The Borderlands movie hits theaters on August 7, 2024.
“Guardians of the Galaxy meets Suicide Squad”?
I love Borderlands, as fucked up as Gearbox Software’s saga is. I like its irreverence, its dirty jokes which (too) often hit below the belt, its colorful artistic direction and its punk universe inspired by, among other things, Mad Max. Knowing the 2K franchise was brought to the big screen, and with the added bonus of the necessary financial means and talents, was enough to delight the gamer in my late thirties that I was when the project was announced in 2015. For 9 long years I waited with a lump in my stomach for fear of seeing Borderlands get trampled by Hollywood.
Then the fateful day (Wednesday August 7, 2024 at 10:00 a.m. sharp) arrived and it was clear that my fears were unjustified. Some see it as a meeting between Guardians of the Galaxy and the Suicide Squad. Yes… and no! Without revolutionizing the 7th Art (and that is clearly not its goal), Borderlands the film ensures the essential… entertain me. Don’t make me say what I didn’t say. I can already see some of them drawing out their punchline machines and sharpening their verve. The film directed by Eli Roth is not free from flaws, far from it, but the simple pleasure of returning to Pandora and discovering another side of it is enough for me… at least to a certain point.
Now it’s time to burst the abscess. Borderlands suffers from the same problem as the majority of other blockbusters produced by Hollywood studios for a while. The special effects, essential to do justice to this colorful post-apocalyptic universe, juggle without really logic between the good, the correct and the frankly passable. This is partly offset by the desire of the creative teams who worked on the project to give body (and soul) to Pandora by filming in “real” settings and taking care of the character design. The Pandora of the film resembles the Pandora of the video game and the same goes for the characters who populate this cinematic adventure.
Borderlands purists will undoubtedly find fault with the interpretation and visuals of the emblematic figures of the saga, but personally I appreciated the style of Cate Blanchett as Lilith, the explosive mischievousness of Tina, the deviances of Claptrap and I’m going through some. I could make a list of X major differences, but I don’t see the point. In broad terms, Eli Roth respects the Borderlands franchise and tries with the means at his disposal to expose it to a wider audience. Of course, this film by its very nature only reveals a tiny part of the riches to be discovered by exploring Pandora. The story told is the most edifying proof of this. And yet…
Borderlands cinema version is aimed at fans and all those with an appetite for science fiction and the post-apocalyptic, nothing more and nothing less. Akin to the mastery of Furiosa: A Mad Max saga, this film can be appreciated for what it is… an honest summer blockbuster.
