Borderlands

And then I go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like ‘videogame adaptations are good now.’

Unfortunately, that statement has to take a bit of a step backwards courtesy of Borderlands. .

Who’d have thought that it would have been this to drop the ball and not Mario?

In fairness, it isn’t quite true that the 'videogame adaptation' is in rude health. Sure, the TV stuff is excellent right now (The Last Of Us, Fallout) but, The Super Mario Bros. Movie aside, Sonic The Hedgehog, Uncharted and Assassin’s Creed carried on the struggle to make something worthwhile.

Actually, Dungeons & Dragons was pretty good in fairness.

Nonetheless, Borderlands has let the side down against all the odds. Now, straight up, I haven’t played the game so I can’t judge as to whether this is a decent adaptation in that sense but this just simply is a bad film and there’s absolutely no way this can be classed as honouring its console counterpart.

Incidentally, I'd be very interested to hear opinions of anyone who is a fan of the games and has also seen the film.

Clearly, a bunch of studio executives half-watched Guardians of the Galaxy and decided that it would be an easy thing to replicate. Add in a strong fanbase and IP and surely it’s a no-brainer?

Except, GotG is such a finely-tuned piece of excellence that is nigh on impossible to replicate (see, Suicide Squad et al) and especially when so many cooks try and spoil the broth.

What we’re left with here is a clear rush job mess of a film with absolutely zero flow. It’s hideous to look at, unfunny and cliched.

Who exactly is this film for? Supposedly filmed for a R rating (with Eli Roth in the Director’s chair as well) but watered down in post-production for a 12A.

What this means is that all the action scenes look to have been cut in all the wrong places to remove any violence and every punchline or character aside has to simply be a character muttering ‘sh*t’ which is something you could play a drinking game to by film’s end.

Why change the rating? Perhaps youngsters will appreciate a bit of a braindead actioner based on their favourite game? But then, if so, why not include any visual flair or sense of an interesting plot?

Why would you also cast actors of the class of Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis? Both stumble through with the best they can muster, alongside Kevin Hart on complete autopilot, but actors of this level are wasted here.

Ariana Greenblatt knows exactly what film she’s in and seems to suggest the sort of teen audience the film is going for and Jack Black too gets a few decent lines in voiceover as yet another snarky sci-fi movie robot companion but most of his lines are smothered in the sound mix and the effects lose most of the impact his booming voice can provide (again, see Mario.)

The soundtrack is also mind-numbingly obvious. Again, clearly someone has watched GotG, thought they could get a piece of that action but has stuck to the most obvious musical choices imaginable.

It’s another videogame movie mess and that’s a real shame as this is clearly a project that could have been great. Any semblance of the colour, personality or mayhem of the games could have elevated this to the level of modern sci-fi movie fun but, alas, another one for the trash heap.

Bored-erlands more like.

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