I watched the Borderlands movie and was pleasantly surprised because I didn’t have high expectations going into it. This movie has gotten a lot of criticism beforehand and some of the footage in the trailers looked rough. However, I wanted to judge it for myself and therefore purchased tickets for my son and me.
I told my son at the theater that the movie was probably going to be a disaster as the first reviews had just dropped and they were saying it was bad. That said, I went in with an open mind and ended up having fun.
The Borderlands movie isn’t a 1:1 retelling of the first game instead it takes elements from all the main games and presents that in a new story. This is something that was told beforehand when they were making the movie. Marvel Comic fans probably also question elements from the Marvel Movie as it isn’t a 1:1 retelling of the original comics but people have fun watching those movies.
The Borderlands Movie is not an 11/10 but also not the 3/10 that’s going around. As I said, I had fun but if you analyze the movie things can fall apart.
I think the movie is paced for a younger audience, kind of like the Mario Movie, things easily move forward without a lot of reasoning or convincing. “We need to go here” “Oke, let’s go” and with a shot from the environment the heroes are suddenly there even when they say the location is far away.
This trend continues throughout the movie. There are enough elements to make a story but a lot of scenes would have benefited if they had more room to breathe and provide more character/story development. Things happen but it isn’t always explained.
There were moments when I thought “Yes, these actors are excellently portraying the characters from the game” but during other moments I was wondering where things were going.
The introduction with Roland, Tina, and Krieg was weird. Kevin Hart can play a badass which he demonstrates later in the movie but during the introduction, they had to put in a joke that didn’t make him seem like a badass or leader as it looked like even he didn’t know what he was on his mission.
I liked the introduction of Lilith. They set her up as a Badass from the start but the vibe was more casual and not like the movie John Wick where you actually see folks respect the hero. This is the moment where I got the vibe of the movie and not take things too seriously.
The VFX/CGI are hit-and-miss because there is a lot of awesome stuff in the movie and there is stuff that stands out as things don’t fully blend into the scene. I kinda let it go after a while but definitely noticed it early on. Claptrap always looks awesome. The holographic masks and the stuff they do towards the end with Atlas and the heroes look great.
There is a moment when Tiny Tina throws bombs while standing up on Hyperion machinery (this shot is in the trailers). It’s very noticeable that the lighting on Tina herself doesn’t match the overall lighting of the scene because Tina has certain shadows that you wouldn’t have while standing in the sun like that.
I heard about some of the stuff they cut from the movie and I think the movie would have benefitted from that if they kept it in the movie as some stuff was underdeveloped.
