Summary
Eli Roth promised that hisBorderlandsfilm wouldn’t just rip off a classic superhero blockbuster from 10 years ago, but now that it’s here, it clearly is just a ripoff of that beloved movie.Despite being in the works for over a decade, theBorderlandsmovie has been widely panned by critics and bombed at the box office.It’s been met with a dismal 9% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and it finished fourth in its opening weekend. Suffice to say, this adaptation of the popular looter shooter video game franchise is a resounding failure by any metric.
When the firstBorderlandstrailer dropped, its portrayal of a ragtag band of quippy space adventurers wasimmediately compared toGuardians of the Galaxy. Butdirector Eli Roth promised it would be different.He toldTotal Film, “I was very conscious of not remakingGuardians. [Audiences will] see the movie, and they’ll see it’s different.” But now that theBorderlandsmovie has been released, that quote hasn’t aged well. Audiences have seen the movie, and they’ve seen that it is, indeed, a pale imitation ofGuardians of the Galaxy.
Why The Borderlands Movie Took So Long To Make
The Borderlands video game franchise has been around for 15 years, so why did it take so long to get a movie adaptation off the ground?
The Borderlands Movie Is A Bland Guardians Of The Galaxy Knockoff
Borderlands Is A Shallow Ripoff Of Guardians Without Any Of The Charm Or Personality
Until very recently, the mere existence of a film or TV adaptation of a popular video game was a bad sign. In the past couple of years, withthe success ofFallout,The Last of Us, andThe Super Mario Bros. Movie, the needle has been moving in the right direction with video game adaptations. Butgreat video game adaptationsare still the exception, not the rule, and there’s no better proof of that thanBorderlands. TheBorderlandsmovie ignored what fans love about the games in an attempt to pander to a wider audience, and ended up pleasing nobody.
Although the games draw on the grittiness and brutality of theMad Maxfilms, the movie adaptation is a shameless ripoff ofGuardians of the Galaxyin aMad Max-style setting. It’s all about a ragtag group of space warriors who reluctantly come together to pursue a common goal and end up becoming a sort of found family. ButwhereGuardians of the Galaxytold that story with real love and sincerity, and packed plenty of surprises along the way,Borderlandstells it with a painful dullness, and it’s totally predictable.
Why James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy Style Is Harder Than It Looks
It’s Not As Easy As It Looks To Get The Balance Right
James Gunn pioneered a winning formula withGuardians of the Galaxyin 2014.It has all the action and spectacle of a typical comic book movie, but with a hefty dose of heart and humor that took audiences by surprise. The Marvel Cinematic Universe started skewing more towards replicating this tone in films likeAnt-ManandThor: Ragnarok, and the rest of Hollywood eventually followed suit. Whilethis formula has been emulated successfully by movies likeDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, it’s a lot harder to pull off than it seems.
Borderlandsis a prime example of just how tough it is to get theGuardiansformula right.
It might look easy to do a fun sci-fi action comedy that doesn’t take itself too seriously. It seems as though all it takes to copyGuardians’ success is to inject a standard spectacle-driven actioner with some loose, improvisational-sounding banter. But it’s a lot tougher than it seems to pull this off as effectively as Gunn;it’s much harder than it looks to balance that lighthearted comedic tone with real stakes and emotional arcs.Borderlandsis a prime example of just how tough it is to get theGuardiansformula right.
“The issue is rather that Borderlands seems to have noticed that audiences are tired of movies being overly long and self-indulgent, and thus it course-corrected in the opposite direction. The movie is a tight hour and forty minutes, and it gets the job done, but it leaves a lot of potential gold mine material on the cutting room floor."-Tatiana Hullender-Screen Rant’s Borderlands Review
Borderlands: What The Cast Look Like in The Film Vs The Game
The upcoming Borderlands movie is shaping up to have a stacked cast, but some of the casting choices seem to fit better than a few others.
Borderlands' Guardians Of The Galaxy Similarities Were Its Downfall
It’s Just A Reminder Of A Much Better Movie
Ultimately,Borderlands’ similarities toGuardians of the Galaxywere its downfall:it’s impossible to watch theBorderlandsmovie and not see the parallels withGuardians, and it doesn’t draw a favorable comparison. These similarities just remind viewers of a much better film they’re not watching. Every time they don’t laugh at Kevin Hart’s Roland orJack Black’s Claptrap, they’re reminded of a time they did laugh at Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill or Dave Bautista’s Drax.
Borderlandsis shaping up to be one of the biggest box office bombs of the year, and one of the most critically panned films of the year. It didn’t seem like anything would come along that was terrible enough to dethroneMadame Web, butBorderlandshas managed it.Borderlandsis everything that Roth said it wouldn’t be: it’s a ripoff ofGuardians of the Galaxy, and it’s an astoundingly bad movie. It’s not even so bad it’s good; it’s just a colossal waste of time.
$8.6 million
9%
52%
Borderlands
Cast
Based on the video game franchise, Borderlands is a sci-fi action-comedy film that follows Cate Blanchett as Lilith, a treasure hunter who returns to her home planet, Pandora, to find a tycoon’s missing daughter. Together with a group of unlikely allies, such as a soldier, a teenaged demolitions expert, a wise-cracking robot, and an eccentric scientist, the group will work together to save the girl - all while learning to deal with each other’s unyielding quirks.
