My introduction to the film Border areas – based on a popular video game – was a trailer that promised – well, promised more than the usual cheap Lara Croft Tomb Raider Rip-off. Apart from anything else, look who’s in there!
Photo: supplied
From the pleasant “Jumanji” Movies – Comedians Kevin Hart and Jack Black. From their Oscar-winning performance in Everything everywhere at once – Jamie Lee Curtis. Even the brave child Ariana Greenblatt was pretty good in Barbie.
But most importantly: What in God’s name is Cate Blanchett doing here?
Everyone else has at least some B-movie references when they go into these B-movies. But Blanchett – Galadriel in Lord of the rings or no Galadriel – is irrevocably only A-list.
She was nominated for eight Oscars and, for heaven’s sake, won two!
Can we assume that the Blanchett-enriched version of Borderland will be something special?
Our first clue that this may not be the case is the presence of horror director Eli Roth behind the camera.
Personally, Roth is an easy-going, cheerful guy who loves nothing more than to scare the hell out of his audience.
Apparently he wanted to achieve the same thing here, despite the instructions of producers Ari and Avi Arad to keep the film mild and rated M.
The result, I suspect, required weeks of reshoots and culminated in an incoherence that exceeded the dreams of the otherwise rather sloppy Roth.
As a tribute to the professionalism of all these Hollywood insiders, when Borderline finally hit theaters, it received the extremely rare “zero percent” rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes.
I assume that this intense hostility came mainly from fans of the game Borderland.
I doubt Blanchett’s followers bothered to watch the film, and tolerantly pointed out that women don’t live off Oscar-nominated art films alone, and that repairs to the swimming pool or whatever don’t pay for themselves.
And is it really that bad? Are there depths of character that video audiences miss? And is there much to enjoy when these top artists play with the material on offer?
The answers, in order, are: “Yes, it really is.” “No, there is no depth whatsoever and I see no evidence that anyone is enjoying it in any way.”
The story follows a hardened bounty hunter—guess who?—who is hired to find a child named Tiny Tina on a planet called Pandora.
Pandora may be 50 light years away, but she can get there in a snap.
This is an indication of how stupid things will get later.
Speaking of which, she then meets the most annoying character in the film – a robot named Claptrap, whose voice is provided by a crazed Jack Black after about 20 cups of coffee.
Eventually they find Tiny Tina, plus Kevin Hart as Roland the soldier, Jamie Lee Curtis as Blanchett’s mother’s boyfriend, and another actress from the slums, Gina Gershon, who plays a sort of burlesque brothel madam… but I get the feeling you’re not really interested.
In this you resemble Blanchett, whose face in “Borderlands” reflects the bored sadness of someone who realizes that she has been lied to by her agent.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun, Cate. You always told me you wanted to do comedy. Your stunt team will do most of the work anyway. Imagine a cross between Barbie and Deadpool…”
The key word, of course, is “sort of.” There’s a fine but very clear line between popular, cheesy fun and terrible, zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes. And the problem is, you don’t know which side of the line it’s on until you do it.
Unfortunately, anyone who looks at the poster sees Borderland probably has a pretty good idea.
