Barreling into IGN Live’s entertainment showcase presentation last weekend to steal the show and take no prisoners was this unabashedly awesome, grin-inducing clip from director Eli Roth’s live-action video game adaptation, “Borderlands.”
Lock and load for a hellacious hail of bullets!
Roth is notorious for his disturbing horror flicks like “Cabin Fever” and “Hostel,” but here he’s gone off the rails, squeezing every atom of insanity out of this wickedly fun sci-fi adventure featuring another band of intergalactic a-holes out to snag some legendary loot from a “dumpster fire of a world” called Pandora. (Not that Pandora!)
Lionsgate is channeling the unruly vibe of Marvel Studios’ “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise here and is not ashamed to go full tilt into a surreal scene showcasing a ferocious firefight and some fancy pistol-spinning artistry that would make any Old West gunslinger blush with inadequacy.
Spawned from the video games created by Gearbox Software and published by 2K, “Borderlands” stars a curiously kooky ensemble cast of Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jack Black, who plays a boxy robot name Claptrap who enjoys expelling some excess lead.
Here’s the official description:
“Lilith (Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy. Her mission is to find the missing daughter of Atlas (Ramírez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B.
“Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits — Roland (Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector; Tannis (Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Black), a wiseass robot. Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands — but they’ll be fighting for something more: each other.”
This post-apocalyptic first-person shooter first careened onto the video game scene in 2009 for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms, and the entire franchise with its multiple spinoffs and sequels has delivered more than 75 million copies to its legion of action-crazed fans.
Produced by Avi Arad and Arad Productions in collaboration with Erik Feig and Picturestart, “Borderlands” invades theaters and IMAX on Aug. 9, 2024. Could this be the one train wreck of a sci-fi flick you can’t avert your gaze from this year? Perhaps!