“HEROIC, SOMEWHAT REDEMPTIVE, BUT COULD BE MORE WHOLESOME”
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Based on four popular video games, BORDERLANDS features lots of action, colorful characters and a good cast. It also has some humor. Even better, the movie has a strong moral, redemptive premise with Christian metaphors, including a metaphorical death and resurrection. Also, the idea that salvation requires sacrifice is mentioned a few times. However, BORDERLANDS has many deadly gun battles and explosions between the heroes and the bad guys. It also has lots of moderately heavy foul language. Finally, BORDERLANDS contains brief scatological jokes and brief, ambiguous spiritual content that’s not quite resolved. So, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution.
CONTENT:
Strong moral worldview with a strong moral, Christian, redemptive premise that includes a death and resurrection, the promotion of the idea that salvations “requires” a sacrifice, a strong mother character in the main heroine’s backstory, and the heroes are protecting a young girl from evil forces, plus the heroes oppose a totalitarian fascistic head of corporate tyranny, mitigated by a reference to a savior/protector goddess (this idea seems to be part of the ending, but no goddess appears, and the idea is left as just a metaphor), and three major female characters in the story are good fighters so this is a bit feminist, but not to the point of being annoyingly politically correct, but one positive side character runs a business though the business may have some shady aspects to it;
About 23 obscenities (mostly “s” words with several “d” and “h” words), one GD profanity, three light profanities, heroes drive through the desert lair of a giant monster with clouds of urine gas (girl grimaces when some of the gas gets into her mouth, and the robot in the car says the gas contains one percent fecal matter), and robot releases many spent bullets out of his backside in another scatological joke;
Strong action violence throughout with little blood or gory includes multiple gunfights between the heroes and the villain’s mercenary army and between the heroes and hordes of desert and underground bandits called “Psychos,” villain standing on the ground shoots a side character dead point blank with his nearby flying ship’s cannons (he controls the cannons with a device in his hand and uses them to shoot at the heroes), a vehicle flies through a large alien monster’s mouth and through a hole that the people in the vehicle create with a targeted explosion, heroes toss grenades and explosive devices created by a precocious 13-year-old girl (the girl tosses a few of her devices at the bad guys too and uses a gun at least once), and some physical fighting occurs between heroes and bad guys;
No implied or depicted sex scenes, but one club run by a woman looks like the club could also be engaged in prostitution but the implication’s rather vague;
No nudity, but some images of female cleavage;
Brief alcohol use in two bar scenes;
No smoking or drugs; and,
Villain lies and at one point holds girl hostage and threatens to kill her to get the main adult heroine to do what he wants, and the movie envisions a galaxy where a few large corporations have too much power (such a corporate world is fascist so the movie isn’t anti-capitalist or anti-business; in fact, one positive side character in the movie actually runs a business).
MORE DETAIL:
BORDERLANDS is a science fiction adventure about three people and a quirky robot, led by a female bounty hunter, who protect a 13-year-old girl who may be the key to finding and opening a hidden vault of powerful alien technology on a ravaged planet filled with roaming bandits and mercenaries. Based on a popular video game series, BORDERLANDS features lots of action, colorful characters, a good cast, and a strong moral, redemptive premise with Christian metaphors, but there are many deadly gun battles and explosions between the heroes and the bad guys, lots of moderately heavy foul language, an implied feminist perspective about women, brief scatological jokes, and some ambiguous spiritual content that isn’t resolved.
The movie opens with a former soldier named Roland, played by Kevin Hart, rescuing a diminutive 13-year-old girl named Tina from a prison cell on a ravaged planet called Pandora. Ronald successfully rescues Tina, with the help of another prisoner, a large bandit named Krieg, played by Florian Munteanu.
Meanwhile, Roland’s former boss, Mr. Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), the head of an oppressive galactic corporation, hires a female bounty hunter named Lilith, played by Cate Blanchett, to find Tina on Pandora. Lilith is reluctant to go, because Pandora is her home planet, and she has bad memories about it. Mining wars have ravaged the planet. Also, many people have come to the planet because of rumors that an ancient alien race hid vaults of its powerful technology there. However, Atlas offers Lilith enough money to make it worth her while, so she agrees. Atlas is keeping a secret about Tina’s identity from Lilith, however.
Lilith arrives on Pandora and soon locates Tina, who’s being protected by Roland and Krieg. She learns Atlas lied to her about Tina. Atlas isn’t Tina’s father, he’s her creator. He created Tina by using a blood sample from the long gone alien race that once ruled the galaxy. Atlas thinks Tina may be the key to finding a major vault of alien technology hidden somewhere on the planet. He wants to use the technology to make himself even more powerful in the galaxy, in an evil, totalitarian way.
Lilith and her wisecracking robot, Claptrap, voiced by Jack Black, join Roland and Krieg in protecting Tina. They consult a female scientist, Patricia Tannis, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, to help them find the hidden vault before Atlas and his mercenary army do.
BORDERLANDS has echoes of all the STAR WARS knockoffs that came out of Hollywood and foreign countries in the late 1970s and 80s, like 1984’s THE ICE PIRATES and 1978’s STARCRASH. So, the movie is meant partly to be a B-movie celebration of such science fiction flicks, in addition to being an adaptation of the popular video game series developed by Gearbox Software.
As such, BORDERLANDS has lots of action and some humor. Most of the humor comes from Jack Black’s voice work playing Claptrap the robot. The BORDERLANDS video games are known for their wisecracking humor. So, Director and Co-Writer Eli Roth gives the rest of his cast plenty of chances to crack wise and comically entertain moviegoers.
In addition to having the advantage of a good cast, Roth retains the major colorful heroes from the first and second BORDERLANDS games. The characters of Lilith, Roland, Krieg, Claptrap, and Tina will be familiar to BORDERLANDS fans. He does make a few changes, however, especially to Lilith and Tina’s background. For example, without giving away the movie’ ending, Lilith is given a long-lost mother and a new secret identity that’s revealed in the movie’s ending. However, part of that ending seems to leave viewers confused and hanging. So, MOVIEGUIDE® was left wondering about Lilith’s secret identity, especially its ultimate significance. Also, the movie’s revelation of what’s actually in the hidden vault is also confusing. Viewers familiar with the video game series may know more about it, but the movie isn’t quite clear. It has something to do with the intent of the long-lost alien race that created the alien technologies, the treasures on Pandora and in the galaxy and one of the monsters in the video games. Roth makes a change to the monsters in the video games. So, that change muddied the waters even more so.
BORDERLANDS could have been more entertaining. Some of the action in the middle, for instance, could have been more compelling. Happily, however, the movie has a moral, redemptive premise with Christian allusions. For example, Lilith and Tannis don’t know whether they should let Tina open the hidden vault when they find it. That’s because they don’t know if the experience will kill Tina or not. Lilith notes, however, that “salvation” isn’t possible without “sacrifice.” They don’t force Tina to try opening the vault. In the end, though, Tina decides to try opening it anyway. Especially when Atlas shows up with all his mercenary soldiers.
A twist occurs at the end, however. The good news is that the twist includes a metaphorical death and resurrection that continues the movie’s Christian, redemptive allusions to “salvation.”
The BORDERLANDS movie also has two positive plot developments. First, the heroes band together to protect Tina from the villain and his minions. In fact, Lilith takes a motherly interest in protecting Tina. Secondly, the movie gives Lilith a back story where her mother sent her away when Lilith was a young girl, to protect her from the bad things happening on Pandora. To enhance this emotional power of this subplot, Director Eli Roth inserts two flashbacks with a young Lilith and her mother.
All that said, however, BORDERLANDS has some other content that warrants light to extreme caution.
For example, though it’s not particular bloody or gory, the movie has lots of strong, intense action scenes. There are lots of gun battles and some deadly energy beams, plus a bunch of explosions. So, the body count in BORDERLANDS is a bit high, especially in the battle scenes with hordes of bandits attacking the heroes.
Also, there are two scatological events. In the first, the heroes encounter the waste of a giant monster in one sequence. In the second, the robot empties many spent bullets out of his body after being shot multiple times by the psychotic underground bandits.
BORDERLANDS also has an implied feminist perspective about women. For example, though she develops maternal feelings for Tina, Lilith is a tough female bounty hunter. Also, the new soldier in charge of the villain’s mercenary force is a woman who used to work closely with Roland, the former leader. Finally, Tina is adept at creating explosives and sometimes uses a gun. Beyond that, however, the movie doesn’t appear to make any annoying politically correct points about the macho traits among these three women.
Finally, BORDERLANDS has a mythic reference to a savior goddess or protective goddess called Firehawk on Pandora. This reference returns in the movie’s ending, but the ending doesn’t confirm that there is such a goddess. It leaves the issue pretty ambiguous, perhaps out of fear of not offending people, such as Christians or Muslims. So, the movie’s ending leaves the goddess idea as more of a metaphor for the powerful alien technology that everyone in the movie seeks. In the end, no real goddess appears, but no real god appears either, in BORDERLANDS.
Be that as it may, MOVIEGUIDE® advises extreme caution for the combination of violence, foul language and spiritual ambiguity in BORDERLANDS.