With “Borderlands“, a video game adaptation is coming to cinemas that doesn’t do justice to the original in terms of action.
However, this was probably not always the case. For global cinema audiences who are unfamiliar with the video game source material for director Eli Roth’s new film “Borderlands”, the sci-fi action adventure is likely to remind them of Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” in purely visual terms. At best, you might think the film is an homage, at worst a copy.
This is also one of the biggest points of criticism from fans of the Looter shooter series from developer Gearbox Software, as the underlying template is aimed at an adult audience throughout, and the respective titles have not been given a youth rating by the Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body (USK), the equivalent of the Voluntary Self-Regulation of the Film Industry (FSK). In fact, the first part was still censored in Germany in 2009. In the German version, for example, most of the blood was removed, splatter effects such as the severing of limbs were completely removed and there were no more effects, for example in the case of fire and acid attacks.
The fact that Eli Roth of all people, the filmmaker who shocked the world with the horror works “Hostel” and “Cabin Fever”, should decide to conceive the screen adaptation of such an action firework as a “family film” has always seemed strange. Well, in recent times he has also dealt with family-friendly entertainment such as the really entertaining “The House of Mysterious Clocks”, but most recently delivered another top-class slasher with “Thanksgiving”. So he hasn’t forgotten his craft, an assumption that now seems to be confirmed:
In an interview with Screen Rant, stunt coordinator Jimmy O’Dee revealed that the filming, which was completed three years ago, is said to have included extremely bloody scenes that were anything but PG. On the contrary, director Roth wanted to accelerate the cinematic spiral of violence even further:
“We were shooting a movie with a high age rating in mind. […] So we blew people’s heads off. And we cut off feet. We did all that. But as you know, a lot happens then. We shot the movie three years ago. A lot happens in post-production – and they (the directors, editor’s note) assess which direction the movie is going in and which target group they want to aim for. But the actual idea and the instructions were slaughter, cut off the head, cut off the feet. Just do it and we’ll look at it in post-production. That’s pretty much how it was.”
During filming, O’Dee and his team even had the impression that it couldn’t be bloody enough for Roth. Apparently, almost nothing of this remains in the film, as the final trailer shows. Now “Borderlands” does indeed look like a kind of “Guardians of the Galaxy” to outsiders:
“Borderlands”: Will the self-imposed censorship be the studio’s downfall?
The decision to open up “Borderlands” to as large an audience as possible is absolutely understandable: with a budget in the region of 110 to 120 million US dollars, the studio Lionsgate has nothing to give away. Based purely on these production costs, around 250 million US dollars would have to be generated worldwide in order to recoup the costs. After all, the cinemas keep a share of the revenue. However, the theatrical release in North America has already been a huge flop. Borderlands” will not even earn 10 million US dollars on its opening weekend there (via Deadline). The audience that nevertheless dared to see it rated the sci-fi action film with just 51% on Rotten Tomatoes. At least that’s better than the disastrous 10% rating from the critics.
Basically, those responsible should have trusted Roth’s intuition and let him make the movie without compromise. Then at least the fan base of the video game would have been on board. Now it looks more like there is no audience at all. But the statements from stunt coordinator O’Dee at least give us hope that there might be an unrated version for home cinema release that is completely uncensored. After all, the scenes were filmed. The only question is whether they were edited accordingly. If you still prefer to go to the cinema, “Borderlands” will be released in on August 9, 2024.