FILM
BORDERLANDS
WE ARE NOT GROOT
Clockwise from main: Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett, second left) heads up the ragtag crew; Robot Claptrap (Jack Black); A Pandoran Skag looks for scraps.
★★
OUT NOW / CERT 12A / 101 MINS
DIRECTOR Eli Roth
CAST Cate Blanchett, Ariana Greenblatt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Florian Munteanu, Edgar Ramírez
PLOT Galaxy-weary bounty hunter Lilith (Blanchett) becomes embroiled in a crazy plan to crack open an ancient alien vault.
AFTER THE LAST Of Us and Fallout, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we are finally enjoying an era of quality video-game adaptations, and that Borderlands, based on the wacky 2009 sci-fi shooter RPG, is riding the same wave. Hell, it’s even got Cate Blanchett (an actor who’s earned those italics twice over) in the lead role, having a bullet-spraying hoot as a grizzled yet elegant bounty hunter. And with its colourful assortment of irreverent characters, corralled by a writer/director best known previously for horror (namely, Eli Roth), you might also expect, or at least hope, it respectfully and effectively echoes James Gunn’s crossover success with his Guardians Of The Galaxy films.