Borderlands (Movie)

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    Ariana Greenblatt on the ‘Stupid’ Movie That Inspires Her

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    “It’s a big part of my personality,” admitted the actress, who broke through in “Barbie” and is now in the sci-fi film “Borderlands.”After playing America Ferrera’s defiant daughter in “Barbie,” Ariana Greenblatt has lots of mentor options. There’s Margot Robbie (“so cool”). Michael Cera (“I love him so much”). Greta Gerwig (“yeeessss”).But her go-to vibe check? That remains her older brother, Gavin, who is studying fashion design.“All my looks are approved by him,” Greenblatt, 16, said in a phone interview from her home in Los Angeles, where she lives with her family and two rescue dogs, Luna and Foxy. “He has such great style.”He also served as the vetter on another important project: “Borderlands,” a film adaptation of the sci-fi video game in which Greenblatt plays the demolitions expert Tiny Tina.“I called him to fact-check: ‘Is this video game cool?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I play it all the time,’” Greenblatt said. “That was my green light to move forward.”While she watched her dogs try to catch a squirrel, Greenblatt, who is now filming “Now You See Me 3” in Budapest, discussed the item that’s her must-have on the road, why she thinks everyone should read “The Outsiders” and her dream writing project. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1‘The Outsiders’At first I was mad that I had to read it in school, but I really connected with it. My favorite character is either Darry or Sodapop — he was so cute in the movie! When Dally got shot at the end, it made me sob. Wait, there’s a musical? Now I have to see it!We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Borderlands’ Review: Shoot First, Ask Questions Never

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      In Eli Roth’s caper movie, based on the best-selling video game franchise, Cate Blanchett plays a bounty hunter who is tasked with finding a tycoon’s daughter.In Eli Roth’s “Borderlands,” a cluttered caper flick based on the best-selling video game series of the same name, Cate Blanchett plays a trigger-happy bounty hunter who keeps killing the other characters midsentence before they can fill in the plot. Shoot first, ask questions never — even though the audience has questions of its own: What caused the delay that’s taken this big-budget movie three years to get released? And is it possible that Roth’s credited co-writer, Joe Crombie, who otherwise has no other screenplays or online presence, might be a pseudonym for someone who doesn’t want their real name on this haphazard script?Like the original first-person shooter game, “Borderlands” is set on a junkyard planet named Pandora that was once a home base for an advanced alien species, but has since been overrun by violent marauders and women with formidable push-up bras. Blanchett’s Lilith was born here and begrudgingly returns under the employ of a tycoon (Edgar Ramírez) who’s hired her to track down his daughter, an unhinged teenager named Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). To Lilith’s annoyance, her one-woman squad swells with new members: a sassy robot (voiced by Jack Black), an autistic xeno-archaeologist (Jamie Lee Curtis), a mostly mute meathead (Florian Munteanu) and a noble soldier (Kevin Hart). When Hart is playing the straight man, you know you’re watching a film that’s throwing everything at the screen.The style is Chernobyl chic. Anything that can have spikes does have spikes — even the terrain. The scrapheap aesthetic is so maximalist that, at one point, our leads take a joyride in a dumpster. The film itself feels salvaged from the properties it aspires to bowdlerize, chief among them “Star Wars.” Key messages are transmitted as Princess Leia-esque holograms; Black’s robot spouts pessimistic survival statistics; Hart barges onscreen in a gothy Stormtrooper get-up that he immediately discards, sneering, “What a stupid helmet.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More