Cate Blanchett will play Viking warrior Valka in ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2.’
She’s reprising her role from the animated adventures.
Dean DeBlois is once more writing and directing.
Cate Blanchett is ready to hang with dragons once more.
The actor is becoming the second person from the animated ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ franchise to reprise their voice role in live-action, following Gerard Butler.
Blanchett will join Butler and the rest in ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2,’ which is following last year’s first adaptation.
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Franchise overseer Dean DeBlois, who wrote and directed that first live-action entry is back pulling double duty again for this new one.
Mason Thames (right) as Hiccup with his Night Fury dragon, Toothless, in Universal Pictures’ live-action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Photo: Universal Pictures.
Based, like the animated movies, on Cressida Cowell’s books, the stories follow young Viking Hiccup (Mason Thames), who goes against his society’s dragon-battling ways when he befriends one called Toothless.
The second instalment will continue Hiccup’s adventures. Blanchett’s Valka is the long-lost mother of Hiccup, and wife of Viking leader Stoick the Vast (Butler, who also appeared in the first live-action movie).
She has a few movies either in development or headed our way, including new drama ‘Sweetsick’ and sci-fi comedy ‘Alpha Gang.’ And Blanchett is a producer on a comedy called ‘Peaches.’
When will ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2’ be in theaters?
Universal Pictures has already scheduled the sequel for a June 11, 2027 release date.
Which isn’t all that surprising, given that the first live-action movie earned $636 million worldwide.
Stoick (Gerard Butler) and Hiccup (Mason Thames) in Universal Pictures’ live- action ‘How to Train Your Dragon’, written and directed by Dean DeBlois. Photo: Universal Pictures.
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(L to R) Rebecca Miller and Martin Scorsese in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with director Rebecca Miller about her work on ‘Mr. Scorsese’, how she got involved in the project, interviewing Martin Scorsese, his working relationship Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio and editor Thelma Schoonmaker, which interview surprised her the most, pacing the series over five episodes, what Scorsese had to say about ‘Taxi Driver’, and what she hopes people take away from watching the series.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch our interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about how you got involved with this project and when conducting the interviews with Martin Scorsese, what was it like essentially directing the greatest director of all time?
Rebecca Miller: Well, I got involved with it really by a formless hunch, a feeling. I had made another documentary, Damon Cardasis my producing partner said, “What would you like to do?” Because I said I’d like to make another one. He said, “What’s the subject?” I thought of Martin Scorsese first. You know, he made it so easy in a way to interview him. He almost makes fun of himself in the very beginning of the series where he’s making jokes about, “You need a slate” and stuff like that. But really, he was just so open, I think, is the word. Just very open. I wasn’t really directing him so much as just listening to him, you know, and then asking the next question. We led each other into some very unexpected places.
(L to R) Archival photo of Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese on the set of “The Aviator” featured in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
MF: Mr. Scorsese has had many great collaborators over the years, but the three that stick out from the documentary were Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, and editor Thelma Schoonmaker. Can you talk about interviewing them and is there a through line between their collaborations that you can put your finger on?
RM: The first word that comes to mind is trust. In fact, he mentions that with regards to them. You know, he knew that De Niro, even though he was becoming a star after ‘Mean Streets’, he could trust him. That he wasn’t going to abandon him or allow anyone to take the work away from him, because that was still a possibility from Marty at that time. With Thelma, he knew that he could trust her to help him make the work that he needed to make and not be obstructionist or egotistical about it. The same thing with, I think with Leonardo, because that’s what Marty needs is to be able to trust people that he’s collaborating with. Then once that trust is there, you’re free to experiment and to really be wild because you trust each other.
(L to R) Archival photo of Martin Scorsese and Thelma Schoonmaker featured in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
MF: Of all the interviews you did with Mr. Scorsese’s friends, family and colleagues, was there one interview that really surprised you and was there anyone you wanted to speak with but were unable to?
RM: I got to talk to so many people, and people that I never expected to be able to speak to. His childhood friends were like a particular boon, it was just so amazing that I got to talk to them, especially because one of them died shortly after I interviewed him. But also, the model for Johnny Boy (from ‘Mean Streets’), you know, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I didn’t even know that I would necessarily have them.
(L to R) Robert De Niro, Frank “Butch” Piccirillo and Martin Scorsese in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
MF: Can you talk about pacing and the challenge of fitting in all aspects of Mr. Scorsese’s life and career into just five episodes?
RM: I mean, I didn’t want to rush, but on the other hand, I really wanted there to be a sense of pacing and of urgency, because his work has that, and his personality has that. I wanted it to reflect his personality. I wanted the film to feel like Marty himself. Maybe that’s why sometimes there are certain cuts that feel like his cuts, because they’re originating with him and his personality. Then, of course, his work is an outgrowth of his personality. But you know, the number of segments really, at first it was going to be one feature film. Then I quite quickly realized there was no way I could do it that way, because the childhood and early adulthood really needed time, so you could understand how deeply connected his work in general is to those early years. Once you do that, once you spend that first episode, then you need more time to get to the rest of it. Because essentially, the series is really the dance between the art and the life. They’re creating each other. Art’s creating life, life’s creating art, and at a certain point, we kind of ran out of life in a way. That’s the point where you’re like, “Okay, that’s the end”. So, it’s the dance between those two things.
Archival photo of Martin Scorsese on the set of ‘Gangs of New York’ featured in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
MF: Was there any movie that you asked Mr. Scorsese about where you were surprised by his answer?
RM: Well, I mean, I was very intrigued by his answers to ‘Taxi Driver’. I talked to him about it. I asked, “What is it about you at that time that’s in that film?” And you can see him close his eyes and sort of be resistant, but also want to give an answer. He gives this extraordinary answer but over throughout, there’s this thread of the deep connection between what he’s going through as a person, his own suffering, his obsessions, and the films that he’s making.
Archival photo of Martin Scorsese on the set of ‘The Departed’ featured in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
MF: In the series, Mr. Scorsese talks says that in the stories he tells, the human struggle is what he is most interested in? Can you talk about his passion for that idea in terms of his filmography?
RM: I think overall, there’s a sort of sense of, as Nicholas Pileggi says, “Underdogs trying to score”, and very often, these people are struggling to become themselves. It’s like they want to become themselves, but in that process of trying to become themselves, like Jake LaMotta (in ‘Raging Bull’), for example, you can lose your soul, and that’s interesting too. The loss of the self, the loss of the soul, the kind of darkness that can come into sight of people. It’s not always good news in Scorsese’s universe.
Martin Scorsese in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
MF: Finally, what will you remember most about making this series and what do you hope fans learn about Mr. Scorsese and his work that they did not already know?
RM: I mean, just having him in my life and the friendship that I have with him is such an immense reward. The idea that I was able to maybe give him back to the people that love him in a form that they didn’t know or anticipate, and to shed something new on the films and maybe bring people back to the films or to the films when they haven’t seen them, that to me is a great reward.
Martin Scorsese in ‘Mr. Scorsese,’ premiering October 17, 2025 on Apple TV+.
What is the story of ‘Mr. Scorsese’?
Explore the many lives of Martin Scorsese through intimate interviews with the man himself, access to his private archives, plus conversations with Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Daniel Day-Lewis, Steven Spielberg, and more.
Opening in theaters on March 14th, ‘Black Bag’ feels for all the world like Steven Soderbergh set himself and writer David Koepp the challenge of blending a thorny, John le Carré story with the effortlessly cool and stylish work the director was doing in his ‘Limey’ era.
The prolific filmmaker (who also serves as his own cinematographer and editor), has been on a real tear of late –– this is his second film in a matter of months (he had experimental ghost story ‘Presence’ out back in January –– and by any reasonable reckoning, it is by far the superior entry in his canon.
Soderbergh is most certainly on top form here, crafting a twisty, thoughtful and timely piece of drama about trust and deception, and the difficulty of maintaining a relationship when much of your life is built on lies –– either ferreting them out or maintaining them.
Having gathered one of the best casts in a while, he uses them in excellent ways, Koepp’s script providing a cluster of superb characters to get their teeth into, especially Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett.
It’s not a spy movie in the ‘Mission: Impossible‘ mold (the stunt budget here would probably pay for a day of craft service on a Tom Cruise film), but it’s intellectual and frisky, always keeping you on the back foot, unsure of who to believe.
Credit to David Koepp for here concocting a fascinating screenplay filled to the brim with interesting personalities and crackling drama.
We’re introduced to a group of operatives who work for Britain’s National Cyber Security Center, whose mission is to take down cyber threats to the UK and the wider world. But when the organization learns there is a mole working to get hold of their software worm known as Severus, which has the ability to integrate itself into nuclear facilities and wreak havoc, Fassbender’s George Woodhouse is tasked with sniffing out the traitor (or traitors).
Unlike, say, ‘Jason Bourne‘, George’s primary weapon here is his brain and his culinary skills (no, really) as he invites a group of colleagues to a dinner party where the secret ingredient in one dish is a healthy serving of truth serum. Along with his wife Kathryn, who might well be even smarter and more dangerous than George (and who he’s led to believe could be a mole herself), he tasks his guests with playing party games that lead to personal revelations.
But the real secret here that the fireworks are less grenades and bullets and more inner demons, as everyone has something they’re hiding and no-one is simply good or bad.
In Soderbergh’s hands, the screenplay comes to smooth, stylish life, scored with a jazzy David Holmes track that suits its near-timeless feel. Aside from some of the vehicles and the obvious tech angle, this is a story that could have been set in the 1960s without losing any of its power.
Yet the technology aspect gives it an extra frisson in this age of misinformation and shady online morals.
As we mentioned earlier, this is one of the most impressive casts assembled in a movie so far this year, and they bring the script to fizzy, emotional life.
Fassbender’s Woodhouse comes across as a combination of the intensity of his take on Magneto and the fastidiousness of his character in ‘The Killer.’ This is a committed patriot, a man who rarely lets emotion conflict with his mission. And Fassbender brings such cool effectiveness to the role, especially when a secret about his past comes to light (let’s just say his father was not the most faithful when it came to the sanctity of marriage).
Blanchett, for her part is feline cool, slinky and lethal in her way, and always keeping her intensions close to her chest. Kathryn is a clear match for her husband in skillset –– and her role is a highlight in a movie that features plenty of them.
Regé-Jean Page is Colonel James Stokes, a ramrod loyal agent who serves under Woodhouse and is dating Harris’ character. While the actor has tackled characters such as this before, Stokes is more complicated and a tinder box, ready to explode.
Naomie Harris, herself a veteran of the Bond movies (she played Moneypenny during the Craig era) is another cool customer, quirky shrink Dr. Zoe Vaughan who treats the rest of her colleagues but might be as messed up as they are. She’s utterly brilliant in the role, taking no crap from anyone but also coming across as complicated as those she oversees.
Tom Burke is all seething regret and resentment as Freddie Smalls, a formerly hotshot agent who has somewhat lost himself in addictions to various narcotics and pleasures. Burke, a chameleon of an actor, really digs into the role and is hugely entertaining.
Finally in the main cast, we have ‘Industry’ and ‘Back to Black’s Marisa Abela playing Clarissa Dubose, the youngest of the friend group, who is dating Freddie but can’t quite believe what she’s got herself into. But as with everyone else, there’s more to her than that.
But we would be remiss if we didn’t mention sterling support from Pierce Brosnan, himself a former James Bond, who has a small role but earns every moment of his screen time as Arthur Stieglitz, one of the group’s superior officers who feels himself superior in every way. It’s a great piece of casting, not just for the espionage movie tie-in.
It might not hold the sort of action antics we’re used to from Bond, Bourne or even Ethan Hunt, but if you’re a fan of the complex, knotty and well-drawn characters of le Carré, this will certainly make you smile(y).
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What’s the story of ‘Black Bag’?
‘Black Bag’ follows legendary intelligence agents George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and his beloved wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett).
When she is suspected of betraying the nation, George faces the ultimate test –– loyalty to his marriage or his country.
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris and Tom Burke about their work on ‘Black Bag’, Blanchett’s first reaction to the screenplay and exploring her character’s marriage, Harris and Burke’s characters’ motivations, and working with legendary filmmaker Steven Soderbergh.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, Cate, can you talk about your first reaction to David Koepp’s screenplay and the opportunity to explore this intriguing marriage dynamic between George and Catherine?
Cate Blanchett: Yes, well, I’d already agreed to do it before I read the script, because obviously when you know David Koepp is writing it and Steven Soderbergh is going to direct it, you know it’s going to be a great adventure. So, then when Steven said he wanted Michael (Fassbender) to play George, I went, “Oh, that’s perfect.” But I was surprised by just how elusive their relationship was, but also how the absolute bedrock of their relationship is that they would die for each other. I find that deeply romantic, and particularly after they’ve been together a long time. They’ve clearly decided not to have children and they’re devoted to their work. But the only thing they’re devoted to more is each other. So, I think that there was an intensely romantic thing at the heart of this film, which was not something you necessarily associate with a texture in the movies that Steven makes.
MF: Naomie, can you talk about your approach to playing Zoe, and since she is a therapist to a group of spies, can she truly trust anything they say, and how does she navigate that?
Naomie Harris: Well, I think she must be two steps ahead of them. I mean, she’s immensely intuitive, insightful and hugely intelligent, as well as being a little morally corrupt and slightly unorthodox in her methods. She’s basically created her own way of working in that environment where morality rules don’t matter. All that matters are results. Are the spies mentally sound and are they staying on mission? That’s it for her.
MF: Tom, can you talk about how Freddie’s personal life is affecting his professional life?
TB: Yeah, I mean, it’s alluded to in the dialogue and in everything that happens, I suppose, as well. You do feel like amid what must be an incredibly careful and focused skill set for his career, that there’s a completely improvised element of his own life that involves drinking, drugging and an awful lot else. That’s very interesting to play because it seems like a paradox, but also it makes sense that somebody like that might be drawn to a high-risk career. It’s to kind of accommodate that need or that drive.
MF: Tom, as an actor, what is it like being on a Steven Soderbergh set? What was he like to work with as a director?
TB: He has an amazing understanding of how to optimize what his actors are bringing to each scene and it’s not least to do with energy and time. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that handled quite so caringly or felt that handled quite so caringly.
MF: Cate, you’ve worked with Steven Soderbergh before, how was this experience similar or different than the last time you worked together?
CB: Well, we’d worked together years ago on a film called ‘The Good German’, which I think about three and a half people saw. But which Steven has said is one movie he was so completely happy with, and it was such an interesting experience for me. So, it was just a deepening of that experience. He’s so economical and so relaxed while he gives time to people to do what they do. So, he’s very respectful to every single department and grateful to every single department who are working towards making the movie great. What he doesn’t have any truck for is people who are lazy and unprepared. So, he makes you really want to bring your best for him. You want to be ready. If you say to him, “I need to go again”, he’ll go, “Don’t worry about it, I’m only going to use those four frames,” because he’s editing in his head. I mean, he’s like a machine with the biggest heart. You know, he really cares about the actors that he works with and every single member of the crew. So, before I worked with him, I don’t think I could even imagine that those two parts of a cinema artist could coexist as beautifully as they do in him.
MF: Finally, Naomie, what surprised you about working with Steven Soderbergh?
NH: I think one of the shocking things for me about working with Steven was just how much freedom he gives to actors. He truly casts well and then he completely trusts you to make of the characters what you will. I’ve never had that much liberty. So, in the beginning I was really intimidated by it. But then it’s such a liberating and an empowering experience where you’re just like, this person believes in me so much that I can make any choice that I want. So, I really learned a lot from working with him.
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What’s the story of ‘Black Bag’?
‘Black Bag’ follows legendary intelligence agents George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) and his beloved wife Kathryn (Cate Blanchett).
When she is suspected of betraying the nation, George faces the ultimate test –– loyalty to his marriage or his country.
Lilith (Cate 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 (Edgar Ramírez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B. Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a ragtag team of misfits – Roland (Kevin Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector; Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Jack 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.
2013’s ‘The Green Inferno.’ Photo: Open Road Films.
A group of student activists travel from New York City to the Amazon to save the rainforest. However, once they arrive in this vast green landscape, they soon discover that they are not alone… and that no good deed goes unpunished.
Jack Black in ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls.’ Photo: Universal Pictures.
When ten-year-old Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) is suddenly orphaned, he is sent to live with his Uncle Jonathan (Jack Black) in a creaky (and creepy) old mansion with a mysterious ticking noise that emanates from the walls. Upon discovering that his uncle is a warlock, Lewis begins learning magic, but when he rebelliously resurrects an evil warlock he must find the secret of the house and save the world from destruction.
(L to R) Lorenza Izzo, Keanu Reeves and Ana de Armas in ‘Knock Knock.’ Photo: Lionsgate.
When a devoted husband and father (Keanu Reeves) is left home alone for the weekend, two stranded young women (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) unexpectedly knock on his door for help. What starts out as a kind gesture results in a dangerous seduction and a deadly game of cat and mouse.
A group of five college graduates rent a cabin in the woods and begin to fall victim to a horrifying flesh-eating virus, which attracts the unwanted attention of the homicidal locals.
Amanda Barker “Lizzie”in Thanksgiving’ from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC Thanksgiving.
After a Black Friday riot ends in tragedy, a mysterious Thanksgiving-inspired killer terrorizes Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the holiday. Picking off residents one by one, what begins as random revenge killings are soon revealed to be part of a larger, sinister holiday plan.
Opening in theaters on August 9th is the new action-comedy ‘Borderlands’, which is based on the popular video game of the same name and was written and directed by Eli Roth (‘Thanksgiving’).
Moviefone recently had the pleasure of speaking with writer and director Eli Roth about his work on ‘Borderlands,’ the challenges of adapting a video game, cracking the story, the all-star cast, and making movies outside of the horror genre.
You can read the full interview below or click on the video player above to watch the interview.
Moviefone: To begin with, can you talk about the challenges of adapting a video game and cracking the story for ‘Borderlands’?
Eli Roth: Well, the story, that was producer Ari Arad and Randy Pitchford, who spent a long time with different writers trying different permutations until they settled on this story, and then that’s when they came to me. So, one of the things we talked about was how do we change stuff and adapt it from a video game to a movie, but I had the game creator Randy with me there the whole time. There are certain things that you obviously want to be faithful to, like the costumes, the design, the guns, the tech. There are certain things that are beloved in the game, and we could fill the movie with Easter eggs, but obviously in casting the movie, you’re going to cast people in real life that look different than the characters in the game. So that’s the first thing. It’s a very, very violent game, but to render the universe at this scale, the studio wants to make a PG-13 movie, and I wanted to make something for the nine-year-old boy in me that if this is a movie, if you’ve never played the game before and you take kids to go see at 10 or 11-years old, they’re going to laugh their ass off and have a great time. I wanted something that was just totally bonkers, a movie that was unhinged and fun. You can just turn off your brain, grab a bucket of popcorn and have a good time.
Moviefone: Did you play the game for research, and what did you like most about the source material?
ER: It’s so fun. Yes, I did play the game. I’m terrible at games, so I had to have Christy Pitchford take me through the game co-playing with her. But I love it. I love the sense of humor. Randy Pitchford and I are of the same age and have the same influences, whether it was ‘Mad Max’ or ‘Escape from New York’ or ‘Star Wars’. I love the creatures. I love the sense of insanity. I love the world. I love the detritus of the world. They’re trying to make something beautiful out of it and the trashed planet, and it made me think of ‘The Fifth Element’ and what I saw in that movie, and just the colors of that film and the Gaultier costumes that just blew my mind. So, to get to render something at that scale, I want it to feel like you took all your fluorescent pink neon clothes, put them in the dryer, sprinkled in some glitter, and then it just exploded everywhere and caught fire at the same time. So that was the idea of rendering something that didn’t look like any other movie you had seen before.
MF: Can you talk about putting together this terrific cast of actors?
ER: I had an amazing experience working with Cate and Jack on ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls’, the kid’s movie I did with Amblin, and Cate was the first one I called. I said, “I’m making this insane kind of spaghetti western space opera, fun sci-fi video game adaptation, and I need someone to be a total badass, like Clint Eastwood in ‘The Man with No Name’ or Snake Plissken in ‘Escape from New York’,” and she’s like, “I’m in. Let’s do it.” So, Cate learned to twirl guns. She wanted to shoot, she wanted to do her own stunts. We put her in a harness, she was 100 feet in the air on wires. Then I said, “All right, what if you grab a flamethrower and you light these guys on fire?” So, Cate, she learned to do it. She’s really shooting a flamethrower in that scene. So, it was incredible. Once you have Cate, she’s actor bait. Everybody wants to act with Cate. So, I called Jack right away, said, “She’s going to be a pissed off bounty hunter, and you’re the annoying robot,” and he’s a big ‘Borderlands’ player, so he knew Claptrap, he was all in. Then Jamie Lee said she wanted to play Tannis, which was my first choice and she said yes. he’s like, “You had me at Cate Blanchett.” So, it’s great to be able to unite those screen icons in a movie, and the two of them became close friends. Everyone bonded on this movie. We were shooting in the pandemic, so there was a curfew in Budapest. We weren’t allowed out after 8:00pm, and the world of ‘Borderlands’ became our reality. So, everybody got close. We made lifelong friends on that movie, and you can feel that bond with the characters on screen.
MF: Finally, you are probably best known for making horror movies. But do you also enjoy working in other genres?
ER: I do. I love it. I’ve noticed, if I do too many horror films in a row, I start to get burnout. So, whether I switch and made my documentary ‘Fin’ about saving sharks or ‘Death Wish’, which is completely different, it’s good for me to switch it up and challenge myself creatively and learn new skills. You learn something every time, every day on set. Every shot, you’re learning something new. So, it’s great. I shot ‘Thanksgiving’ after ‘Borderlands’, so I learned how long the post-production is on ‘Borderlands’. So, it’s good for me to go back and forth, but obviously horror movies are my passion and my love. But if you do too many in a row… I never want to get tired of doing it.
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What is the plot of ‘Borderlands’?
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by interstellar business mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to find his missing daughter and the soldier-for-hire, Roland (Kevin Hart), who was sent to rescue her. The mission takes Lilith back to her ruined home planet, Pandora, where she reluctantly teams with Roland, a muscleman named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a loopy scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a wisecracking robot (Jack Black), and the girl herself, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), to battle monsters and vicious marauders while searching for a secret that could unleash unimaginable power.
A loud, clattering, off-brand mash-up of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy,’ ‘Mad Max: Fury Road,’ and other recent tentpoles, ‘Borderlands’ is based on the hugely successful first-person shooter video game franchise launched in 2009 by Gearbox Software. Fans of the game can assess how faithful the movie, mostly directed by horror auteur Eli Roth (‘Thanksgiving’), is to the game, but as a film this fails on a number of levels.
‘Borderlands’ is simply dull, thanks to a bland script and setting, cheap-looking production values, and a cast that seems terrific on paper but veers between performances that are either bored or overwrought. Filmed more than three years ago in the spring and summer of 2021, ‘Borderlands’ collected dust until Tim Miller (‘Deadpool’) came on to direct reshoots in early 2023 when Roth proved unavailable. Either way, with recent video game adaptations like ‘Fallout’ and ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ earning praise for their approach to translating their games to the screen, ‘Borderlands’ is a disappointing throwback, a film that looks and plays like it came out of the 1990s, right down to the crappy CG and the pounding heavy metal needle drops.
As Cate Blanchett’s expository voice-over tells us at the beginning, a long-extinct alien race named the Eridians used to rule the galaxy, leaving behind some powerful artifacts hidden in secret “Vaults” throughout the cosmos that ruthless corporations like Atlas and Dahl, along with independent “Vault Hunters,” are interested in obtaining. Blanchett herself plays Lilith, a bounty hunter who is hired by Atlas himself (Edgar Ramirez) to ostensibly find his kidnapped daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). She’s gone missing on the planet Pandora (yes, same name as the planet in the ‘Avatar’ movies) along with the soldier sent to retrieve her, Roland (Kevin Hart).
Pandora also happens to be Lilith’s home world, and when she arrives there she finds it to be devastated by corporate mining and colonization efforts, with gangs of former prison laborers known as Psychos now roaming the land. She also finds Tina in short order, along with Roland, but the girl does not want to be rescued and shows her resistance by hurling explosive stuffed bunnies in Lilith’s direction. Nevertheless, Lilith, Tina, and Roland eventually team up – along with Tina’s self-styled bodyguard and former Psycho Krieg (Florian Munteanu), an eccentric scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a motormouth robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) – to block Atlas’s real agenda, which is to find a Vault hidden on Pandora and unlock the unimaginable power stored within.
The problem with ‘Borderlands,’ as with many video game adaptations, is that the movie must do a lot of world-building in a short period of time, leading to things like that voice-over narration and reams of expository dialogue. ‘Borderlands’ falls victim to this early on, mixing and matching characters from various editions of the game in a stop-and-start narrative that either comes to a crashing halt to explain its convoluted mythology or races from one frenetic action scene to another without balancing the two effectively. This leaves no room for any real character development, and while a pro like Blanchett tries hard, the cast falls into the ‘lovable band of rogues and misfits’ trope without doing anything to make it unique.
The movie is also hampered by its production values, which look cheap, constricted, and derivative despite a reported $120 million budget. Set on a world devastated by indifferent corporate colonizing, the movie looks like it was shot in perhaps two quarries made to look like junkyards (one character even asks at one point if there’s a way to escape that doesn’t involve schlepping through garbage). The post-apocalyptic wasteland has been done to death, and the fact that the Psychos resemble extras from the recent ‘Mad Max’ movies doesn’t help.
If Roth (or Miller) isn’t shooting in one of the film’s two junkyards, then they’re staging sequences in murky underground corridors and hallways that cinematographer Rogier Stoffers can’t solve. The result is an especially drab film all around. Adding to the problems, ‘Borderlands’ is rated PG-13, so Roth isn’t able to indulge his proclivities for copious amounts of blood and gore; the choppy editing suggests that much of this is being held back for a future ‘uncut’ release.
A finale laden with mediocre CGI only exacerbates the sense that this is a production where things went south pretty quickly, and the movie rapidly descends into a kind of numbing, generic rhythm that is thankfully only ameliorated by its relatively brief 100-minute runtime.
We’re not exactly sure how Cate Blanchett got roped into this, although she and Jack Black both starred in Roth’s slapdash 2018 Y/A fantasy, ‘The House with a Clock in Its Walls.’ Whatever her reasons, we’re not going to place this among the Australian actor’s finest performances. She’s good, never less than professional, but at times she doesn’t seem to know how seriously she should be taking any of it, and her CG-infused arc near the end of the film just ends up looking silly.
Jack Black has no such problems: for one thing, he’s never onscreen since he’s the voice of the R2-D2/BB-8 hybrid robot known as Claptrap, and as such gets the film’s best and funniest lines. Claptrap acts as a commentator on the action, edging close to a ‘Deadpool’-like breaking of the fourth wall (although it never happens) and offering up a stream of patter that alternates between sarcastic quips and ill-time bursts of into. But even Black’s energetic routine gets wearisome after 100 minutes or so of listening to Claptrap babble on.
We’re not sure what Jamie Lee Curtis is doing as the usually reliable actor plays Tannis as a weird combination of loopy and wearily cynical, with the two sides of her admittedly thin personality never meshing well. Kevin Hart is curiously low-energy, although he does pull off a few decent action moves, and while we dislike giving the thumbs-down to a young actor, Ariana Greenblatt (‘Barbie’) delivers an incredibly annoying, tic-laden performance as Tiny Tina, a character so poorly developed and inconsistently written that her central role in the story makes her faulty work even more grating.
We should have known we were in trouble the minute we saw Avi Arad listed as a producer on ‘Borderlands.’ While Arad was instrumental in the creation of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he was long gone by the time it became a cultural phenomenon. He’s instead continued to plunder his stake in the Sony Spider-Man Universe with lackluster misfires like the ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ and ‘Venom’ films, along with 2002’s equally forgettable adaptation of the ‘Uncharted’ video game.
‘Borderlands’ fits neatly into that filmography as a generic, soulless sci-fi actioner that really lacks any sort of distinctive personality or creative spark (a quick online search reveals that fans of the game are also disgruntled with what they’ve seen of the movie via trailers and clips). And while Eli Roth is no one’s idea of a great filmmaker, he’s out of his element here and unable to deploy the deliberately sleazy horror/exploitation tropes that at least make films like ‘Hostel’ and ‘The Green Inferno’ identifiable as his. ‘Borderlands’ is simply product, manufactured to cash in on a successful property without any understanding of what makes that property popular or why it should appeal to non-gamers.
‘Borderlands’ receives 2.5 out of 10 stars.
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What is the plot of ‘Borderlands’?
Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by interstellar business mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to find his missing daughter and the soldier-for-hire, Roland (Kevin Hart), who was sent to rescue her. The mission takes Lilith back to her ruined home planet, Pandora, where she reluctantly teams with Roland, a muscleman named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a loopy scientist named Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a wisecracking robot (Jack Black), and the girl herself, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), to battle monsters and vicious marauders while searching for a secret that could unleash unimaginable power.
Yet he’s already putting the pieces together for another film, and it features another batch of exciting actors, with legendary writer David Koepp also on board.
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What are the details of Steven Soderbergh’s next film?
As originally reported by Jeff Sneider at The InSneider newsletter, ‘Black Bag’ is now out to studios and other potential backers, so any forward progress will depend on a deal for financing and distribution. But given the talent involved, we don’t think that’ll be a problem.
The aim is to shoot this one in May in London, which confirms a U.K. setting, but other details including the plot are being kept quiet for now.
‘Black Bag’ would reunite the director with two actors, who appeared in different past projects for him –– Blanchett was among the leads of 2006 noir ‘The Good German’, while Fassbender was a key part of the cast for 2011’s action thriller ‘Haywire’.
And Koepp is also a previous collaborator with the filmmaker. The writer, famous for the likes of ‘Jurassic Park’ and the original ‘Mission Impossible’ (among a long list of credits), wrote ‘Kimi’ for Soderbergh, which was released via streaming service Max in 2022, and also worked on ‘Presence’.
This is just the latest secretive high-profile project featuring a big-name director and potential cast, as Ryan Coogler has a project with Michael B. Jordan attached to star that is generating plenty of interest.
Is Steven Soderbergh returning to the ‘Ocean’s’ franchise?
(L to R) George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Brad Pitt in 2004’s ‘Ocean’s Twelve.’
Soderbergh’s busy schedule certainly seems to point to the idea that he won’t be making any more ‘Ocean’s movies after directing the trilogy and being an executive producer on ‘Ocean’s Eight’ (which co-starred Blanchett).
And indeed, when asked by Variety whether he’d return, he was quick to shoot down any such idea.
Here’s what Soderbergh said a few days ago:
“After we made the third movie, I felt like the series was very much concluded for me. When the studio approached me to see if I’d be involved in continuing the franchise, I told them no, because it just doesn’t feel like a move forward for me. I’m chasing something else.”
Now we know what else…
Steven Soderbergh, winner of the Best Director Oscar for the film ‘Traffic’ poses for a photo backstage at the 73rd Annual Academy Awards March 25 in Los Angeles.
Awards season got on a plane and headed to London on Sunday for the 2023 British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards, which recognised achievement in film during 2022.
And given how competitive the awards race has been this year, it was another surprising night, as war drama ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ –– already a favorite with 14 nominations –– went home with seven trophies.
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What did ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ win at the BAFTAs?
The movie, adapted from Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 novel by director Edward Berger and writers Ian Stokell and Lesley Paterson was the big winner on the night, taking home Best Film, Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Not In The English Language, cinematography, score, sound.
It was all the more impressive, since ‘Western Front’ split its wins between technical trophies and some of the bigger categories, while most of its competition won either acting or technical awards. “For a German-language film, we’ve been blessed with so many nominations, and winning this is just incredible,” said producer Malte Grunert on stage while picking up Best Film.
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What other movies won trophies at the BAFTAs?
The runner up in sheer awards haul was Martin McDonagh’s ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, which landed acting kudos for Barry Keoghan and Kerry Condon, a Best Screenplay award for McDonagh and Outstanding British Film, which led its director to crack, “I know that every Irish person in the cast and crew is saying, ‘Best what award?’” (the film was partly financed by the UK’s Film4).
‘Elvis’, a little like ‘All Quiet,’ also crossed between the main and technical awards: Austin Butler beat out the likes of Brendan Fraser for Best Actor, while some of its crew won in categories such as Costume Design and Make-Up And Hair.
Of the more expected winners, Cate Blanchett took home her latest statuette for playing a driven, problematic conductor in ‘TÁR’, while ‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’ added another animation award to its crammed trophy case.
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell –Winner
‘Living’, Kazuo Ishiguro
‘The Quiet Girl’ – Colm Bairéad
‘She Said’ – Rebecca Lenkiewicz
‘The Whale’ – Samuel D. Hunter
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, Paul Rogers – Winner
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Sven Budelmann
‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, Mikkel E.G. Nielsen
‘Elvis’, Jonathan Redmond, Matt Villa
‘Top Gun: Maverick’, Eddie Hamilton
Michelle Yeoh in ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once.’ Photo Credit: Courtesy of A24.
ORIGINAL SCORE
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Volker Bertelsmann – Winner
‘Babylon’, Justin Hurwitz
‘The Banshees of Inisherin’, Carter Burwell
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, Son Lux
‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’, Alexandre Desplat
PRODUCTION DESIGN
‘Babylon’, Florencia Martin, Anthony Carlino – Winner
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Christian M. Goldbrick, Ernestine Hipper
‘The Batman’, James Chinlund, Lee Sandales
‘Elvis’, Catherine Martin, Karen Murphy, Bev Dunn
‘Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio’, Curt Enderle, Guy Davis
‘Elvis’, Jason Baird, Mark Coulier, Louise Coulstron, Shane Thomas – Winner
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Heike Marker
‘The Batman’, Naomie Donne, Mike Marino, Zoe Tahir
‘Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical’, Naomie Donne, Barrie Gower, Sharon Martin
‘The Whale’, Anne Marie Bradley, Judy Chin, Adrien Morot
SOUND
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ – Winner
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’
‘Elvis’
‘TÁR’
‘Top Gun: Maverick’
SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS
‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ – Winner
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’
‘The Batman’
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’
‘Top Gun: Maverick’
CASTING
‘Elvis’, Nikki Barrett, Denise Chadian – Winner
‘Aftersun’, Lucy Pardee
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’, Simone Bär
‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’, Sarah Halley Finn
‘Triangle of Sadness’, Pauline Hansson
Hiccup and Toothless from ‘How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.’
Disney had been getting a lot of mileage out of turning its animated classic canon into live-action (and usually live-action/CG mixes) with the likes of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, ‘The Lion King’ and this year’s ‘The Little Mermaid’, it was perhaps only a matter of time before other studios decided to give it a try.
The first to step up are Universal and DreamWorks Animation, who have started work on a live-action adaptation of the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ stories.
Dean DeBlois, who wrote all three films, co-directed the first with Chris Sanders and took on the other two alone, is aboard to write, direct and produce this new film, where he’ll face the unenviable task of bringing central dragon Toothless to life in live-action, and somehow making him as charming as the beloved animated version.
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What’s the story of ‘How to Train Your Dragon?
Adapted from Cressida Cowell’s novel series, which saw its first book hit shelves in 2003, the ‘How to Train Your Dragon’ movies focused on the special friendship between a young and unheroic Viking boy named Hiccup and Toothless, an injured dragon he nurses back to health.
Set in a Viking island-based village called Berk, the story is set in a world where humans see dragons as a problem––either a sheep-stealing nuisance or deadly threat, depending on the type of beast. We followed Hiccup and Toothless’ quest to combat humanity’s prejudice against dragons, the ache of overcoming the loss of a parent, and first love. And uniquely, the films did so by consistently aging the protagonists commensurately with the story, becoming a true coming-of-age story.
The ‘Dragon’ movies have been successful enough to spawn a wealth of merchandise (including a Build-A-Bear Toothless tie-in, clothes, games, toys and more).
And it has also generated several TV spin-offs featuring other dragon riders, which have screened on Cartoon Network, Netflix and Hulu.
Universal clearly believes this is a franchise that can make the leap, and has already planted a flag in March 14th, 2025 for the movie’s theatrical release.
2014’s ‘How to Train Your Dragon 2.’
Other Movies Similar to ‘How to Train Your Dragon:’
