Today, Édgar Ramírez co-stars in a movie that is based on a theme park ride. It's a source of inspiration that has certainly experienced some success, but has seen just as many failures. Apparently Ramírez likes a challenge because soon the actor will be seen in a movie that is also based on a source that has had a difficult road to adaptation: video games. Ramírez will co-star along side Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis and many more in Borderlands, and he's very excited for fans to see the movie, as he believes the film version has captured the game's attitude perfectly.
Being a big fan of theme parks, I was very excited to speak with Édgar Ramírez about Jungle Cruise. But as a longtime player of video games, I also wanted to ask him about the Borderlands movie. Ramirez told me that he's not much of a video game player himself and wasn't that familiar with Borderlands prior to the film. But he found that the games had a particular tone that he fell in love with, and he thinks fans will be happy to see that same combination of humor and darkness represented in the film. According to Ramírez:
In the end, games, movies, it’s all about storytelling. And the most iconic games, such as Borderlands, is the storytelling and the tone of the games what have made them so special. So now I know the game. I didn’t know it before. And the tone is spectacular. I mean it’s so dark and so witty and so whimsical as well. It’s so in on the joke and kind of like impudent. There’s a 'I don’t give a damn' attitude to the game, and that’s what we rescued and put into the movie so I’m very excited for the fans of the game to see it and see how respectful we were to the tone of the game.
The Borderlands games are, at their core, traditional first-person shooters. But beyond that, the games have a sense of humor that most other video games lack. All the characters in the games are over the top and wild, and many of them are also over the top and violent, which is where the humor combines with the darkness that Edgar Ramirez is talking about.
Considering the level of violence in the games, the fact that Eli Roth is the one directing a Borderlands movie maybe shouldn't be that surprising. It's not exactly a horror franchise, but only because the games tend to make death comical.
Edgar Ramirez will play Atlas in the new movie. In the games, Atlas is a company that manufacturers weapons. The insane volume of available weapons, and just the flat-out insane weapons, is another hallmark of the Borderlands games. Traditionally Atlas has not been presented as a person, which means Ramirez's character will be a new addition to the world made specifically for the film. But it sounds like Atlas will fit right in with the rest of the franchise, and fans should look forward to this one.
Borderlands is set to open sometime in 2022.
