Movie Dream Team: BORDERLANDS 2
A couple weeks ago I wrote about what my dream Borderlands movie team would look like. Well, let's continue this crazy train ride into the wasteland that is Pandora.
Borderlands 2 continues the insanity that is this franchise. They ramped up the number of guns to roughly 87 GAZILLION (at least according to the trailer.) If you're at all familiar with this franchise, you're already ready to go for this shindig. For those of you who aren't familiar, Borderlands takes place on a planet called Pandora (yes, there's a box). You play as a Vault Hunter who hunts vaults filled with treasure. Pretty simple stuff. But let's talk about the plot of this glorious fight-fest.
THE PLOT
The story for Borderlands 2 follows a group of vault hunters who are set up by the nefarious Hyperion corporation, who wants to kill them. Following the events of Borderlands (the first one), a strange element called Eridium has begun to grow all over Pandora, and it can do some pretty wild stuff. Handsome Jack wants all the vaults and Eridium for the Hyperion corporation, so he just wantonly kills vault hunters. Pretty good guy, Jack. So these vault hunters you play as survive Jack's little assassination attempt, and as the story progresses you slowly link up with the main heroes of the first installment, which, of course, we would have reprisals from those same actors. So you build a vault key, guided by an AI named Angel (all pretty familiar territory here), then Jack opens the second Vault and behold, there's another giant monster. This one, called The Warrior, is a giant lava, rock, eridium, dragon type of monster, so good fun to be had there. After besting both The Warrior and Handsome Jack, Lilith attempts to destroy the Vault Key. Instead, she opens a giant map of the galaxy, showing the locations of several more vaults.
Ain't no rest for the wicked.
THE DIRECTOR
So I don't think I need to go too much into this, but James Gunn is coming back to helm the second installment in the Borderlands franchise. He's got the skill, the mindset, and the gumption to make this work again.
THE CAST
Along with the list of actors I'd like to return from the first installment, we'll also have several new heroes joining the merry band of vault hunters.
Nathan Fillion as Axton
Nathan Fillion is a wonderful actor. His perfmormances in both Firefly and Castle sold me on this casting immediately. The suggestion actually came from one of our other writers, Bryam. I was initially thinking Michael Fassbender, but after giving it some thought, Fillion is the clear choice. Not that Fassbender couldn't pull this roll off, but Fillion can bring that same kind of mix of seriousness and suave humor that Firefly had, which will fit nicely into the Borderlands universe.
Jennifer Lawrence as Maya
I, like most of America, love Jennifer Lawrence. To me, her best performance so far is definitely Silver Linings Playbook. She's deep and emotional, but also snarky and quick-witted, which works perfectly for Maya! Maya is the more serious of our heroes, with one hell of a dark backstory to reinforce the point of her cynical humor. Besides, who doesn't want to see Lawrence throw out some huge energy explosions!?
Dave Bautista as Salvador
Another recruit from the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise, Dave Bautista proved his acting chops as Drax the Destroyer. Salvador is more of the laughing uproariously while dual wielding machine guns type of guy, but I still see Bautista pulling that off extremely well. This would just be another great opportunity for him to prove to the world that he's more than just a wrestler. Maybe he'll be our next Dwayne Johnson, who knows? But from what I've seen of him in interviews, and off screen appearances, plus his wrestling career, he definitely has what it takes to play this monstrosity of a man.
Ray Park as Zer0
Paul Bettany as Zer0's voice
Ray Park has proven time and again that he is the man for ninja-like stunts. With credits like Star Wars: Episode I, the G.I. Joe franchise, and even a quick turn as Toad in X-Men, Park is more than capable of pulling off the insane acrobatics and swordplay style of Zer0. His voice, however, has still been in few movies, and I see nothing wrong with that. With that in mind, Paul Bettany HAS to be the man for Zer0's voice. With a solid voice acting credit as Jarvis in the Marvel movies, there's more than enough proof to show he has what it takes to play the oh so lovable psychopathic...whatever Zer0 actually is.
John Barrowman as Handsome Jack
This may seem strange at first, but bear with me! Barrowman plays a character a little similar to Jack in Arrow, just less sarcastically. Watching interviews and panels with him, there's no doubt in my mind that he could easily adapt that style of character, add in a bit of his own natural sarcasm and snarkiness, and end up with a solid performance as the main antagonist of this series. Throw in some scenes of him riding around on Butt Stallion (his diamond pony) and you've got yourself an instant hit! Forget the rest of the movie, just give me two hours of John Barrowman on a diamond pony!
With that rounding out the primary cast of Borderlands 2, I feel good about this casting. We've got a couple out of the box calls, but these are solid actors who know their craft and can sell a wacky, somewhat insane script.
What do you guys think? Who would you cast for these roles? Let us know in the comments below!
HONORABLE MENTION
Okay, I don't normally do these, but I had to put this out there for everyone to know.
Terry Crews as Krieg the Psycho
Seriously, though, can you not see this?! Go watch any given Old Spice commercial starring him, and tell me this doesn't work. He's wacky, funny, and already has a constant yelling voice that would be absolutely perfect for yelling such beautifully crafted lines as “I HAVE THE SHINIEST MEAT BICYCLE!” and “LOOOOVE YOOOOU.” This had to be said, so you enjoy that image for a bit.