Borderlands review

Borderlands would make for a fairly mediocre action sci-fi effort even to those who hadn’t watched its clear rip-off inspiration Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s far worse competition to label it among the worst films of 2024, but it’s easily one you can go through the year (and beyond) skipping and making a smart choice with your precious time.

Director/co-screenwriter Eli Roth and co-screenwriter Joe Abercrombie add another example for the seemingly bottomless pit of failed video game film adaptations. The basic concept isn’t bad so much as the majority of the execution is woefully below average.

Cate Blanchett (Don’t Look Up) stars as Lilith, a bounty hunter tasked with returning to her home world of Pandora to retrieve a young girl, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt, Ahsoka). Tina was kidnapped by a dangerous soldier Roland (Kevin Hart, Me Time) and a menacing powerhouse Krieg (Florian Munteanu, Creed 2) and her father Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) wants her back.

Blanchett has starred in The Lords of the Rings trilogy and had a sensational role in Thor: Ragnarok. She’s a two-time Oscar winner who’s never been afraid to simply star in less serious fare.

Blanchett is the superglue keeping Borderlands remotely watchable with her undeniable screen presence. It’s not hard to see Blanchett kicking serious tale in a fun Netflix action spy movie that the filmmakers don’t take too seriously.

Upon arriving on Pandora, Lilith quickly encounters a chatty robot named Claptrap, voiced by Jack Black, assigned to help her. Claptrap is intended as the heavy comic relief and does fire off a few good one-liners. The problem is they’re the exception from an otherwise quickly annoying and irritating supporting character.

Claptrap is also responsible for one Borderlands’ worst moments as he craps out the various bullets that struck him over the course of the movie. Beyond the legit potty “humor” at play it calls attention to the fact Claptrap doesn’t have any damage to his exterior.

After the prerequisite fight during the initial encounter, Lilith and Claptrap strike an alliance with Roland, Krieg and Tina. To further assist them and to stay away from Atlas’ army, led by Knoxx (Janina Gavankar), Roland brings in Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis). Tannis also has a deep history with Lilith as she helped get her off Pandora at her mother’s request. Can this ragtag crew come together to complete their objective? You betcha, but will viewers be invested? That’s the real question.

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Tina and Krieg are fun heroic chaos agents, but it’s strange watching Hart in a role that is ordinarily suited for a wisecracking, comedic second hero. Instead, Hart plays Roland like a regular soldier of fortune. What exactly is the point of casting Kevin Hart to play a serious role? Character development is minimal so it’s more often Blanchett, Curtis and Greenblatt making more with a scene than what they’re given.

Borderlands has a number of problems, but Daniel Orland’s costume designs are hardly an issue. The look of the characters actually conveys that fun, colorful style of the game. The ragtag crew looks like a fun ensemble even if the script and action let them down.

 

Roth does get the need to make a video game adaptation full of bombastic colors and battleground worthy sets. All of that goodwill is wasted once the action starts.

With this type of film, a heavy burden is placed on the characters playing off each other in crazy, chaotic action scenes. James Gunn showed a mastery of it with his Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. Gunn provided a blueprint that Roth could have followed no problem. Would it have seemed derivative? Sure, but better to be accused of outright ripping off a successful franchise than to try a different spin on a proven formula and completely failing.

The fight scenes don’t look convincing. A big culprit is how the shootouts are staged. Lilith and Roland are getting their John Wick on, but their targets’ reactions barely register. There’s little dramatic impact with them rocketing back or any discernible damage from these massive weapons the heroes are using. It’s like Roth staged a John Wick shootout and then placed a Looney Tunes filter over it. Roth doesn’t make these action sequences short, so their ineffectiveness is even more noticeable.

Borderlands is too uninteresting to bother working up intense loathing for it. This could have been an entertaining video game adaptation, but it’s stuck on dull mode and not even worth starting up.

Rating: 3 out of 10

Photo Credit: Lionsgate

Check out Borderlands 3 on PS5 now on Amazon.

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