Borderlands
Technically, this is a movie.
Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Florian Munteanu, and Ariana Greenblatt watch their careers hit rock bottom in Eli Roth's Borderlands.
On the wasteland planet of Pandora, a treasure awaits anyone brave enough to find it. Legend has it that a sacred vault filled with mystical tech and riches is hidden somewhere on the planet. Thousands have looked for the vault but found death instead. The planet is filled with terrifying monsters, psychotic killers, and exploding stuffed bunnies.
When bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is tasked with retrieving the daughter of a wealthy arms dealer and industrialist, she must return to her childhood home of Pandora. But the job isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Soon, Lilith and a ragtag team are involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse. The only way out is to find the vault.
Why are all the terrible sci-fi worlds named Pandora?
While it’s true that I’ve never played the game, I brought my in-house videogame expert to the screening. Here are the results: I thought Borderlands was an embarrassment to film. My expert found it insulting to the spirit of the game. The Borderlands videogame is a hard-R role-playing first-person looter shooter that thrives on crude humor, gore, and action. Borderlands the movie is a bland PG-13 snoozefest that captures neither the grit of the game nor the humor.
But the film isn’t just a failure as an adaptation, it’s barely classifiable as a movie. Director Eli Roth, who is at least infamous for his predilections toward graphic content, has created a movie so boring, so utterly devoid of personality that Bob Hoskins’ soul can rest easy knowing he no longer stars in the worst videogame adaptation of all time. Having Roth adapt a videogame that features gratuitous language and gore should have been a no-brainer, but the studio neutered him with a PG-13 rating, which means what we now have is a “kid-friendly” action movie that’s a cacophony of nothing.
The cinematography is hideous. Occasionally, Roth steals a shot from a better movie but warps the shot is meaningless in the context of the film. The CGI is on par with the scenes George Lucas shoved into the original Star Wars trilogy to “modernize” it before rereleasing it in theaters. Borderlands looks like most of its effects were done via an Instagram filter. Most of the time the camera sits at odd angles, with objects obscuring faces. It’s a ponderously sloppy job, though I do appreciate Roth’s commitment to showing off cleavage whenever he possibly can.
Usually, in lackluster movies, the performances pull the film back from being a disaster. Josh Hartnett just did his level best to keep Trap from igniting into a full dumpster fire. Sadly, the acting in Borderlands might push this flick from action to tragedy…
Never has there been such a star-studded cast all lining up to cash a quick paycheck. Inflation must be bad if it’s reduced two-time Oscar winner Blanchett to the worst performance of her career (and yes, I’m counting that Ukrainian scientist she played in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Blanchett wanders through her scenes as if she took an Ambien before each take. Her American accent is flat, but her expressions are flatter. It’s a cringe-worthy performance and hopefully, she made a ton of money, so she won’t have to do this again.
The rest of the cast ranges from forgettable to annoying. Kevin Hart goes against type as Roland, a soldier who is out to protect a little girl. His performance is one-note and forgettable, which may work to his advantage in this mess. The only bright spot is Jack Black, who seems to make a habit of being the best part of blah videogame adaptations. Black voices the robot Claptrap, which uses Black’s zany nature to at least distract from whatever is happening on screen.
If you’re a fan of Roth’s brand of torture porn, you won’t find it here. If you’re a fan of the video games this movie is based on, you’ll be sadly disappointed. In fact, Borderlands: Game of the Year Edition is available for purchase for $18 from Amazon for your PS4 or Xbox. If you bought it, immediately snapped it in half, and then set the pieces on fire, it would still be a better use of your money than buying a ticket to this movie.
Verdict: It’s awful and everyone should be embarrassed.
Borderlands is rated PG-13 and is available in theaters August 9.
