Fans of film and games are sure to be disappointed in easily one of the year’s worst films, Borderlands.
This review contains spoilers for the film Borderlands.
Video game-to-film adaptations seem to be released more frequently now than ever with varying qualities. Last year had the financial success of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, grossing over $1.3B at the worldwide box office. In comparison, the year prior had the critical failure and financial success of Uncharted grossing over $406M, and Sonic The Hedgehog 2 grossing $405M. These three films haven’t been critical darlings though. With Uncharted being abysmal and the other two I mentioned being just fine. Unfortunately, the worst of them all is upon us.
Borderlands is a looter-shooter first-person action franchise with three mainline titles and one spinoff focusing on the character of Tiny Tina, these games over the past 15 years have gained a decently large following, including myself. With zany characters, cartoony graphics, and fun gameplay where you constantly swap between the powerful guns you have gained on your journey to perform combos and deal more damage to your enemies, there was plenty for players to love.
The 2024 film adaptation of the franchise Borderlands has none of this. From the opening establishing shot of a poorly CGI-rendered planet, I knew I was in trouble. As our main protagonist, Lillith (Cate Blanchett) begins to narrate, she informs the audience of a technologically advanced race of humans called the Aridians, who possess special powers were wiped out, now everyone on the planet of Pandora hunt for their lost technology in a hidden vault, hoping to gain riches.
First off, as a long-time fan of the games, this is the beginning of the mistakes the film makes of its source material’s lore. In the games, they are always opened by the character, Marcus, who narrates the story and informs the player of the world. In the film, his character is a glorified cameo. He has two scenes, one of which includes the only mention of certain guns in the game’s world, and the other is a prior sequence of picking Lillith up in his trademark bus.
With the Borderlands videogame franchise being a looter-shooter, naturally, you will encounter plenty of weapons to use on your enemies. Gaining new weapons consistently throughout the story is a pillar of what Borderlands is. You would think the film would include the characters constantly encountering new weapons and using them on their journey, right? Well, they don’t. Every character in the film uses the same weapon throughout the entire runtime, except for brief moments when Jamie Lee Curtis’ Dr. Tannis takes Roland’s (Kevin Hart) gun, and when Lillith hands Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) a pistol.
With this core aspect of the source material missing, the poorly shot action sequences become even more boring than they already are since the characters aren’t encountering any of the iconic means of destruction from the games. On top of this, when the bloodless action setpieces are happening, the characters are constantly cracking jokes with each other to embarrassingly poor results. But the deeper problem is that none of the cast members have any chemistry with each other.
A major plot point in the film that they made up is the parental-like dynamic that develops between Lillith and Tiny Tina during the story. This falls completely flat on its face as from frame one you can tell Cate Blanchett wants nothing to do with this film. It seems the ending of “TÁR” foreshadowed this mess. Blanchett is one of the best actresses of all time and yet her performance is completely phoned in, the same can be said for the rest of the cast besides Ariana Greenblatt as she seemed truly excited to be there. While Greenblatt’s charisma is felt throughout, sadly she cannot elevate the awful dialogue given to her. It’s a shame to see such great actors be so miscast and wasted.
Kevin Hart’s Roland is given absolutely nothing to do in the story. As Hart is known for his comedic chops, he isn’t allowed to be funny in the film as his character is the straight man of the group. Even Jamie Lee Curtis, who is coming off of an Oscar win for her performance in “Everything Everywhere All At Once”, is completely wasted as she is completely laughable as a mad scientist who is obsessed with the contents of the Vault.
Then, Florian Munteanu from the “Creed” films plays the character Krieg who is the poster boy of the video games. Krieg in the film is a poor adaptation of who he is in the games. None of his hilariously insane lines from the game are uttered, and he barely speaks, making this portrayal a husk of who the character is.
Finally, there is Jack Black (School of Rock, The Super Mario Bros. Movie) as the even more iconic robot sidekick Claptrap, who might be the worst in the group. I adore Jack Black, he is a hilarious actor who brings energy to his roles unlike any other actor, but none of that energy is allowed to be brought out due to him being this character. The only Jack Black energy we get from Claptrap is a laughable shot of him throwing two soldiers down a mineshaft, only to strike a Kung Fu Panda pose, as the camera quickly zooms into his face.
As our cast of chemistry-less characters voyages across Pandora, the audience’s eyeballs are assaulted by some of the worst-looking CGI and production design. Ultimately, this comes across as a PG-13 Spy Kids film due to the horrendous visuals of the planet. The entire world is colored in a burnt orange, which while sort of true to the games, it is never this abrasive. Everyone’s costumes looked like they were bought at Party City, the sets looked like they were made with cardboard, there is an Axe body spray can on a table during one of the bar scenes, and a crewmember is shown when the characters lift up a door.
All of this is a testament to how nobody cared while making this film, it is no surprise Avi Arad produced this unfaithful excuse of an adaptation as he also produced the awful Uncharted film, amongst other misfires. Even the director Eli Roth, didn’t return to reshoot half of the movie he helped doom in the first place.
Borderlands is an awful excuse for a movie made with no respect to the source material, with every trope in the book including “You didn’t have a plan?”, “Well it worked, didn’t it?”, or “You and what army?”, “The one right behind me.” is even more evidence to how trite this film is. This is a film that should be avoided at all costs, as I can’t imagine anybody over the age of 5 getting any enjoyment out of this.
Borderlands was directed by Eli Roth with reshoots being directed by Tim Miller, written by Eli Roth, the film stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Jack Black. It was released on August 9th, 2024 by Lionsgate.
