Borderlands Review
While movies and TV shows based on video games are slowly making themselves known for quality and commitment to their source material, ‘Borderlands’ comes along and remains fans of how it used to be, as this phoned in attempt washes up into cinemas. Initially announced in 2015 and mostly filmed in 2021, the film presented can’t deliver on any front, other than wasting an hour and forty one minutes for any audience member unlucky enough to witness the trainwreck.
Cate Blanchett inexplicably stars in the film as Lilith, appearing alongside Hollywood hard hitters like Jamie Lee Curtis as Dr. Patricia Tannis, Kevin Hart as Roland, Jack Black as Claptrap, and Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina. It’s difficult to understand why any of these extremely talented people are in this film, they all sleepwalk through it without giving any effort. Kevin Hart and Jack Black are unable to deliver any of their trademark comedy or charisma, but that’s likely due to a script that sucks any and all life out of them.
And wow, the script. It’s really a work of art in itself, a testament to man’s stupidity and willingness to bow to corporate masters. It delivers a dialled back and rote story from a franchise well known for its zaniess, and does it with a sterile feel, washing out the R rated dialogue and violence that ‘Borderlands’ is known for. The jokes are a disaster, failing to rise to the level of even the B material that Marvel Studios produces. It’s likely that everyone on the film knew this, as one of the film’s writers, Joe Crombie, is highly likely to be a pseudonym so doesn’t even want their identity known. It’s easy to understand why.
Characters are poorly written, and in this there’s no greater example than Claptrap. The robot just won’t shut up, failing to understand the basic value of silence for even a minute. He’s so annoying that audiences will want to punt the character into one of Pandora’s many trash piles and leave him there, and they’ll come to that conclusion right after they meet him, nevermind about the rest of the film.
Pandora itself looks ugly, and not in the way that the set designers intended either. It’s very obvious in parts that this was just a quarry with trash,and some of the CGI to try and dress up this fact is laughably bad. Audiences spend most of the film here, and while it’s core to the location to the game that it is a hellscape, it has no style. It again feels phoned in.
The film’s chief bad guy Atlas, played by Édgar Ramírez, is equally bland. He’s barely present for most of the film, and when he drops in for the final fight he comically shows off his personal shields like they were some gadgets at a trade show, and has a very unceremonious death, as he’s yanked off-screen by a non-descript monster. This monster that the characters don’t fight, they instead just walk out the room. It’s extremely anti-climactic.
It’s this blasé attitude that permeates the film, as Blanchett’s Lilith keeps reminding audiences that she’s both uninterested in the main quest and too old for it, both wearing out their welcome after even the first time. Characters are never in any peril, and never does a victory feel hardwon. Instead everyone meekly shuffles from plotpoint to plotpoint, dragging the audience with them, until they arrive and walk away from the finale.
If ‘Borderlands’ teaches audiences one thing, it’s that while Hollywood studios are slowly getting a better understanding of video games, they still won’t hesitate to hollow out a game’s identity to turn out a soulless, phoned in and overall detestable film. From concept to execution, ‘Borderlands’ is a complete calmity.
