By As the writer with the most knowledge of video games at Flixist, it usually falls on me to watch and review any video game adaptations that might be released. Typically speaking, that’s a really bad thing and I wind up wasting some of my precious time on this planet rolling my eyes that incompetent filmmaking. Other times, you get decent stuff that wouldn’t embarrass you to say you watched and enjoyed. There are even rarer times when a film is pretty good and stands as a shining example of translating an interactive medium into a passive one.
Borderlands is not that time. No, this is far worse. While it probably isn’t the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to video games jumping to the silver screen, this is unquestionably the worst film I’ve ever spent money on. A thoroughly soulless, joyless, unexciting mess of a film that not only completely misunderstands the franchise it is adapting, but somehow can’t even get basic elements of Screenwriting 101 correct.
If you really must watch Borderlands, do yourself a favor and wait until it’s free on some streaming service. I would advise against doing even that, though, as I could reenact the entire movie for you and it would probably look and sound better.
Borderlands
Director: Eli Roth
Release Date: August 9, 2024 (US)
Rating: PG-13
I was toying with the idea of writing this review with as much thought and care as was put into the screenplay for Borderlands, but I don’t think anyone wants to read a review that has no cohesive gel. In a lot of ways, Borderlands seems like a throwback to the kind of garbage Uwe Boll was directing with the filmmakers failing to realize that nobody is nostalgic for those types of “films.” It’s honestly kind of impressive how little this movie has going for it with the best aspect being that the costumes are at least pretty game-accurate.
Borderlands begins with a shot of Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) stuck in a holding cell while the door begins to pound. Some type of riot is happening outside and while the idea is to scare the audience, we already know from just the film’s poster that nothing bad is going to happen. After a minute or so, Roland (Kevin Hart) busts in to save Tina and we get a quick, dirty, darkly lit, and barely intelligible action scene that sets up a few plot points. Tina is the daughter of Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) and he is hiring random mercenaries to retrieve her. Apparently, Roland has gone rogue and is helping her escape.
Flash over to a different planet and we catch up with Lilith (Cate Blanchett), a bounty hunter who is seemingly checked out of life, itself. She delivers a bounty to some bar and is approached by Atlas to “rescue” his daughter on the planet Pandora. Lilith has a history on that planet and would rather not return, but a flash of a bunch of dollar signs piques her interest and she accepts the contract. It’s not even a minute before she’s landing on the planet and we get introduced to Claptrap (Jack Black), a rather annoying little robot that has been waiting 36 years for Lilith to show up. That doesn’t get explained for now, but the two pal around to find Tina and get this film going.
© Lionsgate
I suppose to spin some of this in a positive light, Borderlands wastes absolutely zero time getting you into its story. The story has more holes than a slice of Swiss, but the first 15 minutes move at a lightning speed that might make your head spin. The main problem with all of this is that the majority of dialogue in Borderlands is exposition. I get that Lilith is a social recluse and something of a bitch, but there isn’t a lick of personality or character development in the first act. The only two credited writers, Eli Roth and Joe Abercrombie, likely couldn’t be fussed to do any research into her character, but then the main Borderlands series isn’t exactly a bastion of quality writing.
Once Lilith catches up with Tina, we have a “fake out” where she assumes Tina is coming with her only for it to erupt into an action scene. Again, I have to give the film some props here because all of this happens in under 30 minutes. You can see everything the film has to offer, how incompetent it is at delivering it, and still have time to get a refund.
So, Lilith brandishes her guns to deal with some psychos, this universe’s take on bandits from Mad Max or any other kind of post-apocalyptic piece of fiction, and it’s just flat, ugly, and weightless. There is such a reliance on CGI here that I’m convinced no one was in the same room when staging these sequences. The guns sound limp, the “stunts” barely constitute any movement, and the explosions look like something you could find on a royalty-free website for your personal YouTube channel. Also, there isn’t a single bit of violence because this movie is PG-13 rated. Fun…
© Lionsgate
Anyway, Lilith survives the onslaught and catches back up with Tina just in time for Commander Knoxx (Janina Gavankar) to show up. Apparently, Atlas has hired a mercenary group to track his daughter down and it starts to click with Lilith that he’s not a good guy -shock and awe-. Roland then shows up with Tina’s bodyguard, Krieg (Florian Munteanu), and they drive away. I can’t believe anyone with access to the internet and the ability to stream Mad Max: Fury Road would think this chase sequence looked good, but it looks even worse considering we just saw Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga not even three months ago.
This ragtag group of heroes is now on the run and the film shifts into a mode similar to Jurassic Park, just without the groundbreaking CGI and actual character arcs. No, Borderlands is more concerned with showing off its sometimes-solid-looking sets, pretty good costumes, and what it assumes is comedy. Fans of the games will know that the robot Claptrap is known for running his mouth at the wrong time and making funny little comments as you’re journeying around. While Jack Black gives a decent enough performance here, the writing lets him down entirely. Nothing he says is funny, insightful, or even pertinent to the action on screen. He just exists.
I would say he brings the movie down, but that’s not true. Everything else about this film, from its casting to its brainless action, undoes what could be a decent premise. While this film completely butchers the lore from the games, I’m not opposed to seeing an older take on Lilith learning to open her heart a bit and help others. The only sort of hook this film has is that Lilith lost her mother at a young age and that she might be projecting some kind of motherly instinct onto Tina, but then I thought back to how Aliens wonderfully set up that kind of arc for Ripley and I realize I’m giving this movie too much credit.
© Lionsgate
Lilith is the closest thing this film has to a character as everyone else exists to vomit dialogue at the audience and then move along. At one point, the group heads to Mad Moxxi’s (Gina Gershon) bar and she exists as a MacGuffin. There is some talk of Lilith’s mom being friends with her and Moxxi knowing some sort of secret, but that doesn’t matter. We need to get to a darkly lit hallway where the blocking for characters makes no sense, the guns flash the screen so often you can’t make out what is happening, and the licensed soundtrack kicks in with a song that feels completely out of place. I don’t know how Borderlands made me groan at hearing “Ace of Spades,” but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.
That’s really the gist of things, too. I could continue describing the “plot” and what happens next, but then I’m just repeating what the movie does. Maybe I’ve spoiled myself lately by watching some of Michael Mann’s filmography, but when did having clear motivations and expertly-paced action become so hard to pull off? I wouldn’t expect Borderlands to have a nightclub shootout like in Collateral, but just borrowing some of the dialogue that Jamie Foxx and Tom Cruise had would have been excellent. This concept is ripe for characters pondering about philosophy while also going on a bizarre journey on a foreign planet.
I think that is ultimately what surprised me the most: Borderlands tries its damnedest to not feel like a video game movie. Everything looks on point and there are a couple of locales taken from the first Borderlands game, but this is a weirdly grounded story for a series that has sold itself on bazillions of guns, gallons of gore, and a cel-shaded art style. The PG-13 rating was a tremendously bad call, but even with that in place, the only time this movie attempts to replicate its inspiration is in the finale.
© Lionsgate
Now, the humor here might work for some people, but there isn’t much in the way of setups or punchlines for the writing. Most of the comedy comes from characters being frustrated with each other and the situation and it creates a dour atmosphere. I wasn’t laughing along with their suffering because it simply felt like I was suffering with them. I was exhausted by the mid-point and simply wanted the movie to just shut up and let the action do the talking… except the action is somehow worse.
Even so, this could have worked as a movie if there was just some sort of motivation for its characters. When the only growth you get is Lilith transforming into her character from Borderlands 2, then I don’t know what else to say. It doesn’t feel earned, it certainly wasn’t foreshadowed in any convincing manner if you’re unfamiliar with the source material, and it does nothing to change how you view Lilith.
When the credits started to roll, I was truly flabbergasted by Borderlands. I can’t believe in 2024 after we’ve had not only good video game films but wildly successful ones, that we’d somehow return to the early 00s style of adaptations. I would really like to know the type of blackmail that Lionsgate has on Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis because it has to be dark for them to agree to this slop.
© Lionsgate
My only hope after exiting the theater is that Borderlands bombs out at the box office this weekend. While I normally wouldn’t want a film to fail as there are certainly people putting in hard work and trying their best to entertain audiences, there is no reason to see a film like this anymore. Video games are an art form that deserves just as much respect as films, novels, albums, etc. Movies like Borderlands only work to reinforce the tired stereotype that gaming is for idiots and children.
We can not only do better than this travesty, but we deserve better.
