Overview
Returning to her home planet, an infamous outlaw forms an unexpected alliance with a team of unlikely heroes. Together, they battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to find a missing girl who holds the key to unimaginable power.
When first announced, Borderlands looked quite promising. Adapted from the popular, comical sci-fi shooter video game series, the story certainly had enough to play with, and with Leigh Whannell in talks to direct from a screenplay by Craig Mazin, the names attached were good. However Whannell passed on the project, and it fell into the lap of Eli Roth. After a shooting schedule that ended 3 years ago, things went a little quiet until last year Tim Miller stepped on board to conduct some reshoots, with Roth apparently busy making Thanksgiving being the official reason for the switch, before Mazin asked for his name to be scrubbed from the film, replacing it with Joe Crombie. The signs weren’t good. The first trailer landed and looked okay to be fair, despite some casting choices that didn’t feel right for the characters from the game (Kevin Hart as Roland in particular). Preparing to set aside my love of the game to hopefully enjoy a loose adaptation, I settled into my seat for what should have been a fun action comedy. Sadly, that’s not what I was served.
Those unfamiliar with the games needn’t worry about not understanding the lore as a voiceover by Cate Blanchett, who plays Lilith, a bounty hunter who has vowed never to return to the planet of Pandora for, well, reasons, fills out the backstory about the planet and the mythical vault of ancient technology that resides there. Roland, a mercenary soldier, breaks out a teen girl named Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) from an orbital facility run by the Atlas corporation, and along with a psycho soldier named Krieg takes her to the planet to seek the keys to unlock the vault. Coincidence and circumstance lead to the players all joining forces, with robot Claptrap in tow to throw out lines of humor at inopportune moments, whilst the Atlas forces hunt them down. They seek help from researcher Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) as they strive to unlock the lost secrets of the planet, whilst all around them is chaos.
If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the only parts of the film that are fun and work, because the end product is a mess from start to finish. An absolute Frankenstein monster of a film, you can see the messy visions of different people battling with each other on screen with a story that tries hard to be its own thing, separate from the games, but relies on leaning into the game far too much at the same time with locations and character cameos, or pointless tech additions (see the holo-disguises scenes for example, where pretty much everybody recognizes the characters through them). Whatever film Roth had completed three years ago is clearly not what has been delivered, and Miller’s touch is felt throughout trying to force some semblance of fun out of the mess on offer.
The cast all seem to be working against each other, with Blanchett and Curtis coming over as though they didn’t want to be there at all, and were simply taking a payday. This makes it a struggle to connect with the film, particularly as Blanchett is front and center as the primary character. Her flat and bored approach, and a mysterious backstory that isn’t that mysterious really, means that for the majority of the time, even when frenzied action is taking place, everything she does feels a little too staged. There’s no thrill, no fun, and for pretty much all the film I was just sat watching events unfold with a bored expression on my face.
This is usually the point in a negative review where I highlight some positive points, but sadly, the more I think on it the less I can find to offer up. Maybe Greenblatt as Tina? She wasn’t bad – but then again she just seems forcibly crazy, and never feels as unbalanced as the film wants you to believe. Jack Black as Claptrap? Amusing at times, but annoying for the majority. Even the visual style, which initially looked impressive, then has sequences of action that look like they were composed in the 80s (one particular aerial chase sequence is genuinely terrible). Don’t even get me started on Edgar Ramirez as Atlas, possibly the most uninteresting and nonthreatening villain in years.
Clearly sanitized down for a lower rating to hopefully grab a younger audience, Borderlands isn’t close enough to the games for the fans of the property, but also veers too close to the games with nods and winks for the non-gamers. After watching this, much like Lilith, I’d be happy to never venture to Pandora again!