Just when I thought I’d found 2024’s worst film with Duchess, along comes Borderlands to challenge it for the title. It’s the inevitable rock bottom of patronising, disingenuous cash grabs that the modern homogenisation of blockbuster cinema has been building to. Watching it was like taking a road trip with several screeching children in the back. Irritating barely covers it.
Based on the video game of the same name, the film is directed and co-written by Eli Roth, best known for directing gore-fests like Hostel and Thanksgiving. Set centuries in the future, bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is given an assignment on her home planet of Pandora. A powerful corporate magnate named Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) wants her to find and return his kidnapped daughter Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), who has been captured by a mercenary named Roland (Kevin Hart).
Lilith initially refuses the assignment as she is wary of returning to Pandora. Those who return are often in search of an elusive vault; one where the powers of an ancient race, the Eridians, supposedly dwell. But after some wonky violence and a crass conversation, Lilith is on the job. When she finally tracks down Tina and Roland it becomes clear that Atlas is only interested in the Eridian vault. Thus, the three of them, and some other colourful characters, team up to beat Atlas to the vault.
Media adaptations of video games have a rocky history. While there has been the occasional good one – HBO’s The Last of Us even being excellent – most of them flounder as the interactive appeal of their source material cannot be translated into the inherently non-interactive cinematic medium. I’ve never played the Borderlands game, but based on the expansive world and bright colours seen in the film, it seems like an ideal open world game where immersion and interaction is its bread and butter. Instead this film opts for a shallow concoction of dying trends and obnoxious traits. Borderlands is the bastard child of a C-tier Marvel instalment and the janky filmmaking of 2016’s Suicide Squad. It’s all quip and no bite.
A typical review might use this writing space to list the various things wrong with the film – be it the acting, writing, visuals etc. These aspects are extremely poor, but they are small fish compared to the film’s fundamental issue: its insincerity. Borderlands has no emotional resonance, thematic prowess or entertainment value, and this is because it has no earnest appreciation for itself or the video game it’s adapting. It trades in any unique qualities the game may have had for a tried and tested formula that has informed not only the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but far too many other blockbusters attempting to replicate its style – a formula that audiences are now wising up to and rejecting. It’s a film crafted by algorithms and studio data rather than passion or honesty. It’s cinematic fakery.
This cynicism poisons the chalice so completely that it can be seen everywhere. The story is the search for macguffins as the characters wander around the landscape constantly professing how much they dislike each other. There is no warmth or chemistry between any of them; their disdain generates bitterness rather than ironic endearment. The dialogue consists largely of insults, delinquent banter and prolonged punchlines. Jack Black’s character, a pessimistic robot named Claptrap, is effectively just a mouthpiece for this migraine-inducing humour, which includes an unbearably long poop joke. He completely lacks the charm or zaniness that has defined his best performances. Blanchett, a formidable actor, looks out of place with her stoic, minimalist expressions, and bizarre costuming that looks more at home at Comic-Con than on screen. This is true of the rest of the acting ensemble as well. Hart and Jamie Lee Curtis look confused in their roles, and Greenblatt, who was so good in Barbie and Ahsoka, is short-changed by the obnoxious dialogue, making her role as the child sidekick surprisingly bland where the others are annoying. At least Florian Munteanu gets to preserve his dignity behind a mask.
The CGI that informs the action and settings are certainly colourful, but they’re just as fake as the performances and emotions. While scenes of conversations are dully captured through bog-standard shot countershot techniques, the action scenes incorporate so many rapid cutaways that it threatens to induce whiplash. Perhaps that was to try and obfuscate the obvious greenscreen and cluttered production design, which looks like Tatooine’s junkyard. It’s the cinematic equivalent of waltzers – it moves so fast that there’s no room to discern anything other than bright lights. That is except for the sequence in which our misfits drive through a wasteland made entirely of urine and faeces. Rare for a film to contain such a fitting metaphor.
Eli Roth’s ultraviolent style is an acquired taste, but the film really could’ve done with embracing more of his characteristics. Given that the game is a first person shooter, heavily stylised violence, akin to something like Kick-Ass, would’ve not only suited the film, but given Roth room to channel his own idiosyncrasies, rather than the autopilot detachment that informs the film’s direction. In fact, the film was allegedly meant to be more bombastic and extreme in earlier drafts, elements that have evidently been traded in for what we have now. Craig Mazin, writer of hits such as Chernobyl and the aforementioned The Last of Us, was the additional co-writer, but he took his name off the project and replaced it with the pseudonym Joe Crombie. Whatever ingenuity or thematic heart Mazin may have brought to the initial draft is nowhere to be found here, this 12A sanitising possibly being a contributor to his decision to leave.
It depresses me when I think of the half dozen or more films that could’ve been made with the $120 million budget squandered on this utter porridge of a picture. Movies are great escapism and are at their most rewarding when they are unfeigned in their desire to share excitement or emotional resonance. Films like Borderlands, which neglect resonance in favour of faux excitement determined by trends rather than sincerity, completely fail to capture both the appeal of the source material and the imagination of the audience. It is a loud, bloated, unequivocally vacuous work of drivel. Here’s hoping everyone, including myself, moves on and forgets about this disaster of capitalist greed in good time.
Borderlands is in cinemas now
Rating: 
Director: Eli Roth
Writers: Eli Roth & Joe Crombie
Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramirez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis
Runtime: 102 minutes
Country: USA
