Borderlands is sadly in the running for one of the worst films of the year after taking nearly a decade to get off the ground.
Based on a popular series of video games with fun looter-shooter mechanics and a fresh space Western setting, Eli Roth’s feature-length adaptation runs the concept dry with flaccid action set pieces, painful dialogue and characters you’ll be glad to see the back of.
We follow bounty hunter Lilith (inexplicably played by a bored Cate Blanchett), who’s tasked by Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), the wooden founder of the galaxy’s most powerful corporation, to retrieve his irritating daughter Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) who’s been kidnapped by rogue soldier Roland (Kevin Hart).
Once on the desolate planet Pandora, Lilith gets more than she signed up for when her simple fetch quest turns into a battle to restore balance to the galaxy.
What follows is one of the most derivative and nauseatingly annoying blockbusters in recent memory, with action scenes that will make you yearn for the competence of Mad Max and characters trying and dismally failing to evoke the heart and humour of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Everything about Borderlands feels like a lesser version of what came before, a side effect of video games that understandably pay more attention to mechanics and level design than world-building and narrative that’s made painfully obvious when condensed to a (mercifully short) hour-and-a-half runtime.
It begins with monotonous narration explaining the over-complicated stakes of the fictional galaxy that then continue over dry action scenes, playing like a trailer for a video game you’ll play once and immediately forget about (I have it on good authority that the actual games are much better).
Once the story proper begins, each scene is punctuated with quips that sound like jokes but never actually score any genuine laughs. A particular ‘witty’ comeback made me stop to try and work out if it actually made sense for so long that I missed yet another swathe of expository dialogue about 40 minutes in.
Meanwhile, as the script is barely trying at all, the ensemble cast (which also includes Jamie Lee Curtis’ scientist Patricia Tannis and boxer Florian Munteanu as a ‘Psycho’ named Krieg) fits the very definition of trying too hard.
Everyone is dressed as if they set their character creation settings to random and slammed the ‘obnoxious’ slider up to maximum, except Hart who for some reason is dressed like a buttoned-up Tom of Finland. And, almost impressively, no one is giving a good performance.
At least Tom Holland’s Nathan Drake is mildly charismatic and the heroes of Sonic the Hedgehog are colourful and cute. Lilith’s fiery red hair and dazzling jacket, on the other hand, can’t make up for the fact Blanchett looks as if she’d rather be literally anywhere else.
Instead, the busy costumes and cheap sets hilariously make the cast look like a group of overenthusiastic roleplayers trying to find their way out of the world’s worst theme park escape room. Greenblatt’s ‘Tiny Tina’ may be the worst offender, with bunny ears, exploding soft toys and catchphrases straight out of a cartoon, but she at least has her winning performance from last year’s Barbie to prove the best of her is yet to come.
One might expect her experienced co-stars to offer a little more depth, but this largely isn’t the case. Hart is as irritating as ever, without the cushion of Jumanji’s fun setting and more compelling supporting cast to soften the blow, but Black’s incessantly chirpy robot Claptrap manages to outdo him at every turn.
All too often the action will grind to a halt for a phoned-in, foul-mouthed bomb from the lackadaisical mascot while the core cast looks on, presumably at empty space on set, just as baffled as the audience. Maybe this plays well for die-hard fans of the games but, considering the franchise has since moved on to graphic novel-inspired spin-offs and solo outings for Tiny Tina, it may be too little too late.
For the rest of us, Borderlands is just too unbearable and confusing to even recommend as ‘so bad it’s good’ cinema. There are a handful of moments that would be destined for the bad movie Hall of Fame in the unlikely event anyone actually sees it, but this is yet another video game adaptation that doesn’t level up the genre.
Borderlands is in cinemas now.
