With Fallout, The Super Mario Bros Movie, and The Last of Us, video game adaptations seemed to be leaving a long history of disappointments behind them. The hope was that Borderlands, with an A-list cast like Cate Blanchett, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black, would continue the trend, but unfortunately, not all good things last forever and this one is a huge bummer. The first mistake was not taking inspiration from its counterparts listed above and going the miniseries route. After all, Borderlands is a series with multiple games, an immersive planet worth exploring, and characters that, if given enough time to flesh out their backstories, will grow on you a little.
Writer-director Eli Roth didn’t pay that much attention to the film, as he apparently reworked the entire movie after he didn’t like the script by Last of Us writer Craig Mazin. In fact, it became such a mess that rumors have it that filmmaker Tim Miller had to step in and do extensive reshoots to cobble the film together like Frankenstein. And considering that half of the film’s plot and pacing make no sense, you can tell. It’d be like asking your mom if you can watch Guardians of the Galaxy and your mom promptly responding, “We have Guardians of the Galaxy at home.” Hell, I’d argue half the cast thought they were in a completely different movie, especially poor Blanchett, who finds herself in what is probably the worst film of her career. She’s pretty much the only one who can salvage even a shred of integrity in this mindless wasteland of a film, though.
She plays Lilith, who grew up on Pandora (no, not Pandora), where it’s overrun by bandits, madmen and assassins trying to find a hidden vault filled with technology left behind by an ancient alien civilization. Now she’s a bounty hunter for hire, and early in the film she’s offered a huge payday to rescue Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt, of “Barbie” fame), a teenager rumored to be the offspring of a wealthy, villainous capitalist (Edgar Ramirez).
When she arrives on her home planet, she’s forced to team up with a crew of unlikely allies. They include R2-D2 wannabe droid Claptrap, who is voiced passably by Black; the obligatory loud-mouthed rebel merc Roland (Hart – looking lost and confused); and then there’s the team’s bodyguard Kreig (Florian Munteanu), who is desperate to make you cool by bringing up memories of Drax or Bane (as the kids say, he doesn’t have the oomph). And finally, there’s a mad scientist named Tannis, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, whose high, squeaky voice might be the worst thing I’ve seen all year.
And despite this collection of talent, Borderlands rarely inspires laughs or intrigue. The crew simply doesn’t have the camaraderie (or the storytelling threads) to sustain themselves. The same goes for the film’s muddy visual effects. It really says something that you can Google the game and immediately find a more vibrant, colorful setting than what Roth decided to put on screen. Despite having a vast and rich source material to draw on, Borderlands finds itself in the pantheon of terrible video game adaptations that just make you want to go home and fire up the game console in hopes of washing the bad taste out of your mouth.
BORDERLANDS is now in theaters.
