These last few years, it seemed like we had finally made a turn on the video game adaptation curse. Between the surprisingly decent Super Mario Bros. Movie grossing over a billion dollars and shows like The Last of Us and Arcane racking up multiple Emmys, things were finally on the up. Unfortunately, we’ve received a grim reminder of those dark ages in the form of the Borderlands adaptation.
Plans to adapt Gearbox’s popular looter-shooter go as far back as 2015 when Saw and Insidious co-creator Leigh Whannell was attached at one point. Over the course of nine years, we would see the Borderlands adaptation deal with a very troubled development, from Eli Roth taking over directing duties, to Chernobyl writer Craig Mazin removing his name from the film’s script to extensive reshoots done by Deadpool director Tim Miller over 2 years after the films initial 2021 shoot. The end result is a total mess that does nothing right on almost any discernible level.
The movie centers on Lilith (Cate Blanchett), a bounty hunter who has to return to her home planet — the lawless wasteland of Pandora — after being hired by uber-rich CEO Atlas (Édgar Ramirez) to track down his estranged daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). Tina potentially holds the key to Pandora’s fabled Vault, rumoured to contain incredible treasures.
Upon arriving on Pandora, Lilith tracks down the teen, but instead of sending her right back to dear ol’ dad, she reluctantly decides to join Tina’s search for the Vault alongside a ragtag crew: wanted mercenary Roland (Kevin Hart), hulking psycho Krieg (Florian Munteanu), neurotic doctor Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) and insufferably chatty robot Claptrap (Jack Black). Before they can make it to the Vault, they’ll have to go through Pandora’s wildlife, hordes of raving bandits and Atlas’ private army, the Crimson Lance.
“Simply put, Borderlands is a colossal failure.”
Never have I seen a movie so deeply miscast from top to bottom as Borderlands. Sure, there are bonafide A-listers and Oscar winners, but none of the actors look like they want to be there. The casting wouldn’t even be as much of an issue if there were any chemistry between the actors, but there isn’t any to begin with. Cate Blanchett is one of the best actresses of our time, but you couldn’t tell here with the way she phones it in as Lilith, a character whose personality in the film can be reduced to “active disinterest.”
The rest of the characters’ unique traits have also been sanded down to near non-existence. Kevin Hart’s portrayal of Roland is essentially just a slightly toned-down Kevin Hart, which doesn’t work with the stoic, straight-man persona Roland is. Krieg’s interesting quirk — where his fractured psyche would turn what he is trying to say and what he actually says into two very different things — is gone, reducing him to a mostly quiet heavy who occasionally says a violent non-sequitur for comic effect. The worst victim of this is Tiny Tina, whose unhinged, outsized personality that made her a fan-favourite to begin with is reduced to just yet another generic, snarky teenager, courtesy of Ariana Greenblatt’s bland performance.
“The only remotely positive aspect of the entire film is that, at the very least, Borderlands has some solid costume and set design that manages to replicate the cel-shaded look of the games.”
Claptrap and Tannis are the only major characters whose personalities remain mostly intact, but Jamie Lee Curtis is given barely anything to do beyond exposition and not even Jack Black can make Claptrap any less annoying than he already is. Gina Gershon as bartender Mad Moxxi and Benjamin Byron Davis (aka Dutch from the Red Dead games) as greedy salesman Marcus are the only other characters that feel both interesting and true to their game characters, but both appear on screen for no more than five minutes total.
Lilith’s active disinterest extends to Eli Roth and Joe Crombie’s screenplay itself, which is about as tired as a sci-fi movie can get. As a long-time fan of the series, I would be the first to tell you that outside of Borderlands 2 and Telltale spin-off Tales From The Borderlands, a deep story is not the series’ strong suit. However, what those games lack in story, they replace with a very crude sense of humour and a whole lot of guns. It makes it all the more confusing why an adaptation of an M-rated video game series directed by a guy who mostly makes R-rated films would aim for a PG-13 rating.
“Not even the objectively great sight of Cate Blanchett dual-wielding pistols can make any of Borderlands cool or even memorable.”
All the jokes are bland, and the action is woefully unimpressive. Not even the objectively great sight of Cate Blanchett dual-wielding pistols can make any of Borderlands cool or even memorable. The rest of the movie runs the gamut of Macguffins, “chosen one” narratives, plot reveals done a million times better elsewhere, and attempts at making a “found family” between these characters that don’t feel the slightest bit believable. Even the needle drops feel tired. There’s no reason to still be using The Heavy’s How You Like Me Now in 2024.
The only remotely positive aspect of the entire film is that, at the very least, Borderlands has some solid costume and set design that manages to replicate the cel-shaded look of the games. However, even that doesn’t work in the movie’s favour; it all just looks like celebrities participating in a Borderlands-themed escape room instead of an actual movie.
Simply put, Borderlands is a colossal failure. When it comes to video game movies, the hope is that it satisfies long-time fans of the game while attracting a new audience. In Borderlands’ case, it fails in both cases. Long-time fans will hate it due to how it fails to capture even a bit of the charm of the games, and casual fans will just be bored and go rewatch Guardians of the Galaxy instead.
