JP Nunez
I’ve never played a Borderlands game. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen anybody play one of these games, so I’m a complete newbie to the franchise. I can’t tell you how the movie compares to the source material, and I have no idea if hardcore fans are going to like the way this IP was translated to the big screen. I’m just a film fan who thought the trailers for Borderlands showed potential, so I figured I’d give the movie a shot. I bought an opening weekend ticket hoping for a fun night out, and when I walked into the theater, I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.
Borderlands was directed and co-written by Eli Roth, and it stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Jamie Lee Curtis. In the film, Lilith is a veteran bounty hunter hired to find a girl named Tiny Tina and bring her back to her father, but things don’t exactly go as planned.
Instead of discharging her contractual duties, Lilith forms a small team consisting of six members–herself, Tina, a soldier named Roland, a muscle-bound brute named Krieg, a vaguely Star Wars-esque robot named Claptrap, and a scientist named Tannis–and they go searching for a long-lost vault containing untold secrets. Along the way, they have to battle ferocious monsters, dangerous bandits, and Tina’s father as they try to fulfill their new mission and keep each other safe.
As you might be able to tell from that brief plot synopsis, Borderlands is very much in the vein of recent movies like the Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad franchises. It’s about a group of misfits who come together seemingly by chance, and as they work together to achieve a common goal, they become more than just partners. They end up being a family.
Films like that generally stand or fall almost entirely on the strength of their characters, and unfortunately, Borderlands completely drops the ball in that regard. Every single one of the major players in this movie is yawn-inducingly bland at best, and at worst, they’re borderline unwatchable.
Take Claptrap, for example. He’s programmed to crack sarcastic jokes about every three seconds, and on paper, that sounds right up my alley. But in practice, this robot is about as cringe-worthy as you can get. He’s simply not funny, so after getting to know him for just a couple of minutes, I already couldn’t stand his constant barrage of uninspired humor.
Along similar lines, Roland is played by Kevin Hart, and in typical Kevin Hart fashion, this character provides quite a bit of comic relief. But in untypical Kevin Hart fashion, he’s not funny either. Granted, he’s not nearly as bad as Claptrap, so I didn’t entirely mind seeing him on screen. But I still didn’t like the guy, so he doesn’t do Borderlands any favors.
Next, let’s talk about Krieg. If you took Tom Hardy’s Bane (from The Dark Knight Rises) and transplanted him into a Mad Max film, he’d probably look a lot like Krieg, but personality-wise, this guy is more like the Bane we got in Batman & Robin. He’s all brawn and no brains, and to emphasize his less-than-stellar intellect, the movie doesn’t let him talk much. Instead, he just says a few words every now and then, and every time he does, he speaks with a ridiculously over-the-top enthusiasm that eventually makes him as grating as anybody in Borderlands.
I’ve only gone through about half of the main characters in this movie, but I think that’s enough to make my point. Everybody in Borderlands is incredibly unlikable, and since this story is really all about the characters, they infect every other element of the film and kill the entire experience.
Take the action, for example. I often say in my reviews that horror is only effective when you care about the people being put in danger, and action is no different. If you don’t give a hoot about the characters or their story, even the best fights and stunts you can imagine will end up being little more than visual noise, and that’s exactly what happens here.
Taken on its own merits, the action in Borderlands isn’t bad. In fact, if the characters were better, I might’ve even enjoyed it, but since Lilith and her crew are forgettable at best, not even their craziest moves were able to elicit more than a bored shrug from me.
Similarly, the story in this movie isn’t Oscar-worthy, but for the most part, it’s not bad. I actually think it’s decent enough that it would’ve mostly worked if I loved the characters, but again, since I didn’t like anybody in the film, I didn’t care about their journey either.
That being said, the story in Borderlands does have some very noticeable flaws in its own right. Most obviously, there’s a twist you can see coming a mile away, and soon after that big reveal, the narrative takes a ridiculous turn that made me roll my eyes almost as much as Claptrap’s cringeworthy attempts at humor. I can’t get into any specifics without spoiling the movie’s surprises, but trust me, the narrative takes a big step down in the last 20-30 minutes or so.
To be fair, Borderlands isn’t the worst film I’ve seen this year. It’s not quite as bad as Tarot and the infamous Madame Web (for good measure, we can also put Argylle on that list to make an unholy trinity of terrible 2024 cinema), but it’s not too far behind. The weak characters completely ruin what would otherwise be at least a decent experience, so if you’re looking for something good to watch this weekend, skip Borderlands and watch Cuckoo instead. You’ll be glad you did.
Borderlands is playing in theaters right now.
