So, folks, let’s get this over with.

It is, with microscopic to virtually nonexistent exceptions, an unhealthy practice to make a final judgment about a film before actually seeing it for yourself. While you can sift through social media anecdotes, rage-tubers, Rotten Tomatoes reviews, and trailers, you never really have a definitive opinion about a film until you see it for yourself.

And yet, in the many months before Borderlandthere was never any doubt that this film was going to be a complete flop. Everywhere you looked, a piece of forced dialogue or an incredibly wooden stylization promised a piece of sloppy IP filmmaking of the lowest quality.

This promise was of course kept, Borderland as the last and worst failure of Eli Roth, who we know to have a talent for film as capable as it is erratic; a talent that had its most recent appearance thanks to thanksgiving.

And precisely because Roth is a proven talent who happens to have a list of pathetic stinkers on his account, the tragedy of Borderland becomes obvious to those who look a little closer. Was this a complete act of artistic dissonance from everyone involved, or was this film really aiming for something more erudite than a popcorn flick? Either way, it falls flat on its face, but the arguments it makes for being even a shadow of the latter don’t render it – somehow, some way – completely toothless.

In the film, Cate Blanchett plays Lilith, an intergalactic outlaw who is called back to her home planet of Pandora – a grimy, unforgiving wasteland – when adventure calls her rather aggressively against her will. Along the way, she teams up with renegade soldier Roland (Kevin Hart), bloodthirsty teenager Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), Tina’s protector Krieg (Florian Munteanu), annoying robot Claptrap (Jack Black), and eccentric researcher Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) to make a beeline for the treasure hidden in Pandora’s vault, all while evading the clutches of company boss Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), who wants the treasure for himself.

First of all, know one thing: if you plan to watch this film or read about it with the intention of tackling it head on, you will only be wasting your time. Likewise, it is not possible for a film critic like me to explain why Borderland is a complete failure as a pure viewing experience; in any case, it is a waste of time.

And I don’t want to waste your time, so here’s everything you need to know about Borderland as a pure viewing experience; it is insultingly inept at every creative hurdle. The plot, the characterization, the direction, the ideas and the scenes of this film – as a pure viewing experience – are all below par, and the actors can’t and do nothing to save it.

Given all this, why do I keep talking about the “pure viewing experience”?

Well, it is because Borderland works best as a commentary on why video game adaptations had – and, on a rapidly declining level, still have – such a bad reputation. The first half hour actually plays with that identity relatively fantastically.

When we first meet Blanchett’s Lilith, she’s a no-nonsense bounty hunter who just wants to do her job. She’s a crack shot who moves intelligently on the battlefield, and she has absolutely no time for sentimentality, explanations, or Claptrap’s quirky dialogue; all she wants is to achieve her goal. In other words, Lilith is a player.

And this reflects the core problem that has plagued video game adaptations for so long. Games are built on mechanics, game systems, and tensions that, put simply, require unique give-and-take interactions to keep that game-specific organism running. That organism doesn’t require emotional engagement, and in fact thrives without it.

This is why games can’t tell stories in the same way that movies and TV shows can. Because the mindset that comes from absorbing the theme and plot of a good movie is very different from the mindset that comes from playing a good game, and those two mindsets tend to clash.

And Borderland plays exactly as a game-oriented player might imagine. Borderland Games. This player (Lilith) knows that they won’t really extrapolate any deep meaning or emotion from this narrative/adventure, because video game narratives are based on plot lines and genre decorations that mostly manifest as problems the player must solve through tension-based gameplay (which is different than simply interacting with the game with a controller or keyboard). So it’s no wonder that almost every interaction has Lilith rushing around expressionlessly as she tries to get to the next challenge; she’s bored, she wants to play, she wants to win.

And the cherry on top? The majority of Lilith’s first intimate moments are spent with Tina, a member of the Eridian race who we learn is a crucial piece of the Vault’s puzzle. Put another way, the only person Lilith initially cares about is the MacGuffin. In fact, Tina is part of the target, and it’s surprisingly easy to interpret this as the only reason Lilith (who, again, is our player on a mission) can care about her. Without question, the meta seeds being planted here are full of potential.

Unfortunately, that potential is squandered quite resolutely. It is too often disconnected from Lilith to maintain that meta-identity, and by the time we meet Tannis, Lilith as a character is too emotionally involved for that particular, peculiar edge to retain its shape. Still, a metafiction reading remains without doubt the best way to engage with Borderlandunless your goal is to fall asleep, groan, hate movies for the rest of your life, or some combination of those three things.

The best scenario for Borderland would be a version of it that fully embraces those styles, but also subtly focuses the journey on learning to love games and movies in all their disharmony. Right now, so many of us wish video games were seen as art forms like movies are, and yet so many of us have forgotten how to engage with games in a way that actually does justice to the fundamentals of the medium. The strength of a game’s artistic potential lies not in the emotion of a story (which gameplay, if good, is at odds with), but in the depth and originality of its play (and the best games understand “play” as far more than just an endorphin farm).

Of course, we are now in 2024, which means that we The Last of Us, Stand out, And Arcane to prove that video game properties are actually They are capable of telling great stories, but the triumph of these shows has nothing to do with their origins as games; they are simply great shows. BorderlandOn the other hand, he had the opportunity to celebrate both games and movies, cheekily pointing out how different the two mediums are when given their respective strengths, and how each medium deserves boundless love and respect.

Instead, Borderland came to us as the latest candidate for a Golden Golden Award, and let’s just say it’s no underdog.