Let me start with a confession: Although I have experience with a variety of computer/video games, I have never played BorderlandThis makes my view of the film free of any game-related baggage. Perhaps those who are familiar with Borderland will find enough fan service to somehow make up for this unfocused film monstrosity. Perhaps those who enjoyed the interactive experience can overlook the utter idiocy masquerading as a script. And perhaps those who avowedly Borderland Fans will find something to applaud in this garbage dump of a game-to-movie adaptation. In a time when streaming series like The Last of Us And Stand out have shown how video games can provide the structure for non-interactive narratives, Borderland
recalls the bad old days when video game movies were (rightly) dismissed as chaotic, tasteless and pointless.
It would be easy to blame writer-director Eli Roth, whose resume does not inspire confidence. In this case, however, Roth may not be complete
He handed over his share to Borderland to Lionsgate in early 2022 before moving on to other things. Meanwhile, in a classic case of studio meddling, the suits ordered reshoots (which Roth couldn’t oversee because he was already working on another project) and recuts to tone down the violence in Roth’s hard-R version to something more palatable for a PG-13 audience.
Why Cate Blanchett accepted the lead role of bounty hunter Lilith seems to be a lingering aftereffect of the pandemic. Blanchett, who has wanted to play almost any role that takes her away from home, evidently jumped at the chance. But the film Blanchett was looking to star in seems considerably different from the one that hit the screen. It’s hard to say whether Roth’s “vision” was more coherent than the cobbled-together revamp attributed to “Joe Crombie” (allegedly author Joe Abercrombie, who has written some damn good fantasy novels), and it doesn’t really matter. We have what we’re given, and it’s almost unbearable.
The film’s uneven pacing and uneven presentation don’t allow the viewer to engage with the two-dimensional characters. The acting is mostly sparse, and that includes some pretty big names: Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramirez, and Jamie Lee Curtis. All the special effects and action seem to have one purpose: to disguise the lack of a meaningful story. I guess if you had to boil this down to a basic genre category, it would be “superhero origin story,” as if we didn’t have enough of those already.
The story takes place on the distant planet Pandora (no relation to the world in Avatar – both named after the woman whose box caused much trouble), where renegade soldier Roland (Kevin Hart) and fellow soldier Krieg (Florian Munteanu) have traveled with their protégé Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the “daughter” of one of the most powerful men in the universe, Atlas (Edgar Ramirez). Wanting his daughter back for reasons other than fatherly love, Atlas enlists bounty hunter Lilith (Blanchett) to revisit her homeworld of Pandora and, aided by the incessantly talkative robot sidekick Claptrap (Jack Black), find Tina and bring her home. After tracking the girl down, however, Lilith discovers that there is more to the job than first meets the eye, and eventually joins Roland and Krieg in their mission to protect Tina out of Atlas
This is ultimately Lilith’s story, and illustrates her evolution from a red-haired mercenary to a superhero named “Firehawk.” The transformation, which occurs suddenly and without much preparation, is one of the least impressive moments in the film. Firehawk’s fights are boring and predictable affairs; their progression gives the film a strongly disappointing aftertaste – it would be a stretch to say that Borderland comes close to “building up” to anything, except for the credits, which don’t come soon enough.
Roth has made a name for himself in the horror genre; he is not known as an action director, Borderland is packed with action scenes. They are mostly incomprehensible. It’s hard to say whether the main fault lies with the choreography, the shooting or the editing. Whatever the case, watching the various conflicts crammed with special effects results in a mixture of boredom and confusion.
It’s always surprising to discover a blasted crater instead of a film when there’s such a strong cast involved. Blanchett belongs to a pantheon of actors occupied by few other multiple Oscar winners, Hart is a (mostly) beloved character, and Jamie Lee Curtis is arguably as well known (and respected) as her parents. But a cursory glance at the film’s troubled production history, coupled with Roth’s inexperience in the genre, offers some clues as to what went wrong. Regardless of the reason, Borderland is not only a serious contender for the title of worst movie of 2024, but also one of the worst video game movies of all time.
Borderlands (USA, 2024)
