One hour after leaving a screening of the new Borderland Film directed by Eli Roth (Hostel) starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Ariana Greenblatt, I find myself staring at a blinking cursor in a blank Google doc, searching for inspiration.

Surely a live-action film based on 2K and Gearbox’s hugely successful Edgelord video game series would inspire a few hundred words, right? The all-star cast, which includes several Oscar winners (and Jack Black), would surely spark a spark of creativity. The vivid imagery, cacophonous explosions, and poop and pee jokes would surely break through the writer’s block and produce a flood of witty words and pithy sentences. But I’m at a loss.

Borderland is not just bad, it’s depressing.

On the brink of collapse

I saw Borderland at an early screening at the Alamo Drafthouse, where cosplay was encouraged. No one was in costume, and the theater was solemnly silent, as if we were about to watch archival video of World War II’s deadliest battle or found footage from 9/11. R-rated trailers were shown beforehand, which made me wonder if this film, directed by Roth (known for his bloody, gritty violence), was rated R (it isn’t).

Before I have a chance to double-check the review, Cate Blanchett’s voice echoes through the theater. “A long time ago, our galaxy was ruled by an alien race,” she intones, sounding bizarrely flat for an incredibly talented actress who was trying to deliver an entertaining, frenetic performance in yet another superficial flick: 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok. I’m immediately assaulted by aggressive, sloppy editing and shimmering CGI images of guns, neon signs and psychos, while Blanchett (who plays Lilith, a character who inspired me so much in my early twenties that I got one of her quotes tattooed) gives us the plot synopsis with as much energy as a ’50s housewife who regularly mixes mood stabilizers and martinis.

Lilith tells us that the Eridians laid the foundation of this galaxy and then disappeared, leaving behind a secret treasure trove on the planet Pandora containing powerful relics of the long-lost civilization. “That sounds like crazy nonsense, doesn’t it?” Blanchett asks. I suppress a groan with a big bite of my burger. Instead of giving moviegoers the carefree wanderlust that the Borderland Games offer, the film is incredibly linear and straightforward: Lilith, a bounty hunter, is hired by the head of the weapons manufacturer Atlas Industries to track down his daughter Tiny Tina on the planet Pandora.

Almost all of the main cast are introduced to us pretty quickly: Hart as Roland, Greenblatt as Tiny Tina, Florian Munteanu as a psycho named Kreig. Roland frees Tiny Tina from some sort of prison through a rather boring action sequence in which he punches a guard and calls him a “fake stormtrooper bitch”. I guess that means war of stars exists in the Borderland Universe? It doesn’t get any better after that.

If you would tell me Borderland AI for dialogue, I would believe you without question. Almost every line uttered with the kind of faux vivacity I save for my elementary school cheerleading competitions is either a limp “edgy” joke that wouldn’t warrant a single Reddit upvote, or a cliched phrase like “I’m too old for this shit” and “That was a Really long day.” I could count on one hand the lines that were actually meant seriously – or at least not dripping with so much sarcasm that they were almost sticky. There is no humanity here, only humorless people.

When a pinprick of Muse’s “Supermassive Black Hole” enters a scene where it’s playing over the speakers of a Pandora bar, my head nearly hits the table. What are we doing here?

We need to talk about Tina

Blissful, Borderland isn’t that long a movie, and the breakneck speed at which the film moves means we meet Jamie Lee Curtis’ Tannis just before I need a pee break (I did have a beer). Curtis plays her with a socially awkward nervousness I wasn’t expecting from the actress, and while it’s at least an attempt to give the character some personality, it’s incredibly annoying. But she also tried – Blanchett only half-heartedly does it, Hart has no business being in the serious guy role, and Greenblatt does her best with material based on a white character sucking black cock (which the film thankfully avoids). But even she can’t save a line where she has to say “badonkadonk” in the year of our Lord 2024.

And besides, not to be age-discriminatory, but why the hell is everyone so old? Lilith is 22 years old in the original Borderland game and Tannis is in her thirties – aside from the star-studded cast of Blanchett and Curtis, the only reason to make these characters older is so they can play the matronly figures alongside Greenblatt’s Tina.

And that’s the main problem: putting Tina at the center. The plot revolves around her belief that she is the child of Eridia and the key to opening the vault, and the film builds all that emotional weight onto a character who wears a bunny ears headband and throws explosive teddy bears at people while spouting one-liners like a sugar-addicted 11-year-old in a Fourteen days Lobby. It evokes no empathy, despite Greenblatt’s valiant efforts and Blanchett’s only real acting in their scenes together. It is like a Gears of War A film with the Carmine brothers at the center – it gets annoying right from the start.

All of this takes place in a strange CGI world that sometimes looks passable, but is mostly an unreadable greenscreen mess of explosions or muddy, dark, murky nonsense. Lilith’s fire-orange hair and cartoon costume set against a dusty, boring landscape and run-down industrial buildings are visually and aurally jarring – it’s as if the filmmakers halfway made a movie inspired by the cel-shaded world of. Borderland and then loaded everything onto the sets that are for the gloriole series. Speaking of costumes, I’d love to know what the budget was for push-up bras. Tannis, Mad Moxxi, and Lilith all have their boobs pushed up so high they’re almost in their throats – it’s so desperately 2006, so reminiscent of the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, that I couldn’t help but giggle. Boobs, right?

When the movie ends and Jack Black’s Claptrap pops up on the screen during the credits to lament the loss of his Easter egg, I’m ready to go home and cleanse my palate. I need some decent 2000s trash, some expensive needlepoint, and some questionable costumes. I come home, flop down on the couch, and turn on gossip Girl. At least that has personality.

The Borderland The film is not so good that it is surprising, and it is not so bad that it is worth watching out of hatred. It is just sad. It feels like the result of a group of suits sitting around a shiny mahogany table (as in the Key and Peele sketch) and reminisced about the early 2000s, a time before the financial crisis, a time when the word “cancel” was reserved only for television shows, a time when Muse were one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

It lacks humanity and personality, despite trying very, very hard to prove that it is strange. It is the woman with the frozen peas on her head in the supermarket aisle –she is so Subscribe tolove her! It shouldn’t exist.

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