‘Borderlands’ movie review: Barren, boring and bordering on unwatchable FilmyMeet

A still from ‘Borderlands’
| Photo Credit: YouTube/ Lionsgate Movies

It’s an all-too-familiar trope in cinematic history: the curse of the video game adaptation. Once a cautionary tale of calamities, the genre has recently seen a glimmer of hope with successes like HBO’s The Last of Us and most recently with Prime Video’s Fallout. Yet it seems we’ve been inexorably drawn back into the cursed abyss with the arrival of Borderlands, a film so miscalculated, it deserves its own place in videogame purgatory.

Directed by Eli Roth, best known for his contributions with horror cult classics, Hostel and Cabin Fever, this latest outing feels like a wrenching, ill-conceived detour from Roth’s usual terrain. Adapted from Gearbox Software’s eponymous game franchise, Borderlands is a discordant cacophony of ineptitude, a spectacle so dreary it almost prompted a desperate walkout. 

The plot is a tired retread of every sci-fi trope imaginable. There’s magical artefacts, a prophecy, a ragtag group of misfits who must band together to save the day — if it all sounds familiar, that’s because it is. But the lack of originality in Borderlands is staggering, as it shamelessly cobbles together elements from other, far superior, films and games. Roth and his co-writer Joe Crombie seem to be more than content to churn out cliché-ridden banter and uninspired set pieces, hoping that the sheer volume of noise would compensate for their lack of creativity.

The film features Cate Blanchett, whose Academy Award-winning presence might misleadingly suggest a semblance of gravitas, but whose performance as the bounty hunter Lilith is marred by a dispassionate air that borders on apathy. Watching her wander through this wreckage, you can almost see the regret in her eyes. Her performance is devoid of Lilith’s endearing spark of wit rather, screams contractual obligation, and honestly, who can blame her? According to Blanchett, it was either signing up for this or spending her post-Tár COVID-induced mania finding new items to chainsaw through.

This weariness is matched only by Kevin Hart’s Roland, a character so lifeless that even Hart’s usual comedic flair seems muted and irrelevant. In a film that’s supposedly an action-comedy, it’s almost impressive how completely Borderlands fails at both. The jokes fall flat, the action is uninspired, and the entire enterprise is suffused with a grim sense of compulsion, as though everyone involved realised too late that they’d signed up for a colossal mistake. Hart’s usually quick wit is dulled to a blunt edge here, his talents buried beneath a script that refuses to give him anything remotely interesting to do.

The supporting cast fares no better. Jamie Lee Curtis, is reduced to a forgettable expository NPC by a script that seems determined to squander every ounce of her screen charisma. Jack Black’s Claptrap, the beloved comic relief from the game, is nothing but a shrill annoyance; an amalgamation of every irritating trope from the iconic Star Wars droids in one ineradicable sidekick. 

Meanwhile, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina —  a delightful bundle of chaotic energy in the games — is rendered almost unbearable by the film’s insistence on turning her into a shit-talking MacGuffin. Edgar Ramírez’s Atlas is a villain so laughably one-dimensional that it’s almost insulting, and Florian Munteanu’s Krieg is, well, just there… another hunk to fill out the group with no discernible purpose beyond indiscernible grunting .

Visually, Borderlands is an assault on the senses. The CGI landscapes of Pandora look like the digital refuse of a thousand abandoned projects. The special effects are so shoddy that at times the characters appear to be interacting with non-existent objects and it’s almost a relief when the film resorts to practical effects, which are, unfortunately, few and far between. 

Its dust-choked wasteland shamelessly rips off Mad Max, while the vault-hunting plot is a clumsy echo of Fallout’s rich, apocalyptic lore. The ragtag misfits attempt the camaraderie of Guardians of the Galaxy, but instead serve up humour as lifeless as Claptrap’s recycled Rocket Raccoon shtick.

Ultimately, Borderlands is but a cautionary tale: a reminder that not every game IP needs to be a movie, and that sometimes, it’s better to leave well enough alone. For those who still hold out hope for a good video game adaptation, this film is a bitter pill to swallow and will likely go down as one of the most insufferable experiences to hit the big screen this year. For those willing to brave the dismay, Borderlands offers little more than a pressing desire to lunge for the exit.

Borderlands is currently running in theatres