Playing like a perverse continuation of the final scene of Tár, the new video game-to-feature-film adaptation Borderlands finds Cate Blanchett slumming it as a neon-redheaded, pistol-packing, bounty hunter dispatched to a desolate alien planet on a mercenary rescue mission. The long-in-development project (initially shot during Covid, back in 2021) is based on the hugely popular video game series of the same name, which appears to be a pop-art inspired pastiche of post-apocalyptic and sci-fi tropes — this writer’s familiarity with the game begins and ends with watching five minutes of gameplay footage on YouTube — and insight into how faithful the film is to its narrative and overarching tone are best sought elsewhere. And yet, even for the uninitiated, the film lays bare the limitations of fidelity to a quest-based, first-person shooter; the overriding sensation of watching Borderlands is that of observing things that, in theory, are meant to be exciting — say, when our heroes fight their way through a cavern filled with feral crazies, mowing down faceless enemies seemingly by the hundred — that in practice very much are not. People conditioned to fire up gameplay streams on Twitch may be satiated; everyone else is out of luck beyond the brief novelty of seeing Blanchett made up like a Comic-Con attendee.
There’s no question that Borderlands is derivative, although the extent to which the underlying IP anticipated emerging trends in pop-storytelling is worth considering. The film opens with Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt, of Barbie), a teenager of noble origin held captive in an orbiting prison, being rescued by heroic space ranger Roland (comedian Kevin Hart, playing against type in a role that doesn’t really ask him to be especially funny). Roland claims to have been sent by Tina’s father Atlas (Edgar Ramírez), who is somehow both a business tycoon and galactic dictator commanding a personal army, although it becomes clear early on that he’s gone rogue. Joined by fellow escapee, the monosyllabic masked brute Krieg (boxer-turned-actor Florian Munteanu), the ragtag trio escape to the planet Pandora on a secret mission. One’s natural inclination might be to roll their eyes at another sci-fi saga choosing the name “Pandora” after serving as the setting for a couple “modestly-sized” films directed by James Cameron — why not call it Tatooine while they’re at it? — however, in fairness to all involved, the video game did beat the first Avatar to market by a couple months back in 2009. It seems Tiny Tina is the key (perhaps literally) to opening a hidden vault of highly coveted alien technology that’s desired by the entire universe, Atlas especially. That means paying big bucks to Blanchett’s sardonic Lilith, a cynical hired gun who grew up on Pandora, to retrieve his daughter. Lilith had a traumatic past on her home planet —not that she’s the type to talk about it — but for the right amount of cash, she’s willing to return to her old stomping grounds and endure giant carnivorous beasties, “piss fields” (exactly what they sound like), and marauding “psychos.”
In the most basic of terms, Borderlands is a more edgelord Star Wars, or perhaps a less rapey Fury Road, or maybe Guardians of the Galaxy with a worse soundtrack (it seems inconceivable that a film in 2024 would still be using The Heavy’s “How You Like Me Now,” and yet here we are). The film’s setting is an irradiated-looking desert made up of barter towns, ramshackle buildings, and heavy construction equipment. From underneath the rubble crawls Claptrap, a wisecracking robot who looks like a portable trash compactor balanced upon a single wheel, mysteriously claims to have been programmed to assist Lilith, and is voiced by Jack Black in an especially grating bit of voiceover. Claptrap is as if C-3PO and R2-D2 were combined into one character — honestly, it would take less time to list the number of things that don’t feel outright stolen from the Star Wars films — and programmed to behave like a manic dramatic-theater student. It’s the sort of vocal performance by Black that’s impossible to believe would have been arrived at organically if it wasn’t pitched at a very specific level of imitation (and, as illuminated by the five minutes this writer endured on YouTube, the character is indeed an eardrum-puncturing irritant in the game as well). Claptrap may sound like silverware being run through the garbage disposal, but the character also does serve many useful storytelling purposes, like being able to locate characters on the far side of the planet just by scanning their photograph. It doesn’t take long for Lilith to track down Tiny Tina, who we come to learn is no shrinking violet in need of rescue. Inexplicably wearing giant bunny ears — life is too short to research whether this too is from the game but, regardless, Louise from Bob’s Burgers should probably sue — and packing an assortment of explosive devices hidden in her stuffed animals, Tiny Tina isn’t about to be dragged back to Atlas, who we learn isn’t quite the concerned father he presents himself to be. With Atlas’ army in pursuit, Lilith and Claptrap join forces with Tiny Tina, Roland, and Krieg in search of the hidden vault, hoping to get their hands on its contents before Atlas does.
Borderlands was ostensibly directed by world-class self promoter and middling horror filmmaker Eli Roth, although Internet scuttlebutt suggests that parts of the film were reshot by Deadpool director Tim Miller (he has an executive producer credit for his troubles). This is worth mentioning as the film is largely incoherent, although it’s unclear whether that’s a result of having one-and-a-half directors or is merely the natural end result of trying to compress seven games’ worth of fan service into a tidy 100-minute movie. Character motivations turn on a dime, and the film drops mounds of laborious mythology onto the viewer about ancient alien civilizations and rumored prophecies, none of which ultimately matters in a film that amounts to gathering trinkets, shooting your way out of tight spots, and getting from location A to location B. The film’s climax, which involves one of our characters demonstrating heretofore unseen magical powers, is an eye-glazing lightshow of chintzy VFX while exposing the entire hidden vault conceit as the most MacGuffiny of MacGuffins (it feels like a large chunk of the third act was excised at the last minute, not that many will begrudge the hasty wrap-up). The film’s numerous combat sequences are a nightmare of spatial geography with Roth — or hell, could be Miller — staging the action primarily in tight medium-shots and then over-cutting within an inch of his life to simulate freneticism. It’s a lot of actors filmed alone against green screens with the film attempting to stitch sequences together into something cohesive, and at times characters just outright disappear from scenes, only to suddenly rejoin the group with no sense of how they even got there.
Of course, that wouldn’t be such an issue if there weren’t so many of them to begin with. Primarily a single-player, open sandbox experience, one of the appeals of the game — or so one gathers — is the way it allows the player to choose its avatar from different classes of combatants with unique skills and their own heightened appearance; think Dungeons & Dragons for you analog nerds. That’s been interpreted by the filmmakers as “what if there were half a dozen silly-looking characters standing around squabbling at all times?” To be clear, the filmmakers (and the film’s costume designer, Daniel Orlandi, most especially) do deserve credit for how visually distinct the cast is within an ensemble setting, but the characters have been conceived from the outside-in, with the relative star wattage of the cast being asked to fill in most of the gaps. That works well enough with the likes of Hart (easily irritated yet paternal) and Blanchett (steely and mysterious), but less so with the more unfamiliar performers. It’s hard not to compare and contrast Munteanu’s Krieg with Dave Bautista’s work in the aforementioned GotG films. They’re both intimidating-looking hulks revealed to be loyal softies. However, Bautista’s Drax is an inspired comedic creation, treating the less-than-loquacious qualities of the character as a form of emotional directness, building out an actual character from what might otherwise be a stock role. Krieg, by comparison, is a muscular dude in a makeshift hockey mask. He’s in the film because his character “looks cool” (again, in a derivative sense, he’s basically just Lord Humungus) and is presumably well-liked by fans of the game; in the absence of a better reason for adapting this material, that’s as good a reason as any. But then these kinds of things rarely succeed, artistically anyway, and Roth isn’t a filmmaker who engenders the benefit of the doubt that he’ll buck the trend. That doesn’t really explain Blanchett’s involvement; she’s constitutionally better than this sort of thing, but is helpless to elevate it (although this film does reunite her with Roth and Black following 2018’s The House with a Clock in Its Walls, so it could be as basic as they like working together). Or, perhaps like Lydia Tár, she’s simply embracing the dull inevitably of being an artist in the modern world. In the end, everybody tap dances for the amusement of cosplayers.
DIRECTOR: Eli Roth; CAST: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramirez, Ariana Greenblatt; DISTRIBUTOR: Lionsgate; IN THEATERS: August 9; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 42 min.
