Movie review «Borderlands»

On August 8, a sci-fi comedy action film was released in cinemas «Borderlands», based on the first-person shooter series of the same name. In the review below, we will analyze which genre predecessors this video game film adaptation can be fairly attributed to and, accordingly, where it belongs — among tops or perhaps in a dumpster low-grade garbage next to Uwe Boll’s mortal remains.

«Borderlands»

Genre science fiction, comedy, action
Director Eli Roth
Starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Edgar Ramirez, Haley Bennett, Gina Gershon
Premiere movie theaters
Year of issue 2024
Website IMDb, official website

The very, very cool bounty hunter Lilith gets a job from an extremely persistent client —the head of the Devcalian Atlas weapons development corporation. This nasty guy literally forces Lilith to travel to her home planet Pandora to find his daughter, Tiny Tina.

The warrior beauty reluctantly returns to her homeland, which is a complete garbage dump, and immediately meets new friends. It is with them that she will have to join forces, not only to protect the little girl from endless dangers, but also to solve one big secret. Lionsgate officially announced the film’s release back in 2015, but then it went into production hell, and such things have a positive impact on the result a little more often than not. The scriptwriters started changing like gloves, but it never came to specifics. Finally, in 2020, Eli Roth joined the project as the director and screenwriter of «Chernobyl» and «The Last of Us» by Craig Mazin. But the latter eventually decided to remove his name from the credits, and now it’s clear why.

The filming took place just in time for the coronavirus pandemic, but it didn’t end there. In early 2023, during a two-week reshoot, the director of the first «Deadpool» and «Terminator: Dark Fate», Tim Miller replaced Roth in the director’s chair due to the latter’s involvement in the «Thanksgiving» slasher. All these reshuffles, reshoots, etc. clearly didn’t go well. Not surprisingly, after the premiere, critics literally destroyed the film — initially had a mocking 0% positive review rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and at the time of writing it has risen to a miserable 6%. After watching the movie, it’s hard to deny this catastrophic reaction: it’s all business.

As for the secondary nature, it was felt even at the stage of the appearance of promotional materials, i.e. before the film’s release. Made in screamingly bright colors, with acidic tones, the local posters made us think of another movie with a team of anti-heroes at the center of the plot — «Suicide Squad» David Ayer. But in reality, it was a very, very lazy attempt at imitation «Guardians of the Galaxy» with their charming stupidity. In «Borderlands», all the charm has disappeared (primarily in terms of the characters and their interaction in the frame) and only the stupidity remains.It is especially interesting to compare the hit from Marvel and the failure of Lionsgate in the context of comparing the filmographies of directors: both Eli Roth and James Gunn, one might say, paved their way into the mainstream through low-budget films or even outright trash (and one of them even made a fake trailer stylized as good old exploitation in «Grindhouse»). The former started with bloody, uncompromising horrors, the latter even with the cult studio Troma in certain circles. True, a little later Gunn will still get his experience in creating horror films for wide release, having written the script for Zack Snyder’s «Dawn of the Dead» and directed «Slither».

In addition to the helpless plot about another team of outsiders, the creators of «Borderlands» try to dilute their action with mischievous humor, but it doesn’t work out very well. The robot Claptrap tries to make up for this component, and sometimes even successfully. Here, he acts as a kind of minion from «Despicable Me», who is the main focus of the comedy. But this prankster does not save the shameful situation.It is difficult to determine what Cate Blanchett forgot in this tastelessness, but judging by her words the actress was simply dying of boredom during the pandemic. Even Marvel’s Hela will seem tragic against the background of the inexpressive Lilith. There is no need to talk about the others, they turned out to be such unremarkable dummies. The only thing that should be noted is how annoying the character of young Ariana Greenblatt is throughout the movie. And only the lazy will not mention the fact that there is no chemistry between the characters.

«Borderlands» looks especially bad against the backdrop of recent successful video game adaptations, such as «Sonic the Hedgehog» or «Uncharted»; about the hits on the small screen «The Last of Us» or «Fallout» it’s better to stay tactfully silent. You don’t have to look far — even the stupidest «Deadpool & Wolverine» coped with its main task — to entertain the viewer in a quality way, while Roth’s work is far from that, as it is more about wasted time than any kind of sane entertainment.