‘Borderlands’ Review – A Soulless Studio Film That Deserves Its Failure

When a movie sits in developmental hell for a decade and a half, that might be a sign to cut losses and save face rather than continue forward – especially when that movie can only be described as cinematic gruel.

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It’s been almost 15 years since the Borderlands video game franchise was at the height of its popularity. The first game that was released in 2009 and had sold about four-and-a-half million copies by the time Lionsgate decided that they were going to move forward with a film project. 

Given Hollywood’s long history of trying to create movies based on video games, many could tell from the jump that it was not going to end well.

Between 2015 and 2018, Borderlands saw a multitude of writers and directors jump on and off of the project. Then, by the time filmmaker Eli Roth agreed to serve in both roles for the film, a little event called COVID-19 happened, which further caused delays and irritation for the studio and resulted in most of this film being shot in 2021 while Hollywood was still operating under COVID guidelines.

From there, the movie was held up an additional two years before a series of reshoots were ordered. All of this ultimately led to here, the year 2024, where the film is finally seeing the light of day.

But even with a $120 million production price tag, you can tell Lionsgate didn’t have much faith in what they were releasing – and after watching the film you can most definitely tell why.

Borderlands begins with the character of Lilith, a rogue Bounty Hunter, being tasked with returning to her home planet of Pandora to find Tina, the missing daughter of a wealthy power player by the name of Atlas.

Reluctantly partnering up with a talkative robot named Claptrap, Lilith eventually completes her mission and finds the girl – However, she soon discovers that she may have bitten off more than she can chew, as she’s not the only one looking to find Tina and redeem her for whatever perceived value is attached to her.

Add in a miscast group of characters who have about as much chemistry as sodium and water, and you have a two-hour sci-fi action comedy that could go down as one of the biggest wastes of time that 2024 has to offer.

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Folks, there’s no better example of the soullessness that consumes Hollywood than this.

Borderlands is a movie that doesn’t feel authentic for a single second of its runtime. The entire film comes off as a bunch of A-list Hollywood actors cosplaying at Comic-Con about a video game franchise they know less than nothing about just because a studio executive with even less knowledge greenlit the project because they thought there were going to make easy bank off the IP’s name.

For a movie that relies on the chemistry of its team, this is a team-up devoid of personality and charisma. The acting in this film comes off as if the actors took three bullet points of the character descriptions and decided to create their personalities as the film went on. No aspect of this movie builds any kind of emotional connection with its audience.

For example, take Cate Blanchett. Despite being an accomplished award-winning actress, Blanchett is horrendously miscast as the lead character of Lilith – as is basically everyone in this film, from Kevin Hart’s out-of-place performance as Roland and Arian Greenblatt’s laughably bad take on Tiny Tina, the list goes on.

And though many have made the comparison, to call Borderlands a rip-off of Guardians of the Galaxy would be an insult to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, even in its current form.

Ultimately, the best thing about this film is the bright and colorful scenery that the film brings to life through the use of a metric crap-ton of VFX green screens, with all the shiny visuals only working to in keep audiences awake 15 minutes longer than they would have otherwise.

Outside of rare exceptions like Sonic the Hedgehog, the concept of a ‘movie based on a video game’ does not typically result in a positive outcome. And unfortunately, Borderlands is yet another example of how what works for one medium absolutely does not work for the other.

(And of course, a good portion of the blame has to go on Eli Roth – You have to ask yourself, how much input did he have in this disaster of a movie that was at least 13 years in the making? A lot? A little? Either way, it turned out terribly.)

All in all, if you are a fan of the franchise, rather than wasting your hard-earned time and money to go see this soulless Hollywood effort masquerading as a summer blockbuster, you’re better off getting your Borderlands fix by dusting off your old PlayStation 3 and playing the original games for a few more hours.

(At least some of the jokes found therein might manage to make you slightly chuckle.)

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