By Keith Walther | Rose Law Group Reporter
Soulless, lifeless, and lazy most accurately describe the latest production from filmmaker Eli Roth despite a budget of around $100 million. Based on the popular video game, “Borderlands” is an action/adventure that boasts a star-studded cast who helps cushion the blow of an otherwise terrible film. The story/screenplay is among the worst written fodder of the year, making anyone with eyes and a pulse wonder how this project ever got greenlit in the first place.
When Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) goes missing, her father Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), the most powerful man in the universe, employs a cutthroat bounty hunter named Lilith (Cate Blanchett) to track her down and bring her back safely. This job takes on a more personal note for the veteran mercenary as her quarry forces her to return to her home planet of Pandora, a lawless land of violent chaos and unending trash heaps. Upon finding Tiny Tina, Lilith learns she holds the key to accessing a long-hidden vault of immeasurable power that Atlas wants to use and exploit.
The two quickly form an odd alliance with a former soldier named Roland (Kevin Hart), a quirky scientist known as Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a psychotic musclebound protector in Krieg (Munteanu), and an incessantly wise-cracking robot called Claptrap (Jack Black). Together, they must stay a step ahead of Atlas’ army while avoiding crazed murderers and the planet’s ferocious monsters to keep Tiny Tina safe and try to unlock the mysterious vault for themselves. However, Lilith’s past comes back to haunt her, and her memories threaten to unravel the team’s plans.
Director Eli Roth, who also co-wrote the screenplay, is one of the worst filmmakers in the business and he follows his poor effort of last year’s “Thanksgiving” with this bad “Guardians of the Galaxy” wannabe. Primarily known for polluting the horror genre with his grotesqueries designed for shock value, Roth tries for a PG-13 blockbuster type of action flick and fails miserably. Granted, the downfall of “Borderlands” is not all Roth’s fault. He originally completed this movie 2 years ago, but the studio was not thrilled with the excessive violence that would have garnered an R rating, so they ordered tons of rewrites and reshoots to water it down to be more palatable for a wider audience. Due to his commitment to film “Thanksgiving,” the reshoots were all directed by Tim Miller, making him and Lionsgate Films equally to blame for this disaster. It would have been interesting to see Roth’s original take, which seems to be more closely aligned with the M for Mature rated video game.
Be that as it may, viewers are left with this uninspiringly timid spectacle of gimmicky action sequences and an unimaginative, highly predictable story arc. Even the set pieces look cheap and flat to match the desolate landscape. The action scenes themselves pretend to be entertaining but lack any kind of real suspense or danger to the main characters, leading to dull outcomes of just going through the motions. The dialogue is among the worst written of the year with a strangely excessive amount of bathroom humor as the highlight. “Borderlands” follows a very generic formula that takes audiences from one bad cliché to the next, sucking up all the anticipation and excitement in the theater and spitting it out in the form of a slimy cash grab.
The only thing saving this poor excuse of a film from being the worst of the year is the extremely talented cast featuring two Oscar winners. Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”) is arguably the best actress in movies today, but this role is a stretch even for her immeasurable gifts. Still, the 55-year-old veteran manages to convince viewers she can be a viable action star, yet another checked box on her illustrious career. The other Oscar winner, Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), supplies her eccentric character with an autistic flare that adds some much-needed depth, supplying her actions with more context.
The biggest surprise was Ariana Greenblatt, who imbues her character with a hint of insanity that makes her a bit unpredictable in an otherwise predictable movie. As with her prominent role in last year’s “65,” her performance is once again undermined by horrible writing and direction. Still, she exhibits the tell-tale signs of a rising star to watch in this business.
Jack Black provides a majority of the amusement in this film as the voice of the motorized robot. His sarcastic banter and silly singing supply the rare chuckle here and there, but even his schtick grows old very quickly, eventually turning his voice into nails on a chalkboard. Even the typically overbearing energy of Kevin Hart seems muted next to the constant dialogue vomiting robot.
“Borderlands” is proof that a border wall is needed to prevent these kinds of bad films from entering our theaters. Like “Assassin’s Creed” or “Street Fighter,” this is a failed video game adaptation that won’t even appease fans of the game since it doesn’t even follow the original storyline. There’s a reason this movie is hovering below a 10% Rotten Tomatoes score, so unless you enjoy having your time and money stolen by Hollywood, stay far away from “Borderlands.”
This movie earns:
