Borderlands

Borderlands is an hour and forty-five minute long shocking reminder of how bad video game movies can be.
52/100410180
Starring
Gina Gershon, Cate Blanchett, Ariana Greenblatt
Director
Eli Roth
Rating
R
Genre
Action, Adventure, Comedy
Release date
August 9, 2024
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Story/Plot
Visuals/Cinematography
Performance
Direction
Non-Wokeness
Rating Summary
Unstoppable 124lbs bounty hunter Lilith gets convenienced into leading an instant coffee adventure of nothingness as audience members take a $20 nap.
Audience Woke Score (Vote)
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Lilith, a loner bounty hunter, is tasked with saving a kidnapped girl only to discover that she’s a pawn in the evil machinations of corporate greed.

Borderlands Review

Thanks to fun and bouncy movies like The Super Mario Bros. Movie and quirky series like Fallout fresh in their collective memory, audiences have quickly forgotten just how bad video game film adaptations can be. After all, travesties like 2005’s BloodRayne or the Jean-Claude Van damn-what-did-I-just-watch Street Fighter are ancient history, right?  Fortunately, the folks responsible for Borderlands were kind enough to remind us of our recent privilege.

Benefitting from detailed and quality set and costume designs, as well as execution, Borderlands fails at everything else. Not even its Academy Award-winning actresses can vomit up its trite and uninspired dialogue without looking like little more than talented college performers. However, the film’s ineptitude is most exquisitely exemplified in its meaningless adventure.

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Borderlands is a test case in MacGuffins and convenience. Need to find something important? No problem; the unassailable lead will “get a feeling” just in time to find it before lucking her way out of certain death. Even for a film inspired by a game series best known for its silly sense of humor and first-person shooting, one might expect that a video game movie would be able to handle something as simple and as standard as a fetch quest or that it might understand basic adventure principles. Instead, the film is moved along by literal buses that show up just in time to move key characters to key locations filled with helpful characters who know key bits of information, not to mention characters physically stumbling over plot devices.

“But James,” you say, “we’re not expecting much from this film. Surely, it provides some dumb fun and enjoyable characters meshing together in a charismatic ensemble.” It does not. Borderlands is the flat and expired can of Shasta Cola of ragtag ensemble space adventures. What comic relief there is has been recycled more than airplane cabin air, and none of the 1-dimensional characters give us sufficient reason to care about what happens to them from one moment to the next. Halfway through the film, I forgot that Kevin Hart was even in it, only to be reminded by his sudden reappearance at the end.

Perhaps, were its plot “twist” not as obvious as your great aunt’s hairy goiter, the movie would have something worthwhile to offer. However, without a single interesting character or original thought and a charmless ensemble with the chemistry of rust, Borderlands is Atari’s ET of video game movies.

 

WOKE ELEMENTS

FULL DISCLOSURE:

I fell asleep for about ten minutes in the middle of this cinematic Ambian and could have missed something.

Mary Sue
  • Cate Blanchette is the quintessential Mary Sue. She’s got a tragic background and hard-as-nails flawlessness, and the whole movie exists only as an excuse to tap her full potential upon accepting how great she truly is.
  • This is a very female-heavy cast, which isn’t inherently woke. However, since it completely rejects the game player and filmgoer demographics, it’s hard not to see the casting as agenda-driven.
Where Have All The Cowboys Gone
  • Kevin Hart’s character is the only male character who isn’t severely mentally handicapped, evil, weak-willed, borderline feral, or exists exclusively for comic relief. As I said in the review, I forgot he was in the film halfway through.
White Boys Don’t Like Space
  • With the exception of a single NPC and some very few background extras, white boys were either non-existent or evil henchmen.

James Carrick

James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.

4 comments

  • b

    August 9, 2024 at 2:18 pm

    Yep, I knew this would be woke. Sad!

    15
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    Reply

  • Aloysius T. McKeever

    August 9, 2024 at 2:54 pm

    “leading an instant coffee adventure of nothingness as audience members take a $20 nap.” Haha nice .

    Based on the written part I think your score should be lower for this . Seems more like a 20 than a 52%

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    Reply

  • Sweet Deals

    August 10, 2024 at 2:57 am

    Is a “loaner” bounty hunter one that you had to borrow because the one you normally would use broke down, or one who loans out her services to people who can’t pay right away? Because a “loner” bounty hunter usually doesn’t travel with a party of colorful companions.

    Homophone humor.

    2
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    Reply

  • Naz2900

    August 10, 2024 at 2:17 pm

    Really seems far worse than a 52.

    Reply

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