Borderlands is a mess. Here is a movie that is deprived of a good story, interesting characters and humor that feels forced and desperate. With a murky plot and special effects sequences that are anything but exciting or thrilling, this is 102 minutes of your life you can never get back.
The movie features an all-star cast with Cate Blanchett as Lilith, a bounty hunter on a planet called Pandora who reluctantly undertakes a mission to find a girl named Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). Lilith is soon joined by a mercenary named Roland (Kevin Hart) and a chatty robot named Claptrap (Jack Black).
The three of them find Tina, and then they’re soon joined by an eccentric researcher (Jamie Lee Curtis) who tells the group that Tina is a special individual with a key that can unlock something known as The Vault, which has some powerful secrets about the universe these characters live in.
When the movie isn’t bombarding the screen with overblown special effects or jokes that consistently fall flat, it has inexplicable plot elements that make us wish the movie would get to its climax. It also features visuals that contain no sense of wonder or imagination. It becomes nothing more than an uninspired mismatch of Mad Max and Star Wars.
Based on the video game of the same name and directed and co-written by Eli Roth, Borderlands squanders its potential on an execution that seems lame and idiotic from its opening scene until the closing credits.
Borderlands tries to be a summer blockbuster that aims to be in the same vein as Guardians of the Galaxy but instead finds itself in the same company as Battlefield Earth.
Blanchett, Hart, and Black have proven they can be charismatic talents, but they don’t get a chance to shine whatsoever with a script that’s bereft of ingredients to make it a memorable experience. It’s just an ugly, depressing, painfully unfunny attempt at a franchise that won’t get a sequel.
In the theater where I saw it, there was only one laugh from the audience. That’s how little the humor works.
Since this is a movie based on a video game, if the words “Game Over” popped up on the screen at the end, I might have applauded.
Grade: D
(Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material.)
