Borderlands (2024) [Movie review]

Borderlands is a popular game series from over a decade ago. You want to know how old it is? I actively had time to play the games and thoroughly enjoyed the games. Now, I’m watching a COVID production that faced a ton of delays finally getting to see the light of day. Much has been made of its early bombing in the cinemas, but what does it mean to you? The rhetorical You I’m speaking of is the casual viewer and not someone who knows the deep lore of the games. We used to call them normal people, but nothing it can be called normal anymore.

Vault Hunting is cool

When we’re introduced to Cate Blanchett, it feels beneath her within seconds. She’s performing in the kind of role that used to take serious young actresses into the profitable middle of the mainstream. Now, I watch it and wonder how long is it until we get Tar 2: Still ‘ Ducting. The film opens up similar to the games where all of the Vault Hunters are called to Pandora for one reason or another. Tiny Tina comes into play faster and with more importance. But, there is something that distracted me. All of the older women cast in the lead roles are playing narratively much younger women.

Well, except for Jamie Lee Curtis. That’s a 65 year old playing what I assume is a 100 year old genderbent take on Professor Farnsworth from Futurama. After everyone ends up on Pandora and the main mission kicks off what feels like 20-30 minutes into Borderlands, we get to met the far better supporting cast. Henchmen, General Knoxx and other bit roles all feel way more authentic to the story than the main players. But, why is that?

Borderlands shouldn’t ask so much of audiences

I mean, I don’t mind lore and background information. But, there’s a reason why in 1984 audiences seeing Dune had to have a mini pamphlet of terms handed out to them before the initial showings. You shouldn’t have to dump a ton of information on a blind audience and hope they can hang. But, even if you remove all of the video game lore from the movie, at best it’s a tepid take on Ghost of Mars by way of Bone Tomahawk. Ponder that for a bit and you won’t be able to unsee it.

Outside of that, it’s pretty much cliche storytelling. Your main hero has a secret backstory and ties to the planet in question. There’s a loveable rogue who has been working for the bad guys and wants to flip. There’s a young damsel in distress, a wise cracking robot and an elderly mentor who knows more than what there is on the top level. Pick your narrative bent and you’re just a flashy presentation from getting Kathleen Kennedy on board.

But, don’t expect it to fly past the audience.

From the makers of the videogames you played in between Rockstar outings

Shooting Action RPGs don’t directly translate to narrative cinema. If you never played Borderlands or don’t remember what it was like when the first two games hit, the point of the game was having a fun shooting adventure with fellow Hunters. Most people would slap on their headsets and just chat it up while they kept grinding for XP. There’s not a ton of story telling behind this world outside of what gets Characters A-D to Point X before Y happens. It’s why they have Claptrap play such a big role.

Such a character like Claptrap is almost lost within the nature of Borderlands as a film, because all he becomes is a wise-cracking sight gag. He shits bullets in one scenes, drops Jack Black friendly quips and is often seen throwing his friends under the bus for the approval of the Atlas Corporation. That’s a bit of Murphy Brown style topical humor for the older kids.

Borderlands is brutally bland

Borderlands sucks for one main reason. There is nothing memorable about watching the cinematic version of an extended Let’s Play. Nobody picked a copy of any of the Borderlands games and said damn I love that story. They played it because it was a fun excursion among gaming fans to hang out and shoot stuff. While I’m not going to dig up my favorite argument that Ebert kicked off, it remains true. What you get out of gaming isn’t what you get out of cinematic storytelling.

The actresses are too old for their characters, Tiny Tina proves that bland child actor du jour doesn’t work and in under two hours….the story feels draining. While you don’t get that from playing the games, it’s not a fault of anything in the storytelling or otherwise. Even though, a creative more familiar with the material could’ve mined something better out of Borderlands. But, that’s a case of Could Have, Would Have, Should Have.

As a rule of thumb, the video game cast shouldn’t upstage the movie cast

But it happened. I’m not a fan of Borderlands as a gaming series, but I enjoyed my time playing it. It’s a shame that I can’t say the same for the Borderlands film. As a student of film history and the years upon years of schlock released into the world, it feels like I would be doing Borderlands an honor it doesn’t deserve comparing it to something else. But, damn if it doesn’t feel as clueless and pointless as late era Cannon Films grabbing IP with both hands on the cheap.

Still, if Tiny Tina doesn’t feel like a feral child and if the female characters in their mid 30s seem like they have Polio Vaccination scars, it only serves to take people out of the material. Comparison is the applied science of disappointment, but damn if a massively funded Universal summer movie can’t hold water against a perennial cheapie title on Steam…things are rough.

Is it the worst movie of the year? No. Hell, it’s not even the worst movie of the weekend. But, Borderlands is a misfire.

Borderlands is in theaters now!