By Dave Voigt
Editor, InTheSeats.ca
Guest Contributor
Just because a thing can be done, doesn’t mean it should be.
In theatres today, Borderlands is a colourful and well-designed affair that is just trying to distract
you from its lack of cohesive narrative that truly doesn’t give anyone anything to do.
Lilith (Cate Blanchett), an infamous bounty hunter with a mysterious past, reluctantly returns to her
home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy. Her mission is to find the missing daughter of
Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), the universe’s most powerful S.O.B. Lilith forms an unexpected alliance with a
ragtag team of misfits – Roland (Kevin Hart), a seasoned mercenary on a mission; Tiny Tina (Ariana
Greenblatt), a feral pre-teen demolitionist; Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Tina’s musclebound protector;
Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), the oddball scientist who’s seen it all; and Claptrap (Jack Black), a wiseass
robot. Together, these unlikely heroes must battle an alien species and dangerous bandits to uncover
one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets. The fate of the universe could be in their hands – but they’ll be
fighting for something more: each other.
An adventure based on one of the best-selling videogame franchises of all time, welcome to Borderlands. Sure, we’ve played a video game or two in our day and we can’t deny that Borderlands is a wise talking, well designed Day-Glo affair that is set to entertain a certain subsect of the audience (Teenage Boys) but it’s hard to argue that it’s also a narrative with little to no actual character development, bad dialogue and listless emotional investment on any front that makes it all feel like it was written and storyboarded in a glowing, neon crayon that reminds us more of Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin then an otherworldly adaptation of science-fiction action game.
While co-writer/director Eli Roth has his fans and his well-deserved detractors, I actually hate taking pot
shots at him. Roth has genuine talent in crafting and shaping a narrative which he has shown on more
than occasion, be it the more traditional fare of Thanksgiving and the horror genre that got him into the
business or something like The House With A Clock In Its Walls, the edgy but colourful kids fantasy film
that you could certainly draw a line from to this film. But, with cast problems abound and an overall
script that felt more concerned from jumping to action set piece to action set piece rather than telling us
a story, it all just played like someone smudged Play-Doh all over the script and no one was sure what to
do.
It’s a talented cast, but the only person in the ensemble who actually sells what she’s doing is Cate
Blanchett as the bounty hunter with a tortured past. Even with a bad script, it’s hard not to get invested in anything that woman does on screen. However, it’s all a lost cause after that. The words Kevin Hart and “Seasoned Missionary” should never be in the same sentence, Edgar Ramirez was underwhelming as the bad guy, Jamie Lee Curtis was there simply to be sarcastic and drop some one liners while Ariana
Greenblatt was just being the annoying manic pixie punk girl character which has been done to death.
The script has flashes along the way, but there’s really nothing for anyone to work with here rather than
milking the occasionally decent joke or trying to look kick-ass when the sequences demand it.
There’s no doubt that the pre-teen young man in your life will eat up everything that Borderlands has to
offer. It’s nothing more than theatrical junk food that could barely bother to establish itself as a decent
brand. It’s the equivalent of opening up that chocolate bar that is all white and chalky or the pack of
Twizzlers that you could break a pain glass window with; while neither will technically kill you, but you
won’t be very happy with yourself once it’s all said and done.
Borderlands is in theatres on Friday, August 9th, 2024.
You can catch more of Dave’s work at In The Seats
