Looter shooter games were the next big thing during the PS4 and Xbox One generation of consoles. Every second release had you collecting numerous weapons with randomised stats to feed that never-ending grind. The game series to popularise this genre on the PS3 and Xbox 360: Borderlands. The original game is a classic, and the subsequent entries have all achieved similar levels of popularity. With the series seeing so much success, it was inevitable a film adaptation would eventually manifest. But maybe turning a series known for its gameplay into a film wasn’t the best idea because Borderlands, directed by Eli Roth and starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black (among others), will go down as another misguided video game adaptation.
Before I be a negative nancy and pick this film apart, there were some parts I enjoyed. Despite my reservations, the cast did a relatively good job with the script they were given and somewhat captured the vibes of the characters (some more than others). Cate Blanchett, as Lilith, was definitely the best out of the bunch, even if she is probably a bit old to play Lilith at this point (10 years ago she would’ve been perfect). But I think she portrayed an older, more cynical Lilith well. Jack Black as Claptrap was a fun enough time, and his interactions with Lilith were the source of my few chuckles throughout the 100-minute run time. In fact, most of the banter between the characters was fun, which made some of the cringy dialogue a bit more bearable.
Some of the action was also pretty entertaining (although they were all in the film’s first half). The opening scene with Roland (played by Kevin Hart but should’ve been Terry Crews) breaking Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) out of space prison made me think that at least the action would be good. With the following few action scenes involving Lilith being equally as fun, I was pleasantly surprised. I also enjoyed the car chase, which was probably the best-paced action sequence in the film, despite some dodgy CGI here and there. It’s just a shame they couldn’t carry that momentum for the rest of the film.
Ok, now onto the bad parts, and there are a few. For starters, this story is not good. It’s a jumbled mess that constantly jumps from story beat to story beat, only pausing for exposition dumps that attempt to help the audience understand what is happening. I was able to follow along for the most part, but I’ve played the games more times than I care to admit, so I knew most of the world-lore this film tries to get newcomers to understand. It’s almost like someone showed the writer a brief summary of Borderlands 1, 2, The Pre-Sequel, and Tales from the Borderlands as an outline, and the writer just mashed them all together, making a worse version of all of them. Throw in the frantic pacing, and if you’re coming into this without any prior knowledge of the series, you’ll be lost.
I mentioned before that some dodgy CGI was in the early action scenes. Well, it only gets worse as the film progresses. Aside from Claptrap, everything after the 50-minute mark just looks bad, sometimes downright awful. Maybe they put all of the massive 100 million dollar budget into the first half because that’s what it feels like. This is most apparent in the final act, which has some of the most egregiously bad visuals I’ve seen this year. Not reaching Madame Web levels, but it got close.
It also didn’t help that the final fight boils down to the power of friendship overcoming the evil corporate dude, which came out of nowhere and feels like I missed 20-30 minutes of character growth. This was when two people (of five) walked out of the cinema, and I really couldn’t blame them.
SPOILERS FOR BORDERLANDS AHEAD
Like with any adaptation, fans will always compare it to the source material, and Borderlands gets it right 50% of the time. In terms of easter eggs, references, and cameos, it does surprisingly well. I had a fun time quickly scanning every scene to see if I could make out what gun a character was using or what location they were traversing. My personal favourite was the character of Marcus (Benjamin Byron Davis), who, just like in the original Borderlands, is driving a bus for new Vault Hunters heading to Fyrestone. They nailed this character in the whole two scenes in which he appears, and I wish he was in the film more. I was also happy that Lilith ended up using her Siren powers (Sirens are super important to the Borderlands lore), even if she didn’t get tattoos to accompany them. But no cameo or easter egg could fully make up for some of the liberties taken with the lore.
For starters, they made Tiny Tina an Eridian clone created by Atlas, which is the furthest from what she is in the games. She’s supposed to be a girl with major parent issues (they both dead) who loves blowing stuff up, not a science experiment who likes to mildly blow things up while proclaiming they are special. Ariana does her best with this version of Tina, but nothing could save it. A carbon copy of fan-favourite Handsome Jack was bad guy, except he had none of Jack’s charisma and came across as another generic villain (at that point, just have Handsome Jack). The story does try to follow the plot of the first game for the most part, but they include Sanctuary and Krieg (Florian Munteanu) (introduced in Borderlands 2), which left me baffled. The Vault was way closer to the one found in The Pre-Sequel because it did not have a giant monster inside (technically there were tentacles, but it wasn’t fully shown so it doesn’t count) and just had a bunch of floating rocks, and the whole special person being the only one to open The Vault was ripped straight out of Tales of the Borderlands. These could’ve been interesting plot threads on their own (and they are in the games), but this just came off as unnecessary, and the film would’ve been better if they had only focused on the first game.
Borderlands isn’t the worst thing I’ve seen this year, but I wouldn’t say it’s good. The fun character banter, good action scenes, and fun references can’t save a badly paced plot, some horrible CGI, and a horrendous final act. The cast does what they can, and maybe I found a little bit more enjoyment because I love these games, but Borderlands just isn’t good. I would suggest only watching if it’s randomly on TV in a few months or on a flight.
Have you seen Borderlands? What did you think? Is this the worst film of 2024? Let us know in the comments where we can talk about the Borderlands games instead.
