BORDERLANDS
(director/writer: Eli Roth; screenwriter: Joe Abercrombie; cinematographer: Rogier Stoffiers; editors: Evan Henke, Julian Clarke; music: Steve Jablonsky; cast: Cate Blanchett (Lilith), Edgar Ramirez (Atlas), Florian Munteanu (Krieg), Kevin Hart (Roland), Ariana Greenblatt (Tiny Tina), Jack Black (Claptrap), Jamie Lee Curtis (Dr. Tannis), Bobby Lee (Larry), Gina Gershon (Moxxi), Olivier Richters (Krom), Haley Bennett (Lilith’s mom), Janina Gavankar (Knoxx), Steven Boyer (Scooter), Ryann Redmond (Ellie), Benjamin Byron Favis (Marcus), Paula Andrea Placido (Quinn); Runtime: 102; MPAA Rating: PG-13; producers: Ari Arad, Avi Arad, Erik Feig; Lionsgate; 2024)
“It might work for gamers as a video game, but doesn’t work for movie-goers as a movie.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The video game adaptation of this sci-fi space adventure pic by director Eli Roth (“Thanksgiving”/”Death Wish”) is plotless and inert. Roth is ill-equipped to handle this film’s gamer story-line and its jokey scenario. The turgid film is about comic book characters who are on a special search mission to save the world.
Roth co-writes this mess with someone no one heard of named Joe Abercrombie. It’s a bad film despite starring the Oscar winner Cate Blanchett. She tries hard, but the material is not salvageable.
The powerful and shady corporate executive Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) hires the renown bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) for a lucrative payday to return to her hometown’s squalid and lawless Planet Pandora, that has become a toxic wasteland due to mining wars. Lilith accepts the mission to find Atlas’s supposed kidnapped teenage daughter Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). After quickly finding her, to keep her safe the fiery red-head Lilith needs the help of the wise-cracking and annoying junkyard robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black); the fierce-looking, gas mask wearing, semi-literate strongman Krieg (Florian Munteanu); and a rogue soldier named Roland (Kevin Hart).
The film is goofy, violent, noisy, and comic book dumb. On the Planet Pandora, Gina Gershon as Moxxi is dressed as a Mae West type of madame, who runs an adult club in the red light district.
The excitable and bratty Tiny Tina, who sports bunny ears (don’t ask why!), maintains a collection of explosive bunny toys, and is needed alive to fulfill a prophecy to restore order to the universe.
Eventually the scientist Dr. Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis, another Oscar winner), appears, who knew Lilith in the past. She hopes to find three keys to open a special vault containing advanced alien technology left over from a more advanced age.
There are shootouts, chases, a crass juvenile humor, paper thin characters, and a weak story.
It might work for gamers as a video game, but doesn’t work for movie-goers as a movie.
REVIEWED ON 8/13/2024 GRADE: C-
dennisschwartzreviews.com