"Borderlands" is an irritatingly snarky and noisy video game adaptation

Borderlands (2024)

Here is a prime example of why not every popular video game needs to be adapted into a movie. Based on a series of first-person shooter games, "Borderlands" is dismal any way you slice it. Take away the source material completely and director Eli Roth’s aggressively snarky sci-fi action fantasy looks and feels like a sub-par hodgepodge of spare parts from "Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Suicide Squad" (and not the good one by James Gunn). For a movie that seems to pride itself on being edgy, irreverent chaos, it’s just noisy, irritating, and a complete misuse of an intriguing motley crew.

What’s "Borderlands" even about? So glad you asked. The plot is a long treasure hunt for something in a vault on another planet, and it’s a slog getting there. More importantly, it’s about the physically distinct characters who are barely characters at all. Pouring on the sarcasm and striking a video game avatar pose every chance she gets, Cate Blanchett plays hard-shelled bounty hunter Lilith who wants the contents in a vault. She’s hired by rich corporate mogul Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to return his daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), who’s apparently been kidnapped by ex-mercenary Roland (Kevin Hart) and a Bane-like “Psycho” named Krieg (Florian Munteanu). But, of course, to find Tina (who is the key to unlocking that vault), Lilith has to go back to her junky home planet of Pandora and face all of its threats. This ragtag group of antiheroes, also including a wisecracking robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black as an annoying, slapsticky R2-D2) and xenoarchaeologist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), must get along to complete their fetch quest. 

Within the numbingly joyless "Borderlands," there are flashes of what could have been a fun, stylish, gonzo cousin to "Guardians of the Galaxy." An intergalactic adventure with giant monsters and a desert full of urine should be weirder and far more entertaining. As is, director Roth and co-writer Joe Crombie’s script is jokey and unctuous without ever being as funny as they want it to be. Even the production design, while occasionally popping with color, uses a lot of the same grungy warehouses and fakey styrofoam sets, leaving one to wonder if its approximate $115-million budget went entirely toward the cast. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: D

Lionsgate released "Borderlands" (102 min.) in theaters on August 9, 2024.