REVIEW: Borderlands (2024)

Movie Reviews

Borderlands is based on a video game series of the same name made by Gearbox Software and published by 2K for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, among other platforms. I am not a big gamer and rarely know much about video games, so I was attracted to the Borderlands movie for the same reasons I would want to see any other film, namely, I love Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis. I also like the colorful, splashy aesthetic and irreverent tone of the trailers. Borderlands reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy in its marketing. I don’t know anything about the Borderlands games, so the complaints I heard of the characters being portrayed wrong didn’t mean much to me. I absolutely understand why that would bother fans of the games; don’t get me wrong. This just didn’t apply to me, a person just looking for a fun couple of hours at the movies. So the real question is, does Borderlands deliver that? Let’s find out. 

Borderlands follows Lilith (Cate Blanchett), a high-end bounty hunter who gets roped into a mission to save Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the daughter of an industrialist named Atlas (Edgar Ramírez). Tina was spirited away by one of her father’s guards, Roland (Kevin Hart), and a prisoner named Kreig (Florian Munteanu). However, when Lilith finds the girl, things aren’t as simple as they initially appeared. Lilith, Roland, Kreig, and Tina must team up with a smartmouth robot named Claptrap (Jack Black) and awkward scientist Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) to find a secret vault hidden in Pandora, Lilith’s home world. 

Borderlands is, in a word, strange. Lilith’s opening narration is sarcastic and dismissive but not funny. An early confrontation in a bar between Lilith and a bunch of Atlas’ men is about the same, designed to be funny but not, for some reason. There are creative ideas here; for instance, Atlas’ men have a device that allows them to wear his face, so he can remotely speak with Lilith. The way she deals with the bounty she’s hauling is somewhat entertaining. I wonder if Cate Blanchett is miscast here, though. I was only interested in this movie for the cast, but Blanchett seems uncomfortable and unnatural as this mouthy brawler. This is a running problem, too; Kevin Hart’s more emotional beats just don’t land. He doesn’t interact much with Tina, but this relationship is supposed to inform many of Roland’s choices. Likewise, he and Lilith grow to respect each other and their care for Tina throughout the film. But this doesn’t work because the connective tissue isn’t there; they don’t talk much, and it just feels like their dynamic changed somewhere off-screen. Jamie Lee Curtis drops the socially unaware nerd schtick after approximately one scene. She goes from not understanding why Lilith would be upset at her for abandoning her to caring deeply about Lilith and Tina out of nowhere. These aren’t character arcs or relationships; they’re the start and end points without any progression or setup and payoff. 

I don’t blame the actors because they didn’t cast themselves, and most of them have given good or great performances elsewhere. Ariana Greenblatt and Florian Munteanu are the best in this film, or at least the most comfortable with their roles. This is funny because I was the least excited to see them. Jack Black does his usual thing, more or less, as Claptrap, but this character isn’t funny or charming at all. His jokes at Lilith’s expense and his incessant singing serve as mere distractions from the main action at best, and they’re actively harmful to the experience at worst. 

I don’t hate Borderlands. It’s not boring, some of the visuals are good, and the film has good ideas. I like these masks the heroes use at one point to evade recognition. They’re similar to the device that projects Atlas’ face, but they create more cartoonish masks. This feels like a video game mechanic, so I assume it’s from one of the games. Borderlands is at its best when it lets loose and has a little fun with its concepts. This happens most often in action scenes, like when the group evades a large band of “psychos” in Pandora’s underbelly. 

Borderlands seems to introduce some game lore but does not explain it. If you’ve played the games, please feel free to comment below. Once the big plot twist occurs, a character is referred to as a “siren” and, later, a “champion.” We can make assumptions about what they mean in the movie, but I don’t want to make assumptions about major plot revelations. Reading between the lines is for a movie’s thematic intent, not the basic events of the film. They allude to Lilith’s backstory and Tannis’ unsatisfactory part in it, but this is also a little vague for my taste. I would have liked to see more of this from Lilith’s perspective, or heck, even Tannis’! She explains why she thought she was doing the right thing, but it would be more compelling to see it. Borderlands wants us to feel for Lilith and mourn her dead mother, but it never takes the time to do the work that would make us care. It’s just like the relationships between the leads, all of which are flat and unemotional. 

Borderlands isn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s not good, either. Most of its leads are miscast, in particular the most famous ones, unfortunately. The comedy is stilted and forced, and much of the film’s story is patently obvious from the outset. I don’t need to be surprised to enjoy a movie, but great movies that are predictable deliver their story beats and character moments extremely well and nail down the technical aspects. Borderlands is packed with awkward performances, poor dialogue, and tragic backstories that do not have any impact. The movie has an enjoyable soundtrack featuring classic songs and an original score by Steve Jablonsky.  Some fight scenes and visual effects show talent and creativity in Borderlands, but that’s all weighed down by wooden performances and unfunny jokes.