Film Review – BORDERLANDS (2024): Eli Roth’s Campy Video Game Adaptation Has Some Appealing Qualities Alongside its Oddball Craziness

Borderlands Review

Borderlands (2024) Film Review, a movie directed by Eli Roth, written by Joe Abercrombie and Eli Roth and starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramirez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Janina Gavankar, Jack Black, Gina Gershon, Benjamin Byron Davis, Olivier Richters, Ryann Redmond, Haley Bennett, Riana Emma Balla and Steven Boyer.

Howard the Duck, Hudson Hawk, Battlefield Earth. What do these three films have in common? They were spectacularly big (OK, huge) critical and box-office duds. Unless, there’s a miraculous last-minute save at the box-office, you can probably add Eli Roth’s new video game based movie, Borderlands, to that list of pictures that under-performed at the box-office. However, those three earlier films were hugely entertaining In spots despite their flaws. Sure, they weren’t exactly good but they weren’t the worst of the worst. Or were they?

Borderlands is really not that bad. How can any movie starring two Oscar-winners (this time, Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis) be a total failure? I could get on the bandwagon and trash Borderlands but, truth be told, it’s a fun movie to watch even though from a critical cinematic standpoint, it’s merely a messy would-be blockbuster. Strip away its ambitions and you have a light-hearted action picture that will keep viewers entertained if they keep their expectations fairly modest.

This new film is Roth’s answer to Star Wars. There are a bunch of scenes in Borderlands where our heroes go through corridors and fight masked, suited up bad guys. In spots, this film reminded me of the garbage room sequence in the original Star Wars. Also, it stirred up memories of some of the scenes that surround that section of George Lucas’s 1977 science-fiction masterpiece. Set mainly in a place called Pandora, Kevin Hart is on board Roth’s film as the humorous and heroic Roland who teams up with the fiery-haired Lilith (Blanchett) to help save a young girl who typically wears bunny ears, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). It seems Tina holds the key to some kind of secret treasure that will make the villain in the movie, Atlas (a decent Edgar Ramirez) the happiest man in the film’s universe.

More Star Wars parallels come in the form of a robot named Claptrap (humorously and successfully voiced by Jack Black). This is Roth’s answer to C-3PO or R2-D2. Once they meet, Claptrap is literally going to be Lilith’s friend to the end. You see, Lilith is a bounty hunter enlisted by Atlas to find Tiny Tina for a handsome fee. But, the robot becomes her assistant and joins her alongside Roland and Tina to try to fight the evil within the story line and escape countless bad guys. Another good guy thrown into the mix is the masked Krieg (Florian Munteanu) who is also in it for the long haul. Jamie Lee Curtis serves as Lilith’s now deceased mother’s friend, Tannis, who has some stories about Lilith’s mom that will make Lilith feel all the more happier about being a true hero within the context of the story line.

Lilith’s mom is played briefly on-screen by Haley Bennett (Cyrano) in a “computerized”-type message scene that feels similar to the hologram messages R2-D2 had given Princess Leia in Star Wars. This main scene with Bennett actually feels a little emotional and that may be one of the problems with Borderlands. It shows too much heart towards the end for a movie with a rougher feel surrounding it in its earlier stages.

The action scenes are usually merely OK. At one point, Roland takes a teddy bear into a battle with unfunny results but the other sequences include Blanchett’s Lilith using a flamethrower to take out some baddies and, eventually, Lilith dons wings as she learns the secret of her true identity.

Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart and Jamie Lee Curtis do nothing wrong here. They bring their experience to the table and do the best they can to liven up the show. If the script is a bit lackluster, there are more than enough personable performers here to make up for the film’s lack of a good plot with their good-natured zest. Greenblatt and the voice of Jack Black add more likability factor to the mix too. Claptrap is annoying at times but not on the level of Jar Jar Binks or any other character of that sort.

Blanchett is the most valuable player here and she’s certainly welcome to steal the movie. For some reason, people are overlooking her hard work here and focusing on the movie’s lack of a compelling story line. Eli Roth seems like he made this movie for audiences to have fun but, it becomes clear by the way the film has been received, some viewers wanted much more.

Borderlands succeeds more often than it fails but with its hefty price tag, it’s going to join the ranks of George Lucas’s own creation, Howard the Duck, Hudson Hawk and Battlefield Earth as a box-office belly-flop. But, those other movies were particularly entertaining (particularly the former two out of those three) and Borderlands has a lot going for it in its favor. Who knew that audiences today wanted more than a $110 million budgeted video game adaptation with two Oscar-winners, a young girl wearing bunny ears and a clever talking robot? Gee whiz. Audiences are so demanding nowadays.

Rating: 6/10

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