Borderlands

Director: Eli Roth
Screenplay: Eli Roth and “Joe Crombie”
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt and Jamie Lee Curtis
Country: United States
Running Time: 102 mins
Year: 2024

I went into Eli Roth’s latest venture hopeful. After all, he’d just released his best film to date in last year’s Thanksgiving, a remarkably fun, energetic and gruesome slasher that was adapting his own 2007 short of the same name. It seemed like I was finally on board the Roth train, with only more great work to come in the future… right? Well, along comes Borderlands, an adaptation of the enormously successful Gearbox video game series of the same name.

For those unfamiliar, the Borderlands games are known for their mature, edgy content with cursing-a-plenty, blood, guts, gore and all of the other descriptive ways you can name violence out there. It’s one of the most popular video game shooters of the past twenty years, and has spawned multiple sequels and spin-offs. However, when it comes to bringing it to the big screen, it’s been anything but easy. Saw lead actor and co-writer Leigh Whannell was originally offered the role of writer-director, and given his recent track record with known cult favourite Upgrade and box office hit The Invisible Man, it seems like an easy bet for something successful and popular, of course. That is, until he abruptly left the project and writer after writer were chosen to adapt the Borderlands franchise for a supposedly R-Rated movie. Years go by and before you know it, Eli Roth is now on board. Wait, the guy behind Hostel and that weird Death Game remake Knock Knock, starring Keanu Reeves? This guy is going to adapt the edgy, video game series? Well, there’s worse choices out there and I guess if anybody loves vulgarity, it’s Eli Roth. 

The production was as chaotic as the lead up, with composer and long-time Roth collaborator Nathan Barr getting fired from the production, only to be replaced by Transformers composer Steve Jablonsky. Roth even left production near the end of completion to shoot and promote Thanksgiving, so reshoots were left to Deadpool and Terminator: Dark Fate’s Tim Miller, another curious addition to the crew. By the way, the screenplay at this point was being written by The Last of Us and Chernobyl’s Craig Mazin, who’s adaptation of The Last of Us was incredibly well-regarded. Things are only looking up, aren’t they? 

After the reshoots, after over three years of production hell, Mazin retracts his screenwriting credit and is replaced by the definitely-real-and-not-a-pseudonym Joe Crombie, who’s previously written… nothing. Not a peep from Mr. Crombie, who’s again, definitely real. Well, now that the film is finally out, after all of these delays, all of these writers, directors, composers, surely it was worth the wait. Surely would be the answer that I wish I could deliver for you today, but unfortunately, life doesn’t always give you what you want.

Eli Roth’s Borderlands is one of the most dire experiences I’ve had in a cinema in my almost thirty year existence on this planet. Outside of a family of four on the left of me, my friend and a man in a yellow jacket who decided to change seats halfway through the film, the auditorium was empty. Huh, with how much this was being promoted at my local cinema, I assumed a few more people would show up. Oh well, let’s sit down and enjoy ourselves in the world of Pandora and all of its wonderfully yucky creatures.

Cate Blanchett’s Lilith gives us opening narration, describing the first game’s narrative of finding a secret vault which this universe’s Vault Hunters want more than anything else in the world. It’s undercut by a joke about how stupid this sounds, but okay. And then we’re introduced to Kevin Hart’s Roland, a cool hard-boiled soldier who kidnaps Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a young girl. He brushes hands with Florian Munteanu’s Krieg, a Hulk-like behemoth of a man, who wears a mask. Lilith accepts a job to rescue Tina and ends up going to her home planet of Pandora to find her. Along the way, she encounters Jack Black’s Claptrap, a small, annoying robot that only exists to grind the gears in my head that can’t stand high-pitched Chipmunk-like squealing that any sane person wouldn’t want to hear in a million years. After a few events, all of these characters are forced together to find the Vault and keep Tina alive. That’s a brief excerpt of what this film’s plot-heavy narrative has to offer. And how did I find it? It’s almost as good as the time I had appendicitis and my appendix almost burst. It’s right alongside that memorable event in my life. 

The film operates on this level of feeling very, very expensive and an almost endearing throwback to Hollywood blockbusters like the Mad Max films or some trashy B-movie, but at the same time, looking garish, ugly and downright unwatchable in equal measure. The editing is unbelievably amateurish, with noticeable ADR, obvious reshoots and a series of uninspired licensed musical cues that made me weep for the days of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, and I don’t even love that movie. The performances range from “I understand the trash I’m participating in” to “Maybe Jamie Lee Curtis was never a good actor in the first place” and it’s exhausting to sit through. Nobody has chemistry, the jokes are all total duds, with no laughter from any of the seven people sat in my unfortunate screening. 

By stripping away the major reason that the video game you’re adapting was successful in the first place and slapping a PG-13 rating over it, what’s the point in bringing this to the big screen? Is it for noted producer Avi Arad to make a quick buck off another licensed property? Is it because Eli Roth really, really wanted to bring this popular video game to the big screen, and only he could? Is it to make something for the fans, the people who bought all of the games and would like to see that story told in an expensive, theatre-worthy experience? Well, in all honesty, it’s definitely the first but who am I to say?

Chock full of urine and excrement jokes, people saying the tamest of curse words to seem cool, costume design that unfortunately only resembles Spirit Halloween as opposed to a $120 million motion picture released by a major studio such as Lionsgate, I honestly struggle to believe that a single person associated with this production are happy with how this turned out. Deep down, I know that’s true. A film designed with the least amount of care given to please fans who are paying to see it, devoid of any enjoyable humour or comradery between this Guardians of the Galaxy wannabe ensemble. It’s a chore to sit through, and I wanted to be on the contrarian side and scream “This isn’t as bad as the 8% Rotten Tomatoes score (as of the time of writing this) has led everyone to believe.” 

Again, this is Roth after making his best film yet. There was no way this would lead to the most soulless, nothing-burger of his career that I decided to pay £9 to experience. £18 if you consider the fact that I paid for my friend’s ticket. They bought the drinks and popcorn though, so I can’t complain. If I haven’t made it painfully obvious with this overlong and monotonous review (which is in line with the content provided in the film!), then I’ll say this. It’s a film that will be remembered fondly as one of the worst video-game adaptations in cinematic history. It won’t be reclaimed by fans of vulgar auteurism for “not being as bad as people say it is.” It’ll go down as a disappointment to all involved and all who view it. It will sit alongside the ranks of Catwoman, Morbius, Fant4stic and Spawn for the rest of eternity.

But, let me be fair. Borderlands is a more faithful adaptation than most will give it credit for. It has an annoying little robot who never stops yapping, but now he’s played by Jack Black. It has sequences where [REDACTED] so people can say “I know that from the video game!” It’s full of poorly-directed and hacked-to-bits action sequences that will hurt your head the longer you try to pay attention to what is actually happening on screen. If there’s ever been something that screams Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford more, I dare you to show me. Don’t see this, even ironically. I’d say it’s not worth wasting the money, but I’d argue that there’s more dire things to come out of the experience than a couple of pounds or dollars being spent on this. It’s the lack of anything tangible that feels like real art. It’s an empty excuse of entertainment as an activity that one can enjoy. It’s the one hundred and two minutes you will never, ever get back in your life.  

The one thing that Borderlands truly succeeds at is its depiction of the central planet, Pandora. A trash heap that nobody enjoys. Only sneered at in disgust by onlookers and contains dire consequences for those who enter. It’s the closest thing that the film gets to making the viewer feel like they too, are trapped in a real hellscape that only hurts those around it, only there’s something that’s even more terrifying. It’s after your wallet.

Film:

Borderlands opens in cinemas today. 

Where to watch Borderlands