Atlas’ (Edgar Ramírez) daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), has been kidnapped and held on the planet Pandora by Krieg (Florian Munteanu) and Roland (Kevin Hart).  Sent to rescue her is Lilith (Cate Blanchett), a bounty hunter born on the wasteland planet who vowed never to return, but Atlas is powerful and the price was right.  Upon returning to her home planet, she finds the place even more rundown than before, but the people are abuzz with rumors that an ancient vault is hidden somewhere in the barren wasteland and whoever uncovers it will be rich beyond their wildest imagination.  As Lilith learns more about Tina’s kidnapping, she begins to realize that she was unwittingly drawn into a plot to discover the vault for Atlas. 

Officially announced by the studio almost a decade prior to its theatrical release, Borderlands finally hits cinemas with an iteration written and directed by Eli Roth, and with Joe Crombie assisting on the page; though Crombie, of whom this is his first credit, is largely theorized to be a pseudonym for Craig Mazin who was initially attached to write the project.  Lionsgate sent the 102-minute film wide to over 3,000 theatres where the PG13-rated film based on an M-rated video game series promptly underperformed and underdelivered to general audiences and fans of the game alike.  Most likely just happy enough to dump the title in the doldrums of August and have the cloud of this massive misstep past them, both cast and execs can breathe a sigh of relief that there will not likely be a sequel film in this franchise to try and justify funding.  The sooner it can limp to VOD, the sooner they can lick their wounds and recoup some of the losses. 

Borderlands boasts an interesting enough production design, managed by Andrew Menzies, and costumes designed by Daniel Orlandi to lure in an audience. While these elements all help the world feel more fleshed out and whole, the thin narrative betrays these artistic elements.  This is still deeper than many of these highly stylized action films that only ever have one or two elements that they cling to in order to draw in an audience.  The narrative follows the typical McGuffin arc which makes sense given the video game roots, but even with its simple conceit the script is a mess and pulls the film down.  Now, this may be due to its troubled production which has been through more re-writes than we will ever know so while it is impressive that this script manages to tell a three-act story at all, it is difficult to really get engaged with the narrative. 

The other alienating factor of the film beyond the easter eggs for franchise fans is the star-studded cast that can never quite dull the luster of their own appeal enough to let us fall into the world of the film.  Part of this is because the film is so goofy – but notably, not funny – and though it is nice to see them having fun in their roles, it is hard for audiences to know just what they are doing here.  Much of this can be attributed to the heavy use of ADR – again, a symptom of a fraught production – and while it does fit the video game aesthetic of the film, the disembodied voices are always a distraction. Kreig is most affected by this as almost all of his dialogue is one-liners delivered off-frame or just as he enters the scene with his hulking mass facing away from the camera.  Munteanu might as well have been CGI for how little he interacts with the rest of that cast, but that would run the risk of having a second insufferable character along with Claptrap (Jack Black).  The little yellow robot is the film’s attempt at comic relief, and Black does his best but he is saddled with regurgitating the same toned joke over and over again across this film’s deceptively long runtime.  While these single-attribute characters may work well in a video game, a film requires more depth which this script just does not provide them. 

This also plagues the more leading members of the cast in that they have nothing to build their characters off besides their single defining trait.  Blanchett and Curtis are floundering on screen as they try to navigate the nonsense, but looking towards how the film attempts to add depth and backstory to Tina, anything deeper than what is presented is fumbled.  Greenblatt is stuck in a tonal disaster of a cheeky, devil-may-care character with a not-so-closeted pyrotechnic and explosives side.  The joke is the disparity between the rude mouth and violence going against her infantile character design, but there is also a backstory where she is a clone created by Atlas which Roth and Abercrombie quickly move on from after introducing the point to help tie the plot together. 

In working its way to the third act, the action is quite engaging as this motley crew engages with hordes of savage enemies, though there is never any true sense of danger.  The “psychos” stack up in piles, and while they are incredibly resilient, our heroes, in turn, leave each battle with nary a scratch.  Even in the more comic instances when the battle ends with them covered in trash juice and ketchup, it’s a simple scan of the electric shower that cleans them up in an instant.  While fans of the game may giggle at this reference, once the gag is up, it is never brought back into the narrative; partially because there is never any need for a device to heal the wounds of the unscathed but also partially due to the fact that nothing in this film builds or amounts to anything beyond the current scene. This instant gratification is most egregious at the end of the final act when the vault is opened.  Once inside, the film spends only a few short minutes – rounding up – and what has long been talked about across the runtime and shrouded in mystery and intrigue – though to be fair, its contents were only ever loosely defined at best – feels rushed through and there is no payoff.  Thankfully, the preceding battle did present something tangible, exciting, and thrilling, but it is as if the film either blew through its ideas and had to quickly resolve or, more than likely, had to wrap things up well before the two-hour mark so as not to lose the attention span of the tablet generation they were courting. 

It all just goes to show the film’s general lack of commitment to anything.  Without a guiding star, the filmmakers were lost and the results, while they did successfully navigate from A to B, leave much to be desired.  In an effort to expand its reach and get the ticket sales out of audiences who would have otherwise snuck in, Borderlands opted for that PG-13 rating which just does not allow the brash and crude trappings of which it wants and needs to have to make this story work.  Audiences can plainly see what lines they want to cross and when the filmmakers tiptoe right up to that point before turning tail, it feels like they are working scared, having to answer to the censors.  They cannot let loose and be wild but the film keeps telling us that this is grade-A pure adrenaline being pumped directly into our system, yet we are smart and we know this is just what we are being told to feel and not something the filmmakers have actually invoked inside of us on the strength of their storytelling.  While it does not feel like a film that throws caution to the winds as the property demands, Borderlands still feels like a film that is a perfect encapsulation of what it wants to be; it is just a shame that we are looking for something more concrete than it is delivering.  There is certainly a place for cotton candy filmmaking and not everything needs to carry a profound metaphor and message, but it is a shame that a film as thin as this is being presented to audiences as the whole act feels hollow.