Average
Summary
Borderlands is a fun action-quest flick set in a sci-fi world with a solid cast and low stakes. Given better marketing and more room to breathe, it probably wouldn’t be 2024’s summer box-office bomb.
Plot: Bounty hunter Lilith is tasked with finding a rich guys daughter on crappy planet Pandora, teams up with misfits and runs into aliens, psychos and robots while fulfilling a prophecy.
Review: While Deadpool & Wolverine hit the billion-dollar club at the global box office this weekend, video game adaptation Borderlands struggled to find an audience. As a non-Borderlands video game player, the first trailer looked like a lost sequel to Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy with the bright color palette, recognizable cast (Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis) running around not Earth, action and banter set to a catchy 1970’s pop song. Lionsgate stuck to the August 9th US release date in the wake of what would be juggernaut DP&W but this did not feel like an event film release in any way.
I went into the flick on Saturday afternoon with adult beverages in hand curious to see how if this would be 2024’s cinematic dumpster fire but was pleasantly surprised and felt sadness for all involved as the film has been a case of “death by press”, stories of a troubled production and pile on negativity.
Blanchett as Lilith with her red wig, cheekbones and dry delivery is excellent as the bounty hunter drawn back to her desolate home planet Pandora to find the daughter of galaxy CEO Atlas (Edgar Ramirez). Pandora comes to dusty life with practical sets, costumes and stunts vs a mash of crappy FX. Lilith runs into the ragtag group of survivors Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a young girl who may have the key to Pandora’s alien secrets, soldier Roland (Kevin Hart) who plays the straight man in all the madness and Krieg (Florian Munteanu) a giant, violent former psycho turned Tina’s big brother/protector. You also get Jack Black voicing Claptrap, a would-be helpful robot and Jamie Lee Curtis as a quirky scientist tied to Lilith’s past.
Moving briskly and simply, the group run into bands of wandering psychos, urinating giant aliens, federation troops and lots of cleavage baring costumes. The action is shoot outs and car chases, nothing too ground breaking but fits the video game to summer movie aesthetic. Atlas is a hologram most of the time and does not make a very interesting villain. Coupled with the short run time (not a bad thing these days), stakes and emotion are generally low.
Apparently the best selling video games are harder edged so the films PG-13 rating isn’t landing with franchise fans. Lionsgate has launched action franchises like The Expendables and John Wick but also didn’t get Warrior, Dredd, Gamer or The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare out of the gate. Borderlands had a small presence at San Diego Comic-Con with activations for bar Moxxi’s and the cast doing press outside of the show but no panel inside. It raises an interesting topic on the current box office climate where Borderlands cost around $120 million with a $30 million marketing budget
fighting for the crumbs of the $275 million budget Deadpool & Wolverine with a $100 million marketing budget. The definition of success remains extremely variable.
Writer and Director Eli Roth oversaw the original production in 2021 but was replaced for reshoots by Deadpool’s Tim Miller when alleged direction went from an R to PG-13. Roth is still credited as Director and co-writer while seven other writers are rumored to have contributed. The end result is still very coherent with a pulsing Steve Jablowsky score, who replaced Nathan Barr.
In a world where Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves and World of Warcraft can do well enough to spark sequel talk, Borderlands deserves a little better if not much.