Borderlands

2 outta 5

Borderlands is a movie that isn’t as much fun as it tries to be. There is some fun stuff in here, like a lead performance that is a lot more enjoyable than others in the role would be. But there is also a heck of a lot of unneeded lore and plot points that distract from what should be a sci-fi shoot ‘em up. Also, there’s a plot thing about an ancient important thing involving a Chosen One mystery which is just a drag to hear by now. Some of the sets and world design look cool in a garish sort of way, and occasionally the action perks up. But at most this can only be a sporadically enjoyable sci-fi romp, but never enough. When the wacky, funny robot sidekick is actually incredibly irritating, there is definitely a problem.

Lillith (Cate Blanchett) is a bounty hunter sent by Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to retrieve his daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), on the planet of Pandora. She was kidnapped by a soldier, Roland (Kevin Hart), and she is apparently very important to the world of Pandora. Across the planet there are vaults left by an ancient alien civilization and Tina is only one of the few people who can open it. When Lillith arrives, she is greeted by a very loud robot, Claptrap (Jack Black) and it turns out Tina is in cahoots with Roland and is being protected by the very large and intimidating Krieg (Florian Munteanu). Along their journey, they encounter Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), someone who knew Lillith when she was a child, a time that Lillith has very bad memories of. As they race to find the vaults, they are being chased by the freaky Psychos and Atlas and his own personal army that are all looking to splatter the crew before they succeed.

The movie opens with a voiceover exposition drop from Cate Blanchett. Memorably, in Lord of the Rings, she delivers the ultimate voiceover exposition drop as Galadriel. And to swing from Lord of the Rings exposition drops to freakin’ explaining the rules of the world Borderlands is a huge leap in quality. The rules of Borderlands just seem like grunge sci-fi nonsense. There’s a history about ancient alien civilization that made vaults full of ancient knowledge and only a certain special chosen one can open it, which is basically like five sci-fi movie cliches on top of each other.

The complexities of Tina and her relationship with her father and how it ties into the worlds of the vault is vast and uninteresting. Tina admits that she is a clone, which has absolutely no impact on the story. When Tina says that she did some horrible things to the other clones that also doesn’t add anything. At least Greenblatt’s performance is kind of engaging, like when she pretends to be a helpless girl but then throws bomb filled stuffed bunnies at people. Blanchett is a fantastic thespian and seeing her slum it in an action sci-fi movie is actually pretty fun, as she portrays Bounty Hunter bitterness with likability. Although at the end she is at the centre of some CGI glowy nonsense that even Blanchett can’t make convincing or emotionally profound.

Curtis gives her exposition scientist role some flair, and one of the movie’s few solid dramatic bits is when Lillith is angry at Tannis for abandoning her as a child when Lillith’s mother died. However, the plot contrivance that across an entire planet that Lillith would find Tannis as someone important from her childhood is awful. In a role with minimal dialogue Munteanu is oddly enjoyable, as he basically just emotes through a mask and hollers. There is a comedy robot sidekick voiced by Jack Black that is just super loud and very annoying. The way the robot keeps squealing is excruciating and there’s a bit when the robot is basically pooping out bullets that just goes on and on. Whenever the robot gets shot or beat up, hopefully that will kill it, but it keeps coming back to make very unfunny jokes. As the bad guy, Ramírez gets kind of a cool introductory scene where some unsuspecting mooks must wear a holoprojector of his face so he can talk to Lillith but that’s about it. Heart as Rolland the soldier is very much a standard hero without barely any jokes or quips, which is really weird to cast Kevin Hart and then have him make no jokes.

Borderlands isn’t an entirely awful experience, if one wants to see a sci-fi action rip off of Mad Max with some Star Wars and creatures thrown in. Some of the action is actually pretty good, like when they end up in a basement of Psychos and have to shoot their way out, or when they are travelling across the home of some giant monster and there is a lot of exploding monster heads. The designs are all enjoyably outlandish and look like something from the videogame. But while there may be the odd funny quip, or nifty performance moment, overall, this is just some reheated sci-fi cliches that have been done before and in much cooler ways.