Borderlands movie review & film summary (2024)

Cate Blanchett (who made this earlier than “TAR” and earlier than Roth made “Thanksgiving” to offer you some concept how lengthy it’s been gathering mud) stars as Lilith, one of many beloved Vault Hunters from the online game that has made the leap from console to display screen. On this model, Lilith is a bounty hunter, approached one night time by staff of the omnipotent Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), who has a high-paying job for the tough-talking mercenary. When Lilith is swayed by the amount of cash that Atlas is prepared to pay for the gig, I laughed considering (hoping) that Blanchett additionally acquired a life-changing amount of money to star in a venture that’s this far beneath her expertise degree.

The job is to search out Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the daughter of Atlas, who has been kidnapped by one other traditional online game character named Roland (Kevin Hart), a soldier who has gone rogue and escaped to Pandora with the lady and a “Psycho” named Krieg (Florian Munteanu). She will be the reply to a legendary vault on Pandora that had created a whole trade of treasure hunters looking for it. 

On returning to her house planet of Pandora, Lilith runs right into a robotic named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black), who serves a form of comedian aid, which might suggest there’s precise comedy on this movie. There’s not. Simply limitless rambling. Followers of the sport will discover another acquainted personalities like Moxxi (Gina Gershon) and Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis). In accordance with some printed credit, Scooter and Hammerlock additionally make appearances, however blink and also you’ll miss them. I should have blinked.

Lilith, Roland, Tannis, Claptrap, and Krieg must be an apparent variation on Guardians of the Galaxy, outcasts on a distant planet who’ve to make use of their totally different strengths to avoid wasting the day as a group, however the script by Roth and Joe Crombie is flatly bored with giving them memorable traits. Blanchett is such an important actress that she sells slightly little bit of this defiantly shallow screenplay with a smirk, however Hart appears to be like visibly bored at occasions, maybe swallowed up within the reshoots that led to quite a lot of the delays on the discharge of this movie. On that word, the script for “Borderlands” was as soon as credited to Craig Mazin, the genius behind “Chernobyl” and “The Final of Us,” however he’s taken his title off the movie now after the reshoots. When a movie goes by means of that a lot turmoil, one can normally see the place the ultimate product has been Frankenstein-ed again collectively, however even that sport is difficult to play right here. One can think about a Mazin model that places a bit extra love and care into the world-building than this model, however so little of that has made it to the ultimate lower.