IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched in the cinema (125th visit in 2024)
Adaptations of video games have always entailed a certain amount of risk. Last year, however, there were two video game adaptations, "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" and "Five Nights at Freddy's", which were very successful financially and were largely well received, at least by fans of the games. For his adaptation of "Borderlands", director Eli Roth even brought Craig Mazin on board as co-writer, who wrote the screenplays for "Chernobyl" and "The Last of Us", among others. Recently, however, there have been increasing reports that "Borderlands" had major problems in post-production, and Greg Mazin had his name officially removed from the credits as he no longer wanted to be associated with this film. Accordingly, the signs for the theatrical release were not very promising.
"Borderlands" starts off with a well-known cast. Cate Blanchett as Lilith and Jamie Lee Curtis as scientist Tannis are two Oscar winners. The main cast is completed by Kevin Hart as Soldier Roland, Ariana Greenblatt as Tiny Tina and Florian Munteanu as Krieg. Fans of the video games criticized after the first trailers that the actors were clearly too old to portray their respective characters. Normal moviegoers would probably not have noticed this. What is all the more striking, however, is that almost the entire ensemble is in the running for a Golden Raspberry. Ariana Greenblatt is a small exception here, but we are used to much better performances from Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis in particular. However, the script and dialog offer the actors little room to shine. Lines such as "You and what army?" and "You're something special" have been copied so often that they have lost their appeal.
If Eli Roth has stuck closely to the source material of the video game series with his screenplay, he hasn't done himself or the audience any favors. A series of heroes, who couldn't be more different, must reluctantly work together to protect their world from a major threat. This exact concept has been told countless times before and has been realized much better by series like Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy". "Borderlands" is merely a paint-by-numbers action movie. The motley crew of heroes must find various MacGuffins, in this case keys, in order to open a chamber. It is said to contain powerful technology from an ancient civilization. They are constantly hunted by Atlas and his private army.
"Borderlands" then readily borrows from other films and franchises to tell this rather generic story. The very first scene is an intro monologue full of exposition à la "Star Wars". Other scenes are strongly reminiscent of "Mad Max: Fury Road", "Thor: Judgment Day", "X-Men: Dark Phoenix", and this list could be extended at will. Homages and a certain degree of fanservice don't necessarily have to be bad, but in "Borderlands" they only remind the audience most of the time of films that have implemented a similar concept better. This movie never develops its own identity. The dry and witty humor from the games is also not implemented here. Although the robot Claptrap is a sidekick that is used solely as comic relief, it completely misses its purpose and becomes more of a test of patience for moviegoers over the course of the film.
In addition, Eli Roth is a director who, in theory, is not afraid to effectively stage the action and violence of video games. However, viewers are also disappointed here, as the movie is staged much more harmlessly than the games with an age rating of PG 13. The action scenes are more noticeable due to hectic cuts and cheap-looking CGI. At least the costumes are mostly successful.