At The Movies: Borderlands boasts A-list cast in a dull B-list project

Borderlands (PG13)

100 minutes, opens Aug 8
2 stars

The story: Intergalactic tycoon and ruthless bully Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) hires Lilith (Cate Blanchett) to find his missing daughter. On the lawless planet of Pandora, the infamous outlaw meets people she can team up with. There is Roland (Kevin Hart), a sharpshooter and scout; the pre-teen explosives expert Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), Tina’s friend and guardian Krieg (Florian Munteanu); scientist Dr Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis); and Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) the robot. Together, they search for the girl, who holds the secret to another far more valuable treasure.

Adapted from the video game franchise of the same name, Borderlands tries to straddle the line between serious and silly, and ends up being neither. It is too flippant to make anyone care about the characters, and too focused on video game fan service to find a storytelling pulse.

Jaws were dropped when it was announced that this independent production, distributed by Lionsgate, had brought into the cast Oscar-winning actress Blanchett. She is slumming it here because, as she has explained in press reports, she caught “Covid madness” and took the job to escape the boredom of lockdown.

While she never phones it in in her portrayal of the ultracompetent hunter Lilith (and neither does fellow Oscar winner Curtis, it must be said), it appears that director Eli Roth – who had worked with Blanchett and Black on the fantasy flick The House With A Clock In Its Walls (2018) – is out of his depth.

Roth made his name with gruesome horror films such as Hostel (2005) and The Green Inferno (2013). However, it appears that he cannot transition to PG13-rated action. He is not as versatile as, say, James Wan, a film-maker who started in low-budget horror (Saw, 2004), then moved into big-budget action franchises such as Furious 7 (2015) and the Aquaman movies (2018 and 2023).

There is not much of a plot in Borderlands, but then again, video game franchises tend to be plot-light and get away with it, as long as they make up for it with action set pieces. The many gunfights, however, are shrouded in darkness and confusingly edited so that it is never clear where anyone is situated nor what they are shooting at.

There is much more to turning a video game into a movie than staying true to the game mechanics. Fans might be pleased with the faithfulness with which the story progresses fight by fight, level by level. But, as this latest addition to the genre illustrates, for non-fans, it is about as fun an experience as watching a television over someone’s shoulder while they mash buttons on a PS5.

Hot take: A star-powered sci-fi sunk by murky action scenes, unfunny jokes and an undercooked script.