Borderlands Parent Guide

The planet Pandora has seen it all. Hordes of treasure hunters are buried across its inhospitable surface, which is peopled mostly by nervous settlers and deranged raiders. This world’s pull comes down to an ancient legend, a story about an alien species which inhabited Pandora millenia ago, leaving behind a colossal vault. Ancient alien treasure sounds lucrative to just about everybody – except Lilith (Cate Blanchett).

Lilith grew up on Pandora, and she was delighted to get off the planet. Recently, though, work has brought her back: Powerful billionaire Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) hired her to find his daughter, Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), who he believes was kidnapped by Roland (Kevin Hart), one of his own soldiers.

Life on Pandora seems unchanged to Lilith, and with the help of a strange robot called Claptrap (Jack Black), she soon tracks down Tina and Roland. The only problem is, Tina hasn’t been kidnapped. Roland has rescued her – but not out of the goodness of his heart. The ancient stories about the vault say that only one of the children of those aliens can open it. And Roland believes that Tina might just be one of them.

I can’t remember ever seeing a film waste a gifted cast this badly. Jack Black is joyless and unidentifiable as Claptrap, which I didn’t think was possible. I was shocked to see his name in the cast list. His acting talents are buried under digital voice modification and a staggeringly unfunny script: Claptrap could have been played by the local drive-through attendant for all the difference it would make. Cate Blanchett, obviously, has seen better pictures, likewise Jamie Lee Curtis. Kevin Hart, who I expected to be as annoying as usual, actually ends up being blandly restrained. None of them are well cast, none of this is funny, and there’s no way any of us are getting this time back.

The action is almost as bad as the acting, but the film’s so poorly shot it can be a little harder to tell. There’s not much narrative to the fights, just a bunch of guys running around while the heroes pose in the foreground, intercut randomly with explosions. None of the dynamic graphic charm of the video games has survived into the film, but they’ve disguised that with sloppy editing and truly terrible digital effects. Borderlands, the original game, came out in 2009 and it has cutscenes that look better than scenes from this movie. It’s almost inexplicably (and inexcusably) bad on a budget of over $100 million.

Apart from the near-constant (if dull) violence, there isn’t much else for parents to be concerned about. The games have a constant irreverent vulgarity baked into everything, which is kind of the point. That’s not really present here, which both sucks the soul out of the premise, and makes it moderately more suitable for a family audience. There is some brief innuendo, a bit of cussing, and minor background social drinking.

Borderlands is trying to repeat the success of movies like Jumanji or Dungeons and Dragons, which are game-inspired ensemble action/comedy summer releases, but this flick doesn’t have any of the elements that made those films successful. There’s nothing to salvage, either. This dumpster fire isn’t one of those mistakes you can fix in editing. Personally, I’d destroy every copy, but that’s just to make sure I never have to see it again. I knew I was in for a tough afternoon when I’d checked my watch three times in the first 20 minutes, but there’s no reason for you to learn that lesson for yourself.