It’s pretty rare that I walk out of a movie theatre thinking “I truly just wasted 90+ minutes of my life watching that.” Normally, I get something out of whatever it was I watched, be it joy or elation at best, perhaps anger or frustration at worst. Those negative feelings at least mean I’m feeling anything at all, they’re feelings I can work with and talk about. But when I walked out of the Borderlands movie, I think all I felt was… apathy? A general sense of “what was the point”? Which is probably the most damning thing I could say about any piece of art, but calling the Borderlands movie ‘art’ is too generous.
A film adaptation of Borderlands has been in the works since 2015, and a decade later it’s finally here. Who knows what the story was meant to be originally, but what we ended up with was this: Lilith (Cate Blanchett), a bounty talker who doesn’t really seem to care about anyone or anything but making her next paycheck, is tasked by the head of a major corporation to rescue his daughter, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). Things don’t exactly go to plan, and instead she sets off on a journey with Tina, alongside Roland (Kevin Hart), the mercenary that kidnapped Tina, Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a big hulk of a man that doesn’t say much, Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), a doctor obsessed with finding a legendary vault, and Claptrap (Jack Black), an annoying robot that makes too many insufferable jokes.
For the most part, that’s a strong cast. Both Blanchett and Curtis are Oscar-winning actresses. You’d assume that prestige would seep through into the film. But as Borderland’s lead, Blanchett’s performance feels like one dampened by regret. She has previously explained that she picked up the role to save her from madness during COVID lockdown, but none of that energy can be seen in the finished product. Every single line seems underlined by the fact she’s not really sure why she’s there, and it kind of rubs off on everyone else too.
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