Borderlands (2024) Review - Director Series
Finishing off this inaugural Director Series on Eli Roth with his new release Borderlands. Based on the worldwide popular video game series. Borderlands is another in a long line of video game to movie adaptations.
The adaptation was announced in 2015, originally Leigh Whannell was attached to direct. By 2020 Eli Roth got onto the project with a script written by Craig Mazin. However, in June of 2023, Craig Mazin removed his name from the project and was replaced by Joe Crombie.
Cate Blanchett plays a bounty hunter assigned to track down the daughter of a powerful…criminal guy? I never played any of the Borderlands games, so I am not familiar with the characters and worlds. However, Cate joins a ragtag group of very different people to hunt down this long-rumored vault that houses a massive treasure.
That’s the first issue with the film. I have no relation to the film’s characters as I never played the games. I left the film not knowing any of the characters any better. The first indicator before this that the film was not going to work was the screenwriter removing his name.
According to Variety Craig says he is not an attributed writer on the film. Some speculated that Joe Crombie was a pseudonym for Craig Mazin. Along with this people speculated that Roth left the film with shooting still to be done so he could make his passion project Thanksgiving.
I wrote in the Thanksgiving review that this was also false. Roth did leave but he left reshoots which Tim Miller did. All principal photography had been completed. There are so many rumors flying around, whether it’s trolls who love the videogame and are overly invested or the behind-the-scenes are a bit of a disaster.
It makes sense people do not want to be attributed to the script, it’s the film’s weak point. All of the jokes fall flat, it feels like someone asked AI to make a Guardians of the Galaxy rip-off. The difference is Guardians felt fresh when it was released.
The needle drops in this makes the film feel like it has been sitting on the shelf since 2010. It makes the whole film feel stale. I love Cate Blanchett and always enjoy it when she is in a movie. However, she is miscast here.
I put no blame on her again; the script fails her. Same with Kevin Hart. He plays an ultra-serious soldier who doesn’t crack jokes. Though I don’t think Kevin is bad, why wouldn’t you give a comedian jokes? Jamie Lee Curtis also feels out of place, I could never get a handle on her character, a failing from an under-baked script.
I will say Jack Black is funny in what should be an annoying character. He got the only laugh out of me for the entire 100-minute runtime.
The CGI is uneven at best. Sometimes it looks great and other times you can see the seams. Roth had said he wanted this to have a look like Leone westerns, instead the whole thing looks fake. I could appreciate what he’d be going for if he had pulled it off.
Again, never played the games, but with Roth’s directing and the seeming violent nature of this world, we should get more horror elements from the film. It’s so neutered with a PG-13 rating.
Of course, it’s because they want to make more money. Nevertheless, more people, and video game fans, would want to see this if it were truly violent like the video games.
It’s not the worst film I’ve seen this year, but it’s not great. A terrible script, a tame PG-13 rating, and uneven CGI make this practically unsalvageable. However, Death Wish does exist, so this isn’t the worst film Eli Roth has made. Bummer way to end this series though, wish we had ended on Thanksgiving.
2.5/5 Stars
