When I saw the preview for this science-fiction/fantasy/action/comedy I thought it was the worst preview I had witnessed in recent years. It looked absolutely terrible and I avoided seeing Borderlands during its two-week run in my area. Now I’ve streamed the thing and I have to admit that the film, which is based on a video game, is better than its preview. But not by much. It’s still a regurgitative mess.
Eli Roth’s interplanetary saga centers on Pandora, a planet where a secret vault containing riches beyond imagination is located, and the worst people in the galaxy are all continually looking for it. All except for bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett), who is employed by the most powerful man in the universe to find his kooky teenage daughter Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). Because Tina has been kidnapped by outlaws Roland (Kevin Hart) and Krieg (Florian Munteanu), aided by Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), to get to Pandora (not the James Cameron Avatar world) to get to the secret vault because only she can open it.
This film is a mess. It’s a wide-ranging space opera, in the same semi-recent style as The Fifth Element, Jupiter Ascending and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, albeit forty-five times grungier and more desolate. Pandora is a garbage world (thanks to some decent art direction) with a whole lot of garbage characters on it. By that I mean outlaws, thieves and thugs, the nameless and often faceless rabble who by the end of the running time are destined to be shot, run over, thrown from high ledges, stabbed, shot, electrocuted, drowned, strangled, beheaded or shot. The video game premise demands lots of action and lots of bodies. The acrobatic Miss Blanchett dispatches most of them with her fancy gun that never runs out of bullets.
The story carries one big surprise, which is transmitted about halfway through the proceedings, and which really shouldn’t be much of a surprise at all. Kevin Hart isn’t funny in the slightest (he plays his role straight) and Jamie Lee Curtis plays her role in an autistic fashion (seriously). This hybrid mess was filmed four years ago and sat on the shelf through COVID, occasional reshoots and reshaping. It’s still pretty bad. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. ☆ 1/2. 16 January 2025.