Borderlands is a 2024 action adventure movie directed by Eli Roth. The movie deals with a team tasked in protecting a girl who has a key for huge power. Below is my Borderlands (2024) movie review
When we begin the movie we meet Lilith (played by Cate Blanchett). As soon as we meet here, we find out she has a tough time following laws, is fast with her fists/guns, and has a troubled past. Not too long after she meets a bunch of other people and basically greets them with a sigh as she is an independence badass. While not something that ruined the movie for me, it is fair to point out that Borderlands game Lilith is about 22 while movie Lilith is 51 at the time of filming. It’s not like Blanchett’s pull helped with the abysmal box office for this movie.
Anyway, the rest of the characters are fine. Roland is not intimidating as he is played by 5 foot 5 Kevin Hart. Krieg is cool and fun for the most part. Tannis is completely useless in my opinion (could have saved money by getting a less known actress to play her). Finally, while I find him usually to be very annoying, Jack Black played Claptrap pretty well and was not too annoying. In fact he was my favorite character. I did not laugh at his jokes but he was somewhat unique with some of his quips. Bad guy was so genetic that I thought he was made that way on purpose. Speaking of that, his ending scene was extremely lame and made the ending so disappointing.
As for the action, this was my main disappointment. The games are violent so obviously Hollywood makes the movie rated PG-13. They never learn that there are fans who will watch video game adaptations if they are done well and accurate to the games. Every action scene is subdued, almost no blood, and comes off as extremely boring. I have no idea what these characters’ strengths or weaknesses are and I doubted they would kill any of them to earn some street credit. Basically the movie is filled with mediocre action that fails to thrill me in any way.
This is a movie that strays so far frm source material that it is almost insulting to the fans. The characters are miscast, the humor is horrible, the setting is good, showing us vast landscapes and some of the creatures that dwell there, and the overall story was mediocre with one of the most luckluster endings I have ever seen. For god’s sake, they had such great video game material and this is the best they came up with.
This movie had a budget of $110 million and only made $31 million at the box office. Safe to say NOBODY, not just fans, is watching this movie.
Thanks for reading my Borderlands (2024) movie review
