I’m betting most people didn’t have “orange-haired rogue bounty hunter” on their Cate Blanchett acting roles Bingo card this year. And, yet, here we are. Do I think the 55-year-old actress is compensating for not getting an action scene in any of the 17 Tolkien adaptations she’s been in? Well, it’s hard to consider otherwise, truth be told.
In today’s film, Ms. Blanchett is taking on the role of a video game character, a bounty hunter named Lilith, who opts to return to her godforsaken home planet of Pandora to rescue a bunny-eared teen who -in turn- really doesn’t wish to be rescued. Well, this ought to be fun. Or not.
Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblat) -daughter of a corporate titan fittingly named “Atlas”- has already been “rescued” by a soldier-gone-rogue (there’s that word again) Roland (Kevin Hart) and his new prison escapee monster buddy, Krieg (Florian Munteanu). It’s hard to know what the plan is here. Are Krieg, Roland, and Tiny Tina out to make a home for themselves on the lawless, predator-invested hole that is Pandora? Maybe.
Or were they just waiting around for Lilith to show up, which -coincidentally- is exactly what a bot named Claptrap (voice of Jack Black) has been doing for a few decades. When all five entities get together, they realize, in an environment dominated by hostiles, that their own survival will depend on teamwork, so they better get on the same page and fast. The thing here is that this pentad of space-bound mercenary misfits is nothing like the space-bound mercenary misfits in Guardians of the Galaxy. After all, we liked those guys.
(Don’t bother trying to match personalities to the Guardians fivesome; you’ll just get a headache.)
Borderlands follows not in the sci-fi tradition of Guardians of the Galaxy, but more in the tradition of, say, Jupiter Ascending and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, which is to say, a goofy outer-space adventure almost universally panned by, well, everyone. I can see the comparison, but Borderlands is 
better than those two films. For one thing, I sort of cared who these people were and what they got up to. Neither of those things can be said of Jupiter or Nash.
Before long, our heroes get a quest, which gives them something to do other than simply escaping bad guys. Does it matter what the quest is? Not really. I saw the film this weekend and I’ve forgotten already. Something about treasure, maybe? Meh.
I feel like I have to apologize for this one. I sure didn’t love Borderlands, but I sure didn’t loathe it, either. I leave it to my readership to decide what it means when I don’t join in on a hatefest. But if we’re talking about films that missed the target, Borderlands isn’t even #1 currently available in theaters. That honor belongs to Harold and the Purple Crayon. So feel free to ignore it now, be disgusted when streaming collects it in a few months and rail at that time. But I doubt Borderlands will make my “worst of 2024” list. I mean, have you seen what it is competing against? This thing is just overblown; it isn’t unwatchable.
Once a bounty hunter named Lilith
Embarked on inanity most sill-ith
She had to retrieve a daughter
Dad wanted to slaughter
Please don’t expect her to fulfill-ith
Rated PG-13, 102 Minutes
Director: Eli Roth
Writer: Eli Roth, Joe Abercrombie
Genre: “If we make it loud enough, kids will love it, right?”
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Hotmessophiles
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Critics, viewers
