By Jacob Cameron

Borderlands is the latest in a long string of films based on video games that have been met with apathy by movie fans and scorn by fans of the game the movie is based on. In a time where The Super Mario Bros. Movie and The Last of Us feel like a step forward for video game-based media, Borderlands felt like two steps back. It certainly did not help things that the film sat in the single digits on Rotten Tomatoes for a time and has a D+ CinemaScore. I was expecting the worst when it came to watching this movie. However, the movie is just plain forgettable. To quote Miracle Max from The Princess Bride, “I’ve seen worse.”

Borderlands is based on the video game series from 2K. It tells the story of Lilith, a bounty hunter, who is contracted by the head of the Atlas Corporation to find his daughter Tina who is lost on the planet Pandora. Tina was kidnapped by a soldier named Roland who has gone rogue from Atlas. Tina is believed to be the last descendant of the Eridians, a race who once ruled Pandora, and the only one able to unlock a mysterious vault hidden on the planet. With the help of the robot Claptrap, scientist Tannis, and the psycho Krieg, Lilith and Roland must protect Tina from the corporation.

In terms of positives, I thought the planet Pandora looked interesting and felt lived in. I like the general concept of the planet being taken over by these massive corporations just for the sake of finding a vault that may or may not exist. Initially, I was thinking that the fact that this planet was named Pandora might have been a slight ripoff from James Cameron’s Avatar.  In the games, however, the planet is indeed named Pandora. Fun fact: both Avatar and Borderlands came out in 2009. There were also one or two action sequences that, while not overly impressive, were still fun enough. 

My negatives for the movie really can be identified by the fact that this movie tries so desperately to be like Guardians of the Galaxy or James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad. While similar story beats persist throughout Borderlands, the film is trying to go for a James Gunn-esque tone and humor and it completely fails on both fronts. Lilith has similar story themes to that of Star-Lord, but these themes are glanced over rather than explored. Lilith and Tannis have a strained relationship which is told through forced exposition. Along with there being a prophecy told through forced narration throughout the first half of the film. I personally figured out the prophecy in about 5 minutes.

The humor in this film is juvenile. For a movie that is rated PG-13, there are jokes that are very dirty with no real reason for existing. Claptrap, voiced by the usually talented Jack Black, is consistently annoying throughout the film. I have not played the games myself so I’m giving some benefit of the doubt by saying that if Claptrap is supposed to be this annoying then that is understandable. But Claptrap’s presence serves as a boon to the film. 

At the end of the day, Borderlands was just disappointing rather than infuriating. I can see fans of the games being angered by the quality of this film. As a fan of the television show Avatar: The Last Airbender, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender felt like an offensive gag gift. But I’ve seen far worse movies based on video games in my life. This is no Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead or Alone in the Dark. Although considering the high budget and loaded cast, this should’ve been a slam dunk.

1 ½ Stars