Borderlands (12A)

Bounty hunter Lilith searches her home planet of Pandora for Tiny Tina, the missing daughter of one of the universe's most formidable figures, Atlas. Lilith inherits a wisecracking robot companion named Claptrap and when she does eventually locate Tina, the moppet has two bodyguards: redemption-seeking mercenary Roland and hulking protector Krieg. Deranged scientist Dr Patricia Tannis joins the band of misfits as they encounter aliens and dangerous bandits on their daredevil quest.

LondonNet Film Review

Borderlands (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Writer-director Eli Roth has gone soft. The Massachusetts-born filmmaker made his name with gruesome horrors including the first two Hostel pictures, Cabin Fever and yesteryear’s seasonal bloodbath, Thanksgiving. He tones down the splatter and gore to helm a tiresome barrage of otherworldly mayhem based on a popular series of first-person shooter video games, which pit treasure-seeking players against the militaristic might of the Atlas Corporation in a galaxy far-ish away filled with monsters and mystery…

Co-written by Roth and Joe Crombie, Borderlands borrows a linear central quest and many of the characters from the games, bookmarked by underwhelming action set pieces devoid of pulse-quickening thrills. At one point, a merry band of misfits escapes certain death by driving into the open mouth of a gargantuan sandworm-like creature and exploding out the back of the creature’s head. “Feel free to applaud!” barks Kevin Hart’s redemption-seeking mercenary, behind the wheel of the escape vehicle. Co-stars respond enthusiastically. I was not so inclined.

More-hit-than-miss comic relief comes from a wisecracking unicycle droid inherited from the games, which is bolted together using spare parts from R2-D2, WALL-E and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. Jack Black’s high energy vocal performance of this deranged automaton provides a generous smattering of giggles between the yawns. During one skirmish, Blanchett’s world-weary antiheroine despairs to camera, “How are we going to get through this?” I internally narrated the same words.

She plays no-nonsense bounty hunter Lilith, who is hired by narcissistic corporate overlord Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) to track down his missing daughter, Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). The girl has been kidnapped by mercenary Roland (Hart) and spirited away to Lilith’s godforsaken home planet of Pandora. “It’s the kind of place you don’t ever want to return to,” growls the bounty hunter but for an exceedingly generous fee, she agrees to the mission. Back on home soil, Lilith inherits a wisecracking robot companion named Claptrap (Black) and when she does eventually locate Tiny Tina, the demolition-happy moppet is guarded by Roland and a hulking protector, Krieg (Florian Munteanu). Deranged archaeologist Dr Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) joins the band of misfits as they learn the strength of fighting for each other.

Borderlands is a soulless, lumbering behemoth of functional digital effects and casual world-building, which repeatedly disappoints on a head-scratching scale equivalent to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Hart and Oscar winners Blanchett and Curtis are collateral damage in emotionally starved roles. “There is no salvation without sacrifice,” Dr Tannis counsels the ragtag team. Audiences who sacrifice their precious time and money for Roth’s malfunctioning picture won’t unearth any salvation.

– Kim Hu