Perhaps there’s a world in which a movie based on the video game Borderlands , a colorful, violent, often annoying, and repetitive first-person shooter, could be good. But I’m almost impressed by how bad this adaptation turned out — mainly because it’s not really a complete movie. As a fan of the games , I came into the movie with a general understanding of the tone, setting, and characters. The movie is not good for fans, and it certainly doesn’t seem attractive to newcomers. I wish I could say the actors look like they’re having fun; instead, they look like they’re not completely sure what they’re doing or why they’re doing it.

Other than some savvy casting, plugging in some likable stars into roles that seem fitting, there isn’t much this mess of a movie does well. It shows that it’s been plagued by production issues, including reshoots that certainly don’t add any coherency. A runtime that doesn’t even eclipse 100 minutes, the PG-13 rating, and its early August release all suggest that everyone sort of knew the outcome.

Release date, rating, and runtime

In theaters, but likely not for long

Not surprisingly, it doesn’t seem like a lot of press got a chance to view this movie ahead of time. I caught the first showing on a Thursday ahead of its official August 9 release. It clocks in at 1 hour and 40 minutes and somehow carries a PG-13 rating.

What I liked about Borderlands

Seeing talented actors endure

Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: There’s little to like about this movie, which is clearly trying to make a bit of money to recoup its expected losses. I did enjoy that it’s barely over an hour and a half in length. What I enjoyed the most, I suppose, was knowing that these talented actors had to endure the shoot and try their best to keep it together. Actors, just like you and me, sometimes have to do jobs that are stupid, mismanaged, and only serve to provide a paycheck that allows for more fun and satisfying endeavors in the future. As the movie feels so hollow, you’ll have lots of time to ponder such things — thankfully, not for too long.

What I didn’t like about Borderlands

Cause for concern from the start

Once you realize that this movie was shot in 2021, had writers and directors jumping in and out, and went through reshoots two years after principal production was completed with a different director, you’ll quickly understand the movie. It opens with a brief voiceover trying to set up some of the lore of a game that is actually not particularly complicated. Pandora is a chaotic planet that was pillaged by corporations for its resources, leaving it a wasteland populated by creatures, cults, military outcasts, and opportunistic mercenaries. I’d wager this voiceover, which pops up on occasion and is completely superfluous, was added after the fact as a way to “help” audiences know what’s going on. In actuality, it adds no value.

And that’s how most of the movie goes. There’s this weird dynamic in the film where sometimes the story is explained in too much detail, and other times it’s completely ignored. It’s mostly loud, aggressive, and chaotic (which would be faithful to the game), but sometimes the tone shifts to some kind of sentiment or camaraderie that isn’t earned at all. There are the start of jokes and the end of jokes, but none of them are actually connected. There’s no real stakes or coherency from one scene to the next, and there’s a lot of talented actors who are forced to do so much to try to make this thing work, but they just can’t.

The story follows a red-haired bounty hunter named Lilith (Cate Blanchett), who is tasked with finding a special girl named Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), who was kidnapped by a soldier (Kevin Hart) and maybe accompanied by a meathead ex-cultist wearing a creepy mask. It doesn’t take long for this mismatched bunch to meet up and realize the man who assigned the bounty is the real bad guy. He’s looking for a key to a rumored treasure, and the band of heroes is trying to get there first.

Lilith and company, including a small, single-wheeled robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black, and sometimes funny) and an odd scientist (Jamie Lee Curtis), navigate a few different areas of Pandora, including an underground cavern filled with corrosive liquid and maniacal goons. What’s surprising is how dull everything seems. There are moments where the wasteland feels tangible and gross, but it lacks pop and substance, and the background and design, like so much of the movie, feel like a half-measure. Even the action is uninspired. The movie’s only idea for anything entertaining is to make Lilith look suave, having her flip her hair out of her eyes and reload her guns by twirling them around. Cool.

Not only is there no sense of urgency in any part of the story, but at times it feels like the camera was just left rolling when the people in front of it thought they were done. Kevin Hart seems to start the movie as the funny, goofy guy, a role he is perfectly suited for, but then suddenly later on becomes the heroic, stoic, straight man. Blanchett, meanwhile, is forced to be the sarcastic loner, the hot-shot bounty hunter, the motherly protector, and the Chosen One who has a sad past. It’s all too much and yet not nearly enough at the same time.

It makes for a long 100 minutes, even when the slight twist (I don’t even want to use that word) is telegraphed immediately and the ending is entirely predictable. There are a few laughs, but they mostly come from when the movie thinks it’s doing something serious and special that just comes across as silly and stupid.

Should you watch Boderlands in theaters?

Skip the movie and play the game instead

I certainly don’t need video game adaptations to be faithful to the story; just adhere to some kind of consistent look, feel, and tone, with characters who are fairly representative. Borderlands is a bad video game adaptation, yes, but it’s also a bad movie. And a sad one. That’s how I felt most of the time watching it — seeing tiny bits of potential here and there and wishing it was so much better. It’s a movie clearly made by a lot of different people with different ideas (I suspect there was a lot of studio interference and changes as well), and none of it actually works together.

It’s hard to hate the movie, and certainly not worth it. It’s not like someone took a bad idea and ran with it; there’s just nothing here. Throughout, I kept thinking that this isn’t really a movie at all. It’s not finished, it has no coherency, no real conflict, no character development, and no real entertainment value.

I think my biggest grudge is with co-writer Joe Crombie, a pseudonym for a writer who was clearly too embarrassed to have their name attached. Sorry, but Blanchett, Hart, and others are trying their hardest to keep this movie afloat, and their names and faces are stuck with it. Also, I had to sit through the movie and attach my name to having seen it. You need to add your name, too.