BORDERLANDS – The Red Right Hand Movie Reviews [Matthew Stogdon]

Starring
Cate Blanchett
Kevin Hart
Ariana Greenblatt
Jack Black
Jamie Lee Curtis
Edgar Ramírez

On the distant world of Pandora, there is a vault. A vault that houses forerunner technology that will advance mankind. However, it’s impossible to locate, with countless attempts failing over the decades. But that is set to change when the head of the Atlas Company [Ramírez] hires bounty hunter Lilith [Blanchett] to retrieve his daughter, Tina [Greenblatt] – who is believed will complete the prophecy and open the vault. Only problem is, she’s been kidnapped by a Crimson Lance soldier gone rogue: Roland [Hart].

For a brief moment, it looked like the days of soulless video-game adaptations were behind us. With projects like The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Sonic The Hedgehog, The Last Of Us, and Fallout giving us commercially and critically successful results, surely we wouldn’t have to endure beloved stories and characters churned through a mincer to produce festering disappointments. Well, despite best efforts, there are still adaptations like Borderlands bringing down the average.

In terms of performances, Borderlands is such an odd, mixed-bag. On the surface this is a collection of incredibly capable actors, who have proven themselves time and again, desperately working their way through an utterly insulting script. Now, don’t misunderstand, this isn’t an accusation laid at the feet of the games. The Borderlands franchise is littered with iconic characters and a singular, chaotic humour. And yes, elements of this have been transposed onto the big screen but so much is lost in the hurried and frankly misunderstood translation. Hart is given the role of the straight man and while that’s not outside his remit, he comes off as pretty lifeless. Jack Black is perfectly fine as the excessively talkative robot Claptrap but brings nothing new to the character and it feels like any capable voice actor would have given the same performance. Greenblatt doesn’t feel manic or petulant enough to sell us on this crazed kid, but that could be because every time she gets some momentum, the film forces her to have a grounded, serious moment that makes her persona feel like a cheap act. In truth, Blanchett is given almost the entirety of the heavy lifting and while she embodies badass bounty hunter with ease, it’s still not enough to form a connection with the audience and her co-stars, meaning, quite frankly, we don’t care.

But, really, the problems start and end with the script. The plot races through without real peril or consequence, the dialogue is painful, the voiceover exposition is lazy, and the multiple instances of crowbarred ADR betray how much of this movie was repeatedly chopped and changed in the edit. And I can’t even praise the technical aspects. There’s plenty of pleasing production design and cinematography when it’s allowed to breathe. But most of it is stifled and smothered with wholly weightless CGI that makes the world feel hollow and insincere. At this stage, it’s not clear who was in charge of what, with Tim Miller being brought in to oversee reshoots, but it’s abundantly clear that Roth was never the right choice to helm this film.

Walking away from this movie, it’s evident that this is a classic case of feature by committee. One crafted with all money but no charm. An excess of footage with zero passion or imagination on display. Essentially resulting in an aggressive 1/5, because any positives can be boiled down to “We threw a lot of studio money at the problem and capable individuals were able to manufacture competent enough material.” That’s not a ringing endorsement, it’s an excuse disguised as a brag. There are a handful of people who will be able to enjoy this film as a disposable surface-level experience but considering the breadth of storytelling possibility the games afforded, this is a shockingly pathetic missed opportunity.

Release Date:
09 August 2024

The Scene To Look Out For:
Countless scenarios culminate in the most cliche, predictable way possible. For some reason, one that stood out to me is an elevator escape. The group are trying to get away from a horde of psychos but of course there’s an arbitrary reason why one has to stay behind and sacrifice themselves. On top of that, the elevator continues to pick up speed and pace and it’d take some sort of hitherto unmentioned ex machina miracle to get them out of this mess. And it does. And the “sacrifice” means nothing. And the dialogue throughout and immediately after is shockingly flat. And that’s the whole movie, just that level of hamfistedness on repeat, over and over.

Notable Characters:
No one stands out. I cannot stress that enough. Nobody gives a performance that could be considered salvageable outside of “I did the bare minimum to get through this.” And it’s so distracting that when someone tries to do some sincere acting, say Haley Bennett as Lilith’s mother, it just comes off amateur and hammy.

Highlighted Quote:
“I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to each of you in the most horrifying way possible.”

In A Few Words:
“This isn’t a case of ‘video games have no place in cinema’ it’s a classic example of ‘we didn’t care when we made this complete mess.'”

Total Score: 1/5

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