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MOVIE REVIEW

Borderlands

also known as “Borderlands: O Destino do Universo Está em Jogo,” “Borderlands: salapärane reliikvia,” See more »
MPA Rating: PG-13-Rating for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material.

Reviewed by: Pamela Karpelenia
CONTRIBUTOR

Moral Rating: Very Offensive
Moviemaking Quality:
Primary Audience: Adults Young-Adults
Genre: Sci-Fi Action Comedy Adaptation IMAX
Length: 1 hr. 42 min.
Year of Release: 2024
USA Release: August 9, 2024
DVD: October 22, 2024
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Relevant Issues
Copyright, Lionsgate (Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.)

Film based loosely on an action role-playing first-person looter shooter videogame franchise

Space Western

Copyright, Lionsgate (Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.)

Alliance with a team of misfits to find the missing genetically engineered daughter of the most powerful man in the universe, named Atlas

Mercenary soldiers

Private army

Psychopaths

Bounty hunter

Secrets of a lost civilization's advanced technology

Featuring Cate BlanchettLilith
Jamie Lee CurtisTannis, a scientist with a tenuous grip on sanity
Haley BennettMom
Gina GershonMoxxi
Ariana GreenblattTiny Tina, a feral pre-teen demolitionist
Kevin HartRoland, a former elite mercenary
Jack BlackClaptrap (voice), a persistently smart aleck robot
Janina GavankarKnoxx
Edgar RamírezAtlas
Bobby LeeLarry
See all »
Director Eli Roth, known for his explicitly violent and controversially bloody horror films — “The Green Inferno,” “Cabin Fever,” “Hostel” 1-2, etc.
Producer Arad Productions
Avi Arad
Ari Arad
See all »
Distributor
Distributor: Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. Trademark logo.
Lionsgate
(Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.)

“Chaos loves company”

“Borderlands” opens with the narration of the lead character named “Lilith,” played by Cate Blanchett. We see a successful kidnapping of Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) by Roland (Kevin Hart), and learn that Lilith is a hardcore bounty hunter with grit and an obscure past.

While in a bar attempting to collect on her current bounty, she is approached by a new potential boss Atlas, a powerful corporate magnate played by Edgar Ramírez. He offers her a job finding, rescuing and retrieving his young teenage daughter Tiny Tina. Lilith agrees, even though it means having to return to her home planet Pandora and confront her past. This opening sets the tone for a forgettable and lackluster film.

I requested this film, because my husband played the game, but when he saw the casting he was very disappointed. After watching the movie I can see why. Cate Blanchett is a great actress, but she did not fit this role; the character she portrays is much younger than the actress herself, so it comes off as forced.

Kevin Hart was miscast as well. It sometimes seems as if he plays the same character in every role he’s in, but in this film they tried to make him more of a hero and serious, and it just did not come across well to the viewing audience. Jack Black lent his voice acting to this film delivering quips throughout, and it was neither here nor there, maybe a chuckle, but ultimately forgettable.

The plot is a ragtag team of highly skilled adventurers team up against a common enemy to protect a child and to find a portal that is supposed to unlock untold powers and related fire-winged warrior goddess named Firehawk. The 13-year-old Tiny Tina is the key to the portal, and that’s why Atlas needs her so bad.

The plot is clunky, and according to my husband isn’t based on the games. As a viewer who has not played the games, I just found the plot to formulaic, nothing new, and boring.

There’s quite a bit of negative content including multiple foul words including over a dozen s-words, a**hole, a**, p*ss off, b*tch, G*d-d*mn, G*d, d*mn, h*ll, and others. Drinking is shown. There is blasphemous language throughout. Almost all the women of Pandora display lots of bare skin and cleavage. And the Pandoran thugs are bare-chested.

The main point is to find your true potential and discover who you really are. From a Biblical point of view it’s important that we discover who are identity is in Christsinners in desperate need of a Savior.

This film gets a non-recommendation from me for several reasons. The foul language is unnecessary, the plot is boring, the actors are forced and misplaced, and by the end my husband was falling asleep.

  • Violence: Very Heavy
  • Profane language: Heavy
  • Vulgar/Crude language: Heavy, and also includes urine gas clouds, fecal matter, robot drops spent cartridges out his backend, etc.
  • Sex: No sex depicted, but there are objectionable innuendos, such as referencing to premature ejaculation; reference to an orgy; robot makes sexual geusture; characters visit a XXX club which may be involved in prostitution
  • Nudity: Moderately Heavy
  • Drugs/Alcohol: Moderate
  • Wokeism: Moderate
  • Occult: Mild

Learn about DISCERNMENT—wisdom in making personal entertainment decisions

cinema tickets. ©  Alexey SmirnovEvery time you buy a movie ticket or buy or rent a video you are in effect casting a vote telling Hollywood, “I’ll pay for that. That’s what I want.” Read our article

See list of Relevant Issues—questions-and-answers.


Viewer CommentsSend your comments
Secular Movie Critics
Everything you hated from the games, with nothing you liked… It’s not easy for any actor to save a script that might qualify as a war crime, but nobody in Borderlands is trying that hard to do so. …I didn't know Cate Blanchett could be bad. …
Alex Perry, Mashable
…“Borderlands” doesn’t have half the attitude or style its cyberpunk ad campaign might suggest. …a generic gaming adaptation that deprives audiences of the most valuable ingredient of its source: surprise. …By the time “Borderlands” unlocks its vault, not even the characters seem to care what’s inside.
Peter Debruge, Variety
…I was at least invested in this film being good. Alas, it is not. It is so not. … it’s all just so, so unspeakably, abysmally bad …a total catastrophe…
Bilge Ebiri, Vulture (New York Magazine)
…unspeakably terrible… The film is that embarrassing. …the worst movie of the year…
Johnny Oleksinski, New York Post
…“Borderlands” is not just bad, it’s depressing. …It is devoid of humanity and personality, despite trying very, very hard to establish that it is quirky. …
Alyssa Mercante, Kotaku
…stale and stubbornly unexciting sci-fi action comedy. …The big mystery is how such a noisy nothing of a movie landed the stacked cast…
David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter
…janky …Cate Blanchett is wasted in janky video game adventure… With its juvenile humor, fast pace and shaky handle on grownup feelings, “Borderlands” winds up resembling nothing so much as a children’s film that’s too violent for children to actually watch. It’s not the severity of the violence so much as the aesthetic drabness; strange, really, that gorehound Roth bungles a few horror-tinged sequences into a hail of machine-gun fire. …[2/5]
Jesse Hassenger, The Guardian

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