The making of Borderlands was a rough ride everyone’s trying to forget, while it skitters all over the place. Most of this $120m sci-fi-action-comedy, guaranteed to flop, was shot over three years ago – from April to June 2001, to be precise, before Cate Blanchett even knuckled down to Tár. She has since blamed “Covid madness” for accepting her distinctly Charlize-Theron-esque role as an unsmiling space outlaw.
The videogames of this name are first-person-shooters set on the wild west planet of Pandora – think Tatooine from Star Wars with even more rust and licentiousness. Fans were briefly excited to have Eli Roth at the tiller, until his cut, presumed to be as violent as the games, tested badly, and two rounds of reshoots were ordered. Tim (Deadpool) Miller stepped in last year to beef up the set pieces, while Lionsgate toned down the edit to attract younger teens with a PG-13 rating (12A in the UK).
It now resembles an action-packed comic with all the Biff!, Bam! and Pow! panels excised – not to mention all the blood and swearing. Under a swoopy red wig, Blanchett plays Lilith, a mercenary hired in mid-job to return a young girl named Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) to her father (Edgar Ramírez), until it becomes clear there’s something more sinister going on. Everyone wants access to The Vault, a cache of alien technology. Tina, who likes to toss around exploding bunny toys and has no intention of being “rescued”, may be the only one with the special powers to open it.
Before you can say “Guardians of the Galaxy”, a mismatched posse gathers, including gruff soldier Roland (a decent Kevin Hart), nervy doctor Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis, trying something new), hulking psycho Krieg (Florian Munteanu) and endlessly sarcastic steward robot Claptrap (the voice of Jack Black). Their main motive in clubbing together is mutual survival, which makes the plot a basic exercise in jumping in and out of jeopardy.
There are snatches of crude enjoyment to be had, if you venture in with basement-level expectations, and manage to ignore some dire third act CGI. Roth’s fetish for gloating nastiness in his other work makes it hard to decry the mutilation of whatever his original vision might have been. For once, he’s at the receiving end of a rusty blade, instead of wielding it.
What’s left is zippy and neutered – there’s no freshness to it, but at least there’s pace. Plus, Gina Gershon. Three decades after Showgirls, she pulls off a choice Mae West impression in her cameo as Mad Moxxi, a kinky club hostess luxuriating in double entendres.
If only Blanchett were having that much fun. You expect her to rule the roost, but she seems enslaved, somehow – tight-faced, done with it. There’s one meme-able eye roll that does a full 360º. You wouldn’t blame her if her entire surroundings inspired that, but the salvage job, to be fair, could have been worse.
12A cert, 101 min; in cinemas August 9
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