There ain’t no rest for the wicked. But this movie should be put to sleep. Find out why this legendary series has been destroyed by critics and fans in our Borderlands Review!

Let’s face it, movie adaptations of video games don’t exactly have the best track records. Screenwriters and directors have a habit of taking the story into their own hands, say “screw it” to a lot of established lore and create a movie that is a shadow of what it could be. Borderlands, co-written and directed by Eli Roth is very much the same. You can expect some liberties to be taken with the story, but this was something else. Grab your Maliwan pistol and make sure you have plenty of ammo vault hunters, as we dive into our Borderlands Review.

Is it over yet?

Borderlands Review – Story

For those that have played the games, you can throw almost everything you know out the window. Beware, full spoilers below as we saw this “movie” so you don’t have to.

We start the movie with narration by Lilith as she is the main character in the film, however it’s weird not hearing the sultry tones of Marcus gracing us. We get informed that an ancient race of aliens called the Eridians hid their knowledge and technology inside mysterious bunkers known as Vaults but only a “Daughter of Eridia” can open them. We then cross to an Atlas space station hovering above the planet of Pandora and we meet our first “hero”, a young girl named Tina portrayed by Ariana Greenblatt. Being held in a cell, she is rescued by a mercenary named Roland (Kevin Hart),  from the facility with the help of a large Psycho named Krieg (Florian Munteanu), who was also locked up. Jumping 50 lightyears across space we can now put a face to the voice of Lilith played by Cate Blanchett. Working as a bounty hunter, she’s hired by the head of the Atlas corporation, Deukalian Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) to track down Tiny Tina, his “daughter”. 

Enter Lilith, definitively just a normal bounty hunter…

Lilith follows the trail of Roland and Tina to Pandora, her home planet that she hasn’t been on since she was a child. She is picked up by a local friendly and reputable gun salesman/bus driver Marcus (Benjamin Byron Davis) who drops her off in Fyrestone, the starting town from the first game. It’s here we run into our penultimate main character, a little annoying CL4P-TP steward bot, but you can call him Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black). Claptrap drops a mystery on us as he mentions that he was programmed to follow and help Lilith the moment she stepped back on Pandora, but by whom???

He’s annoying as hell, but he’s the best we got.

Following the trail to the Tundra Express (weird name for a place in the desert), Lilith finally finds Tina. Just in time for the Crimson Lance, a private military owned by Atlas, to show up. Led by a commander simply named Knoxx (Janina Gavankar) who, for those wondering, isn’t the always grumpy and tired General Knoxx from the Secret Armoury of General Knoxx DLC in the original Borderlands game. This is actually his daughter, though you wouldn’t know it as she’s an all new character that was never mentioned in the film and was only confirmed during the film’s press leading up to the release. Knoxx also has a past relationship with Roland that we’ll come back to later on. Escaping the Crimson Lance, Lilith, Roland, Tina, Krieg and Claptrap make their way to Sanctuary to find Mad Moxxi (Gina Gershon) who can help them find someone to lead them to one of the three pieces of the vault key to open said Vault.

This is the best possible Moxxi they could have got?

That person is neurotic scientist and xenoarchaeologist Patricia Tannis (portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis) who is our final main character. It’s here we also learn that Tina isn’t actually the daughter of Atlas, but is a clone made from Eridian blood found on the first piece of the vault key. The group make their way down into Caustic Caverns and, after a run-in with a group of psychos called the Bloodshots, they manage to find the second piece of the vault key but they’re not in the clear yet. They get into a dizzying gun fight with the Bloodshots and make their way to an elevator, but not without Roland having to make a sacrifice by staying back. As the elevator rockets to the surface, it’s clear our heroes are about to meet their end, only for Tina to teleport them to safety before the crash. 

The weapons look cool I guess.

Our heroes, sans Roland, make camp in some mining ruins and it’s revealed that Tina, being the “Daughter of Eridia” is the final piece of the key to open the vault. We also discover that the Firehawk, who’s mark is next to the vault symbol, is an Eridian Goddess (yes I can hear you all facepalming from here). Lilith is found by an Atlas drone which brings up a hologram of Deukalian Atlas himself. Tina sees the tail end of this and believes Lilith is going to turn her over to her “father” so she throws a grenade at our hero, Lilith, and is knocked unconscious. Coming to, she makes her way out of the ruins with Claptrap and into a run down town that is familiar to her as we learn this was where she grew up. After finding a childhood drawing in her old house, Claptrap freaks out and reveals a hologram of Lilith’s mum as she is the one who programmed him to protect her. Giving off major “Help me Obi Wan” vibes, Lilith’s mum reminds her that she is special and hopes she never has to return to Pandora.

Instead of “boring” villains like Handsome Jack we get this guy…

We cross back to our main group as we reach the climactic fight where Tina tries to open the vault unsuccessfully. The Crimson Lance, led by Atlas himself arrive and order for Tina to be handed over. Roland shows up just in time to join the fight but still isn’t quite enough, however before the gang is finished off, Lilith appears to save the day. For you see dear readers, it was not Tina who teleported everyone out of the elevator, it was Lilith! *Gasp* as she is a Siren and has the power of Phaseshift. Lilith opens the vault which imbues her with the power of the Firehawk and casts protective shields on the vault hunters as they take down the Crimson Lance. 

Heh, made you pay money to see this!

The final fight comes to a close as Atlas grabs Tina and threatens to kill her unless Lilith takes him into the vault. She accepts his request although Lilith leaves him in there only to be taken by the tentacles of what I assume to be the Destroyer from the original video game. That’s all she wrote folks, The day is saved, the heroes return to Sanctuary and watch as the sky is filled with fireworks, roll credits.

Borderlands Review – Cast and Acting

Let’s not beat around the bush, the casting for this movie was horrendous. While there were some notable characters who were better than others, the vast majority were terrible. Blanchett as Lilith was way too serious. Whilst Lilith is one of the more serious characters of the original Vault Hunters, she’s also seen to try and have fun throughout the games, throwing around a comedic line or two. Its doesn’t help that throughout the film many characters, including Lilith herself, kept bringing up the fact that she’s not exactly young anymore. 

Who chose this cast??

Kevin Hart as Roland was hands down the worst of the casting choices. You have this short man who is trying to be funny, portraying a character who’s known to be straight laced, stoic and doesn’t take shit from anyone. Sure, Roland had a couple of quips in the first game, but he was never meant to be the “funny man”. Tina and Krieg weren’t terrible. Ariana’s Tina was passable, she was an annoying kid with a foul mouth but due to the PG rating it wasn’t as nearly as outrages as the games. Meanwhile, all Florian had to do for Krieg was act tough and just quote Krieg’s ramblings, which I felt he did really well. However, I do have to take away some points for him not shouting the iconic line from the DLC trailer “I’M THE CONDUCTOR OF THE POOP TRAIN!”

Such a missed opportunity…

Much like Tina and Krieg, Jamie Lee Curtis’s Tannis was also passable. She was able to play the neurotic scientist quite well, really the only things I can think of that take away from the character is that she actually showed too much compassion for someone who is only supposed to be interested in her work. Much like half of the cast, Curtis isn’t in her youth anymore and she’s playing a character who is supposed to be in her late 20s – early 30s. Jack Black did a fantastic job as Claptrap, he was definitely the best actor cast in their role. Turns out he can play annoying characters like it’s second nature. It would have been much better if they managed to get the original voice actor back, David Eddings despite the fallout between him and Randy at Gearbox, surely Lionsgate could have convinced him to come on board. Although it is possible they tried and Black was there next best option.

Can shoot a gun at least.

When it comes to supporting cast, it’s a mixed bag. Benjamin Byron Davis’ portrayal of Marcus was actually really well done even though he didn’t have much screen time or lines. He still portrayed and sounded like his character better than even most of the leading cast. Gina Gershon was okay as Moxxi, though not once did I hear a sultry tone which made me want to leave a tip. Edgar Ramirez as Atlas was just lame, a brand new character that they could have down so much with, but wound up boring and annoying. This is from the franchise that brought us Handsome Jack, possibly one of the best villains of all time! You can make the head of an evil arms manufacturer evil and entertaining, but this clearly wasn’t it. 

Who the hell is Larry??

Janina Gavankar as Knoxx was some of the driest acting ever. I’ve seen bread with more personality than what she conveyed. Also the fact that they created this new character and then linked her to a much beloved character from the first game, but then didn’t even have the guts to talk about her relation in the actual movie just feels very telling. Finally there’s Larry… WHO THE FUCK IS LARRY?! Larry is a random character portrayed by Bobby Lee who makes an appearance in Moxxi’s bar and is apparently Roland’s old roommate. This is a character who they just created out of left field and didn’t just give a voice to, but also a name. He’s on screen for maybe a total of 5 minutes and his entire purpose is to get tasered and is the butt of some awful jokes. Thanks to this made up character, fan favourites like Scooter, Ellie, Moxie’s son and daughter had 10 second non-speaking cameo and the very end of the movie. The more I watched the more I could feel the slaps in the faces of all Borderlands fans.

Borderlands Review – Visuals

Clearly the majority of the budget went towards the big names of the cast, however you can tell some went to the visuals, but it wasn’t much. The outfits were on point apart from Tannis’ which didn’t really match her actual outfit at all. Sadly there wasn’t a lot of chances to get close ups of the guns, but from what I could see they looked fine. Although, fine shouldn’t just cut it, the guns in borderlands are some of the most visually distinct in all of gaming and all we got were some basic pistols and assault rifles. Apart from the Infinity pistol they gave all the other weapons a blocky look of DAHL and said “our job here is done”. 

A small positive, Krieg does indeed look like a psycho.

The movies’ visuals really stumbled on the special effects. Lilith’s activation of her powers as her notable fiery red wings honestly just looked very half-assed which wasn’t helped by Blanchett’s acting by holding her arms out and “floating”. The biggest blunder was during the chase scene with the Crimson Lance. At one point we have a closeup on Knoxx’s head while she’s riding a hover bike (which didn’t make an appearance till Borderlands The Pre-Sequel and only on the moon) and we can see some other Lance in the background. It’s EXTREMELY obvious she’s in front of a green screen. Not a single bit of blending was used to make it appear she was there. I will say though, the handful of times we saw some of the Pandoran wildlife, they looked pretty nice and straight out of the game, although the iconic skaggs and rakks were only seen once or twice. The scene with the threshers was… nice… but the movie employed the trick of putting them in the dark where they couldn’t be seen all that well. 

Such detail, much tentacle.

Finally the Destroyer. You know, the giant tentacle monster from the vault? Yeah we literally only see it’s tentacles. This is a supposed to be a planet that’s teeming with dangerous wildlife and I can literally count on one hand how many times we saw any of them. For a movie based on a “looter shooter” there’s very little shooting and even less looting. The gunfights are far from enjoyable to watch as fight against the Bloodshots was just a series of spinning camera movements that almost made me throw up. Each fight felt like like they stuck the camera in a dryer on tumble dry and let it go. Also there was not a single loot chest to be seen, not even in the vault, 0/10.

Borderlands Review – Dialogue

I know it’s thrown around quite a lot as an excuse, but it genuinely feels like they just used A.I to write the script for the movie. The writing in the games isn’t exactly Shakespeare, but the lines in the movie were full of cliches and just had overall terrible writing. Take for instance the scene when Tina tells Lilith about her being a clone. Lilith initially asks her if Atlas is her real father and Tina responds “well yes and no.” Lilith then follows that up with “that wasn’t a yes or no question.” That’s exactly what it was though! It’s like they got Chat GPT to make the script and no one went over it to proof read.

Stand back, I can carry this film on my own!

The film also makes the cardinal sin of telling and not showing. The characters literally have huge exposition dumps instead of letting the audience work it out themselves. Lilith and Claptrap arrive in Lilith’s old home town, go up to one random house and instead of treating the audience like beings with intelligence, Claptrap asks “is this your house?” with Lilith responding “yes”. Guess we really need a degree to work that one out. Along with bad writing, the delivery isn’t much better as the only one that seems to show any emotion while delivering line is Claptrap, you know, the robot without a face? Jack Black was actually able to convey his lines with some pep while everyone else was so straight faced and damn near monotone. I thought this was supposed to be a comedy, not a funeral service.

Borderlands Review – References and Changes

I’ll start this final section off with what I actually enjoyed, the references. I’m a sucker for a good reference and seeing as this is a movie based on a much loved video game series, you could expect some nice call-backs.

• Lilith uses the Infinity pistol, a legendary gun that never runs out of ammo and is a must use gun for any Siren mains.
• Marcus’ vending machines have his little face logo on them.
• Tina is found by Lilith in the Tundra Express, the same place she’s found in game.
• Claptrap panics because he can’t climb stairs, his mortal enemy.
• When Lilith uses a Vladof sniper rifle it actually uses the Vladof redical.
• Claptrap mentions Lilith might be eaten by a Crawmaggot, the “offspring” of the first ever raid boss of the series Crawmerax
• Krom, a boss in the original game makes an appearance in the final fight.
• During the final fight Claptrap refers to himself as an “interplanetary ninja assassin”, a reference to the Claptrap themed Robot Revolution DLC for the first game.
• Multiple locations from the games are name dropped. Namely Sanctuary, Caustic Caverns, Tundra Express, Fyrestone and the planet of Promethea.
• The credits roll with Claptrap performing his iconic dance.

You see this shit down there?

With that out of the way, it’s time to talk about the changes that are made throughout the movie as well as some inconsistencies. Buckleup kiddos, this may take a bit. *deep breath*

• Tina was never a clone of the Eridians and was not experimented on by Atlas but her and her family were sold to Hyperion for Slag experimentation.
• Roland wasn’t the one who rescued Tina, she escaped by using a grenade hidden in her dress.
• Krieg was also experimented on by Hyperion, not Atlas.
• Lilith wasn’t a bounty hunter and she wasn’t born on Pandora. She came to Pandora as a vault hunter and met Roland, Brick and Mordecai on Marcus’ bus.
• The colonisation of Pandora happened because Atlas arrived there looking for Eridian technology and other companies followed for the same purpose or (more in DAHL’s case), to mine for resources. But this isn’t the explanation given.
• Despite being called TUNDRA Express, the movie version is in the middle of a desert. 
• The Crimson Lance are using the Stingray, a type of hover bike that is only found in Borderlands The Pre-Sequel and only on THE MOON because of the low gravity.
• Sanctuary shouldn’t be so populated during the current time of events.
• Despite the reference to Claptrap not being able to use stairs, there are a few times when he clearly makes it up some off screen.
• WHO THE FUCK IS LARRY?!
• Tannis and Moxxi make reference to/that they knew Lilith’s mum when they should barely know Lilith.
• The Crimson Lance never partnered with raiders and psychos in the game.
• Caustic Caverns are supposed to be under Sanctuary and supposed to be more cavernous and less like a sewer.
• Roland doesn’t have access to his Scorpio turret.
• Roland apparently has a relationship with General Knoxx’s brand new daughter.
• The Bloodshots were more than just the “psychos that other psychos are afraid of” they were a terrifying band of raiders that were even able to capture Roland and put Lilith on the backfoot prior and during the event of Borderlands 2.
• Lilith is using the Infinity pistol, all she needs to do is hold down the trigger and she can deal with a bunch of trapped psychos but decides to not do that.
• When combining 2 pieces of the vault key together Tannis brings up a map on the location of the vault and it also revealed Lilith’s Firehawk emblem from Borderlands 3. When Lilith asks what it is, Tannis states that it’s the mark of The Firehawk, an Eridian Goddess. NO IT’S NOT, The Firehawk is the alias Lilith takes prior to the events of Borderlands 2!
• Lilith wasn’t born on Pandora and her mum didn’t reprogram Claptrap, she wouldn’t know if Lilith would take up the name Firehawk. Also if she had enough time to reprogram Claptrap while psychos were raiding their town, she had enough time to leave the planet WITH Lilith and Tannis.
• The vault doesn’t need a “Daughter of Eridia” to open it, anyone with a complete key can open it.
• The vault key is supposed to be as big as an adult’s forearm, not just bigger than the palm of their hand
• The movie says Lilith Phaseshifts. Phaseshift is the ability of the Siren Angel where as Lilith’s ability is known as Phasewalk.
• Lilith’s powers were known when she was a kid as that’s when her tattoos appeared. She should be able to Phasewalk from the start of the movie.

These are just the changes I can remember off the top of my head as my brain tries to remove the movie from my memory. One last thing I noticed is that it seems Eli Roth REALLY wanted to make a Star Wars movie. When Roland breaks into Tina’s cell, he’s wearing a helmet and breathing heavily (just like Darth Vader). Tina asks why her father “sent his shortest soldier” (in reference to Leia’s “aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?”). Sanctuary just seems like a very populated Mos Eisley with less sand (though it could be substituted for any space port) and finally there are two instances of holograms being used with the one from Lilith’s mum looking like she was about ask Obi Wan for help because he’s her only hope.

Why is the cinema empty??

With these changes though we have to remember something. “This is a movie and not the game, therefore it’s not part of the same cinematic universe”. This was the sentiment that was tweeted out by CEO of Gearbox and creator of Borderlands Randy Pitchford. This was tweeted out in 2021 after the synopsis of the movie was revealed and there was already backlash forming from fans. Personally I find this to be a bit of a slap in the face and a brush off way to say “we don’t care what you think, these are the changes.” Especially when he’s stating that they’re being “authentic to the characters, tone and style” when they can’t even do that.

Borderlands Review – Conclusion

To say I’m disappointed in the movie is an understatement. I knew it wouldn’t be good when I started seeing information come out about it back in 2021, but I never expected it to be this bad. It does raise the question if companies should stop trying to make movie adaptations of video games. Movies just aren’t the right medium to bring a game to a wider audience but history has shown that a TV series can work with examples like The Last of Us and the recent Fallout series. Though they need a dedicated team behind them who know the series and know the audience. Otherwise we get cases like *shudder* the Halo series. 

Ok everyone, look like you’re constipated! It’s hilarious, right? Right??

This is not a love letter to the fans of Borderlands. It’s a slap in the face and a kick in the dick. It did one thing right, it’s made me want to go play the games again to remember the good times with the far better story that was written. I hope to never see this movie again. I would rather take on Crawmerax with a starting pistol, I would rather walk around Hunter’s Grotto with a broken leg and no ammo, hell I’d rather listen to a 24hr Live Scream from the Calypso twins than watch this movie again. The only other thing the movie has made me feel is it’s made me feel like Face McShooty and we all know what he’s like.

Maybe this guy saw the movie?

Why should you watch Borderlands?

But why shouldn’t you watch Borderlands?

• Even without being a fan, the movie is just bad
• Go play the games instead, they’re currently on sale and (most of them) are really fun with friends
• Movie tickets are too expensive anyway

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If you enjoyed this review, be sure to check out our review for Deadpool and Wolverine and join the Qualbert Discord to chat with us about all things Borderlands!