Review of 'Borderlands'

Cynical bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett) is hired by corporate CEO Deukalian Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) to retrieve his teenage daughter Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt) from Pandora, a lawless planet which has been decimated by “vault hunters” seeking to find a vault containing the secrets left by the Eridians, a powerful, intelligent, and now extinct race. It is rumoured that only “Eridia's daughter” can open the vault. Lilith is reluctant to return to the planet where she was raised and where her mother abandoned her to search for the vault. Soon after arriving on the planet Lilith meets a run-down, wise-cracking robot calling itself Claptrap (Jack Black) who insists on helping her. The two quickly find the feisty Tina (who promptly tries to kill them) who has teamed up with two people that were earlier tasked with rescuing her from prison: Ex-mercenary Roland (Kevin Hart), and Tina's cellmate, the massive, though not terribly intelligent Krieg (Florian Munteanu), a former member of the bloodthirsty Psychos tribe. It is revealed that Tina has been genetically engineered by her “father” to be used as a vault key. The five team up, escaping an attack by the Crimson Lance militia and meet up with elderly, eccentric scientist Dr. Patricia Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis) who believes she can help them track down the keys and the location of the vault…

This is a whole lot of fun with great looking special effects and a lot of sarcastic, dry humour throughout courtesy not only of Jack Black in his role as robot Claptrap, but from everyone. Borderlands channels a Mad Max-style dystopian future with huge amounts of violence and massive, elaborate action sequences featuring all manner of alien and weapon but it is the characters that really make the film with the feisty and nasty Tina played by Ariana Greenblatt, the professional, bitter bounty hunter with violently pink hair Lilith played perfectly by Cate Blanchett and a wonderful old, wise scientist played by Jamie Lee Curtis.

It does try a bit too hard to be “brutal and violent” in some of the blatant rip-off of other films but setting that aside it is wonderfully entertaining with the audience wondering what will come next. The story is reasonably complex but not too difficult to keep track of. Yes there are a few twists that come along though some may not be entirely surprising…The pace of the film is perhaps a bit too fast as it does mean we don't have so much time to enjoy the amazingly styled scenery along the way.

A fun, fast-paced, dystopian flick with tongue firmly in cheek that manages to keep you guessing as to what is going to happen next along with copious amounts of violence and big-screen action.

Rating: “Nearly perfect, but not quite”

Review Date: 2025-04-13

Directed by: Eli Roth

Studio: Lionsgate

Year: 2024

Length: 101 minutes

Genre: Science Fiction

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4978420/