Based on the best-selling videogame, this all-star action-adventure follows a ragtag team of misfits on a mission to save a missing girl who holds the key to unimaginable power.

Video game adaptations are having a boom spell at the moment with the success of the TV adaptations of ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Fallout’ bucking the trend of what was generally considered a recipe for guaranteed failure. ‘Borderlands’ is the latest attempt to turn a successful video game series into a successful screen adaptation, with this video game adapted as a movie as opposed to a TV series. I am not a massive gamer myself so wasn’t overly familiar with the source material, but I did enjoy ‘The Last of Us’ and ‘Fallout’, which at least in look and tone is something that ‘Borderlands’ shares some DNA with.

Sadly, ‘Borderlands’ is a bit of a bust and is another to join the long list of failed video game adaptations. A lot of that can be laid at the door of a troubled production which involved turning an R-rated (or 18 in UK terms), violent video game into a PG/12A friendly version, sanitizing much of what made the video game appeal in the first place, but even beyond that, it’s a messy movie that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. It doesn’t help that it is also deeply derivative of not only better movies, but also of pretty rubbish movies too, with the woeful ‘Suicide Squad’ a particular reference point that it badly attempts to ape.

In terms of the “plot”, it follows a bounty hunter called Lilith (Cate Blanchett, not at her best) who is tasked with tracking down the teenage daughter (Tina) of a rich corporate boss (can you guess who the villain might be?), only to discover all is not as it seems. This leads to Lilith forming a ragtag group alongside Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a couple of mercenary soldiers (Kevin Hart, Florian Munteanu) and an annoying robot voiced by Jack Black, to track down some mystery vault before Tina’s father gets there first. It clocks in at barely over 90 minutes which was merciful given how poor it was, but that in itself was another marker in the lack of story. It was no surprise to read after that it went through several writers, some of whom had disowned their work on the project.

‘Borderlands’ is a forgettable video game adaptation that I suspect won’t work for fans of the video game series or those who aren’t familiar with it, with its faux wackiness barely disguising that this is a generic, badly made movie with very little to recommend.

Rating: 2/5

Directed By: Eli Roth

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramirez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis, Haley Bennett, Bobby Lee, Oliver Richters and Janina Gavankar

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