Borderlands Movie Review: Cate Blanchett’s Action Fantasy Is A Trap Not Worth The Claps

Borderlands movie review: Eli Roth, Cate Blanchett, and Jack Black rejoin for a Pandora’s box of uninspired action scenes and unimaginative worldbuilding.

Borderlands movie review: Cate Blanchett has shown her flexibility over the years, but she has yet to deliver her Hunger Games or Mad Max. She ventures into the fantastical action genre with her latest film, which sadly feels more like a sleepwalk than a cakewalk. Despite her résumé consisting mostly of grim dramas, she always possessed the body language of an action star. It’s entertaining to watch her wield guns, jump around, and flaunt her smirk, but she deserves a much better vehicle to demonstrate her worth on that front.

(Also Read: Cannes 2024: Cate Blanchett ridiculed for calling herself’middle class’ despite her $95 million net fortune.)

Get unlimited access to the Hindustan Times E-paper and Archives for 1199/- per year.

It is a Pandora’s Box.
Cate plays Lilith, a bounty hunter tasked by a wealthy businessman to return to her estranged homeland of Pandora and retrieve back his kidnapped daughter. However, after meeting the daughter, she realizes that the problem is with the father. Along the way, she makes unusual allies, including another gun-wielding warrior Roland (Kevin Hart), a masked buffy man Krom (Olivier Richters), a cunning scientist Patricia (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a little robot named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black).


Borderlands’ premise of weird bedfellows traveling throughout a futuristic planet is disturbingly similar to Guardians of the Galaxy. However, the familiarity fades as soon as it strikes. The action segments, while frequent and useful, are so unimaginative that there is a complete lack of inventiveness.There are automobile chases, tiptoeing through a tunnel with acid pouring beneath, and exploring a cave filled with nasty characters. However, these feel more like playing through all stages of a video game (duh, Borderlands is a video game adaptation) than a voyage undertaken in real life.

The uninspired worldbuilding does not help either. Every enemy they face, weapon they use, and area they cross feels graphically derivative and conceptually outdated. Except for Claptrap spitting bullets from his butthole, no single image has stuck with me. Jack Black does his best to bring the screenplay to life with his zingers and effervescent speech delivery. He even strikes a Kung Fu (Panda) position in an action sequence. But the claptrap isn’t appealing enough to have us fall for it and applaud, pun intended. Kevin Hart, his Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle co-star, scarcely contributes to the entertainment, despite the fact that his jamming with Jack while on an adventure made for a great time in that film.

Cate deserved better.
In Eli Roth’s 2018 fantasy comedy The House With A Clock In Its Walls, Jack and Cate are still able to build a world of imagination. But here, they struggle from the start. Even Keerthy Suresh’s Buji is a more fitting techno companion to Prabhas’ Bhairava in Nag Ashwin’s latest dystopian sci-fi epic Kalki 2898 AD. Toward the end of the film, Cate’s character slips in a conversation with the enemy before making the final move: “I have something that you don’t have enough.” Borderlands may have been a more sophisticated film if Eli and his co-writer Joe Crombie had started with that premise and stuck with it throughout. However, like the rest of the film, its line remains just ‘claptrap.’


It could also have been an emotional coming-of-age homecoming story, similar to Ladybird or Causeway, disguised as an action fantasy. However, that track feels imposed rather than organically weaved in. The cut is visible in the tension with which two Oscar winners, Cate and Jamie Lee Curtis, strive to impart some emotional depth to the proceedings. But, at the end of the day, Borderlands is still a hollow action spectacle best enjoyed in 4DX, if at all. While we wait for Cate’s definitive action film, let’s enjoy her brief but delightful performance as Hela in Thor: Ragnarok. At the very least, that is a trap worthy of applause.

Help us improve your experience! Click here to provide feedback.