Borderlands

Move aside, Madame Web, you have lost the race for "Worst Movie of 2024". A movie so bad, I wasn't gonna review it this week and was gonna focus on Tarantino. However, this review got pushed up because of this movie's stellar awfulness and lack of anything remotely charming or emotional. Because, dear lord, if I could hate a movie more it would be a feat of pure ingenuity from the fine mines in the Hollywood sludge factory that churn out awfulness like this every other year. This is my review of Borderlands!

PLOT: Unfocused, but stable.

The plot's unfocused, but at least there's a clear Point A to Point B. However, the way they get there is just baffling and sometimes ridiculous. They have to go to a town to meet up with a friend, who is friends with someone Lilith doesn't like. Why did Lilith agree to meet with this person if they knew both people were connected? That's because Lilith is not very smart and neither are any of the characters nor are they cleverly written to avert the slogfest that is this two hours of hell. There's no stakes, no tension, and the exposition is weak as all get out. Miserable experience through and through.

CHARACTERS: Cut-out slop.

From miscastings to wasted castings to bad writing to bearable writing, every choice here is either poor or wasted. Tiny Tina played by Arianna Greenblatt? Wasted. Cate Blanchett as Lilith? Wasted (both on-set and in the movie). Yet the worst are Jamie Lee Curtis playing an autism-coded Tannis who's a stereotype of autism and Kevin Hart as Roland who just is given nothing funny to bounce off of, despite doing an okay job playing it straight. Krieg is not even a character and all the side-characters are plot devices to show off thinly-veiled character traits or more exposition. Marcus, owner of Marcus Munitions and a big part of the games, is here to exposit about VAULT HUNTERS. Something that was explained in openings to the games is now reduced to bland dialogue in a bus ride. Mad Moxxi? Plot point! The villain? Shows up for plot and dies with no real threat to the group because checks notes Lilith is the chosen one as per the great prophecy. Great. The only saving grace of this movie was Jack Black and his usual humor, but even then his voice is grating to every sense. Claptrap is naturally grating, but sometimes gets better humor in the game to offset it, plus has a sense of self-hatred clear in every outing that makes you endeared to him. None of it comes out here. This movie just lacks characters in every sense of the word.

SHOTS: Weaksauce.

There's no interesting shots in this movie. A game known for visually amazing worlds, bright colors, and wacky yet gruesome kills is reduced to a PG-13 wasteland of muddled wasteland that's maybe brown or yellow, just like the type of jokes they love to make (poo and pee, everyone!). To worsen the blow, they have some decent shots of the dead monster that are covered up to look less gorey in case the MPAA decided this pathetic excuse of a movie got its PG-13. Wouldn't want any adults to watch this movie, just the hip teenagers that totally wanna watch a PG-13 movie. It frustrates me seeing most of this movie just lack any style after four very stylistic games with different vibes across each one. They go from Mad Max desert to cel-shaded wastelands with a tinge of corporate to space odyssey with dark shadows to a mix of all the previous beautiful environments. The fact that each game balances it is a discredit to how this movie can't even have one more type of environment.

SOUND: I don't care.

Some famous songs, I guess? I don't wanna spend any time here, it just didn't stick out.

WRITING: The worst.

When I say a movie is unfunny, sometimes it's delivery or direction. Other times, it's the joke itself. This movie has a ton of that, with no funny jokes marred by actors trying to deliver through bad direction. With all the humor of a toddler (poop, pee, and some swear words for those kids who think they're super cool), this movie chooses to ignore any sense of satire from the games or even better movies. Like, this movie was trying so hard to emulate the witty banter of James Gunn or the recent Dungeons and Dragons movie, with constant zingers and quips. It felt like a bad Marvel movie, to the point where I heard someone ask in a theater if this was "one of them Marvel movies". It's not, by the way, just a crappy video game adaptation with charmless writing and a hack director. Speaking of hacks...

LITTLE THINGS: Script abandoned by its creator.

This script was sold to the actors in Hollywood as a masterful script, written by Craig Mazin. He wrote two of my current favorite shows, Last of Us and Chernobyl. His work is detailed as being excellent on those and he's spent years cutting his teeth on bad movies and learning what not to do. So, when I heard the director, Eli Roth, known for bloody brutal films belonging to the splatter film genre with no real edge or message, ruined his script, I accepted that truth. Having watched it, I see exactly where the script was tossed out and the director just said "Nope, my movie, lalalala" while plugging his ears and directing Jack Black to shit bullets. This, to me, felt real and I don't doubt its authenticity. A script abandoned by its creator and handed to the infamous creator of Death Wish (2018) would just get trampled.

VERDICT: Awful with hardly any redemption.

This movie is pure awfulness with no soul and no emotional edge to keep you connected. I was forced to sit through this dredge and still wanted a refund despite getting a free ticket. I felt nothing watching it, cringed through most of the jokes, and slammed my head against my fridge when I got home realizing I wasted two hours to give this review. This movie's already bombing anyways, so nothing I do will make people watch it. So, by all means, go watch it and see how bad it is. Maybe you get more from it than me, but this was the WORST movie of 2024.

SCORE: 1/10, go watch Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves for a better quest movie.