My World Of Flops: Borderlands

My World Of Flops is Nathan Rabin’s survey of books, television shows, musical releases, or other forms of entertainment that were financial flops, critical failures, or lack a substantial cult following.

Leonardo DiCaprio famously gave Timothée Chamalet advice we can all learn from: no superhero movies and no hard drugs. DiCaprio did not have to advise the handsome young actor not to waste his time and energy on video game movies because everyone already knows that video game movies are mostly garbage. Video game movies have such an abysmal history that in 2018, Rampage boasted of being the most acclaimed video game movie of all time after scoring a very mediocre 50% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. That is not good. It’s literally the definition of average, but somehow, it was also higher than any video game movie before it.

It’s a good thing that Cate Blanchett did not follow DiCaprio’s otherwise sane advice about opting out of superhero movies, or we would have been spared her majestic turn as Hela in 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, one of the sexiest and best Marvel movies. In 2021, however, Blanchett made a decision that was apparently due to her suffering from a mild case of COVID-induced madness. The Academy Award winner told Empire, “I was spending a lot of time in the garden, using the chainsaw a little too freely. My husband said, ‘This film could save your life.’” That’s strange, considering that Blanchett looks like she’d rather be dead than in Borderlands. Blanchett might have been better off taking her chances in the garden with mounting insanity and a free-swinging chainsaw.

Some movies are like wars. They’re massive, expensive undertakings requiring coordination, planning, and great gobs of money. These epics have directors for generals. Eli Roth is Borderlands’ director-general. But he went AWOL when reshoots were required in 2023 so that he could fight in a better, more winnable war by directing Thanksgiving, which is everything Borderlands should be but is not.

In Roth’s absence, Deadpool’s Tim Miller stepped in for reshoots and completed the job of ruining the movie. Borderlands is consequently one of those strange instances where the credited director probably only helmed eighty to ninety percent of the film, with an uncredited gun-for-hire handling the rest. 

To keep with the war theme, Borderlands was a Vietnam experience for everyone involved except for Jack Black. Black understandably wanted to avoid the bad vibes and exhaustion of a production that was only slightly less troubled than the one at the center of Tropic Thunder, so he opted out of appearing on set.

In a story that would feel more whimsical and light-hearted if Borderlands were not a flop of historic proportions, Jack Black told Conan O’Brien on Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend, “I got a DM from Jamie Lee Curtis and she said, “Where the fuck are you? We’re all here knee-deep in the hellish shit, and I find out you are…wherever you are doing your recordings.’ I said, ‘I love you, and I am there in spirit, and I will see you on the red carpet.’”

Jamie Lee Curtis was in the shit, filming an infamously troubled mega-production with a bleak, messy future. But she was also in shit, in that Borderlands is a piss-poor motion picture. Curtis could at least take comfort in knowing that Black was there in spirit. That must have meant a lot to her when she was working 18-hour days on garbage. Even more maddening for Curtis and her colleagues, Black steals the movie without ever having shown up on set. 

Black did not suffer the way everyone else involved with Borderlands suffered. That includes the audience. Borderlands began filming in 2021 and resumed in 2023 with reshoots before a disastrous release that saw it score an abysmal 10% on Rotten Tomatoes and gross less than a third of its $110 – 120 million budget before being dumped onto digital early out of panic and desperation.

When a film version of the hit video game series was announced in August 2015, its premise combined two of the hottest movies of the time: 2014’s Guardians Of The Galaxy and 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road. Like Guardians Of The Galaxy, Borderlands follows the misadventures of a ragtag bunch of unlikely heroes as they galivant their way across a colorful universe filled with adventure and excitement. Like Fury Road, it takes place in a post-apocalyptic dystopia that’s a blasted, dry hellscape of desert and meaningless brutality. 

Poor Cate Blanchett stars as Lilith. She embodies two sturdy pop culture archetypes. She’s a sarcastic, hard-living, cynical outlaw whose rough exterior masks a tender soul and heart of gold, and she’s a God-like figure of humble origins fated to be “The One,” a messiah destined to save their people. 

Lilith is, in other words, both Han Solo and Luke Skywalker. She’s a space pirate as well as a space princess. It should be effortlessly iconic. Instead it gives Blanchett nothing to work with. It falls to Blanchett to deliver the following mouthful of opening narration/exposition in a bored monotone: 

“Long ago, our galaxy was ruled by an alien race called the Eridians, whose power and technology were far beyond human comprehension. Though they disappeared ages ago, they left behind fragments of their technology, scraps that became the foundation for all human advancement. But the Eridians’ greatest secrets were hidden in a vault located on the planet Pandora. The once peaceful world was overrun by corporations, fighting and killing one another for a chance to find the vault.  But it remained hidden. Then, amidst the clouds of chaos, a glimmer of hope shone through, a prophecy, that one day, a daughter of Eridia would open the vault and restore order to the broken planet.”

She then undercuts the breathless earnestness of what she’s just said by cracking, “That sounds like wacko B.S., right? Well, I thought so too, until this mess happened.” 

It’s a variation on a writing cliché synonymous with Joss Whedon where a narrator comments on some superheroic or supernatural experience by quipping, with smug, sarcastic understatement, “so that happened,” only it’s this that happened. 

It’s an early indication that Borderlands does not understand sarcasm. Or comedy. Or storytelling. Or film. What our heroine tells us does sound like wacko B.S. but we’re conditioned as moviegoers to assume that the narrator’s words are true. 

Lilith was born on Pandora. It’s the worst planet in the galaxy, a wretched hive of scum and villainy. It’s the science-fiction equivalent of Gary, Indiana. Nobody wants to be from there, and if they are, they can’t wait to get the hell out.

The nefarious Deukalian Atlas (Edgar Ramirez) hires Lilith to retrieve his ostensible daughter Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), a 13-year-old with a weakness for bunny ears and explosives. She’s cute an’ deadly in a manner redolent of Kick-Ass’ Hit-Girl as well as a bottomless font of dated 1980s and 1990s Earth street slang. She is, for example, the last person in the universe to still say, “What’s the dealio?” 

She’s a little girl, only extreme and in your face and extremely in your face. 

Mercenary military man Roland (Kevin Hart) nabs Tiny Tina instead. If you hate Hart and resent the five-year stint in which he appeared in eighty percent of all films, then I have good news for you: Kevin Hart does not do his Kevin Hart shtick here. Instead, he plays the role completely straight. Roland is just like every other action hero in film history except shorter. Why cast a performer as popular and distinctive as Hart and give him a role with next to nothing in the way of comedy? 

On the other end of the spectrum, Black has clearly been empowered to be the most intense form of himself. Jack Black most assuredly does his Jack Black shtick as an old-fashioned robot who hates everyone and everything and would love for all of the other members of his team to die, but who has been programmed to be helpful, even selfless, and serve the humans he hates. Black modeled the nasal worrywart with the cheerful, upbeat sense of nihilism and hatred on R2-D2. He’s supposed to be funny and annoying. He delivers on both counts.

Roland and Tiny Tina are assisted in their escape by Krieg (Florian Munteanu), one of the Psychos who wear masks and are known and feared for their savagery and brutality. Psychos have a name stolen from Hitchcock and a fashion sense borrowed from Jason Voorhees. Krieg has a name reminiscent of Nightmare On Elm Street while the character itself is a poor man’s version of Drax the Destroyer, who has a similarly stilted speaking style and impossibly ripped body. Tiny Tina and Krieg are best friends. They’re the beauty and the beast, the steam-punk princess and her loyal brute of a protector.

Jamie Lee Curtis rounds out the team as Dr. Patricia Tannis, a brilliant, autistic doctor friend of Lilith’s mother who knows all about her lofty destiny. With Curtis and Tannis, autism isn’t a component of her personality; it’s the entirety.

This motley gang of misfits pursue a key that will allow them to open the fabled vault that lies at the film’s center and functions as its MacGuffin. Psychos and the Crimson Lance, Deukalian Atlas’ private army, pursue our heroes as they chase their heroic destiny.

When Roth was hired to direct a $100M adaptation of a popular video game, the producers obviously hoped that he would follow in James Gunn’s footsteps and make a magnificent leap from indie iconoclast to blockbuster entertainer. That didn’t happen. Roth’s heart isn’t in it. He’s not trying to make Mad Max. He’s trying to make his version of a half-assed, campy Mad Max knock-off. Roth set out to make his version of The Ice Pirates, a retro romp rooted in the disposable popcorn entertainment of yesteryear.

The result doesn’t have much personality. It feels crafted by committee rather than representing the vision of a single auteur. You also can’t make an edgy, in-your-face provocation that’s PG-13, a rating that technically allows homeschooled Mormon toddlers to watch the movie unattended. Roth seems too tired and dispirited even for his usual macho edgelord bullshit.

Many soldiers fought for a losing cause in the roughly three years between when filming began and when Borderlands received one of the worst receptions of any would-be tentpole blockbusters ever. The only one who emerged from this mess unscathed is Jack Black, who also had to do the least work of any cast member. He got to stay at home while they embarked on a creative suicide mission. That doesn’t seem fair, but when has war (or big-budget studio filmmaking) ever been fair or made sense?

Failure, Fiasco, or Secret Success: Fiasco