“Oh, I didn’t really mean you should come over to set right now,” Kevin James says, rubbing his neck. He’s dressed as Barney Rubble opposite Sly Stallone’s Fred Flintstone in what seemed to be a film where Fred and Barney are transported to the present day. “So there aren’t any dinosaurs at all?” Kyle says in wonder, looking at the very normal looking suburban set. “No… it’s a fish-out-of-water story. Guys, really, It’s not a great time,” Kevin James says nervously and looks over at Sly’s trailer where a group of PA’s are knocking furiously at his door. “Aha, Sly is being Sly, I see,” Patrick says, rubbing his hands together. “Classic Sly.” Kevin James tries to distract them with the craft services table, pointing out the many ways in which sandwiches can be constructed. Kyle is more interested in a prop newspaper with the headline ‘Fred Flintstone Elected Mayor: Promises to Solve Town’s Water Treatment Issue,’ and a date of April 22nd, 1998. His head is spinning. Patrick is still distracted by Sly Stallone’s trailer. “You want me to talk to him?” He asks Kevin James, who tries to grab him by the arm. “I’m going to go talk to him,” Patrick says with a smirk and strolls up to the trailer, scattering PA’s in his wake. “Yo! Adrian!” Patrick yells at the trailer door and then turns back to Kevin James. “That’s just something we do. It’s fun,” he says, smirking even harder. “Stop! Or my mom will shoot!” Patrick continues and at that the trailer door slams open, smashing directly into Patrick’s face.
He wakes up in a desert landscape he recognizes. Strange people surround him. “Welcome to The Waste,” they say, but Patrick springs up immediately. “Nah, this is just the borders of my imagination.” That’s right! We are going Live! for the smash bomb of the year in Borderlands. This is the live action adaptation of the video game Borderlands, which I’ve never played and possibly never even seen a clip from. You think that will hinder or help my enjoyment here? Let’s go!
Borderlands (2024) – BMeTric: 68.3; Notability: 54
StreetCreditReport.com – BMeTric: top 0.4%; Notability: top 0.0%; Rotten Tomatoes: top 2.7%; Higher BMeT: Madame Web; Lower RT: Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black, The Painter, Wanted Man, Summer Camp, Megamind vs. The Doom Syndicate; Notes: Rare is it that we actually manage to hit at not one but two top BMT films of a year as Live entries. Madame Web and Borderlands were so astonishing they were inevitable and I’m quite glad we watched both in theaters as they were intended.
RogerEbert.com – 1 star – Roth, a director I’ve defended in the horror genre a few times, is remarkably inept at directing action. When the film bursts into gunfire, to call these sequences incoherent would be polite. I’m not sure if cinematographer Rogier Stoffers and/or editors Julian Clarke & Evan Henke deserve some of the blame, but the fight scenes are baffling in their construction. They’re cut in a way that makes it impossible to know the geography of an action scene, or really to care about what happens in them. It may sound picky, but a movie based on an action video game needs at least to provide visceral, escapist entertainment in the guns-and-punches department. There’s not a single memorable action beat in this movie. Not one.
(Yeah, also the film is cut to shit. It is clear that they had a film of film and just had to do something to get it out in a reasonably understandable form. Even if that meant janky voiceover where scenes you can SEE are from later in the film are shown out of order for no real reason. It is insane. It needs to be seen to be believed.)
Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Icnysn53neU/
(Oh jesus this trailer is so loud. I feel like I’ve seen this trailer a thousand times before. And none of those movies were good. I have no idea what they were thinking with this dumb movie.)
Directors – Eli Roth – ( Known For: Hostel; Grindhouse; Knock Knock; Hostel: Part II; Cabin Fever; Thanksgiving; The House with a Clock in Its Walls; Fin; Future BMT: The Green Inferno; BMT: Death Wish; Borderlands; Notes: Famously his role in Inglorious Basterds was supposed to be taken by Adam Sandler, which would have been pretty cool I think.)
Writers – Eli Roth – ( Known For: Hostel; Grindhouse; Knock Knock; Hostel: Part II; Cabin Fever; The Man with the Iron Fists; Thanksgiving; Aftershock; Cabin Fever; Future BMT: The Green Inferno; BMT: Borderlands; Notes: That is kind of amazing. Something tells me we aren’t getting to Green Inferno anytime soon. Honestly, Roth isn’t really my style in general.)
Joe Crombie – ( Notes: He genuinely seems to have a writing credit. He’s mostly credited as an editor.)
Actors – Cate Blanchett – ( Known For: The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring; The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King; The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; Thor: Ragnarok; The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button; Don’t Look Up; The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies; Hot Fuzz; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; The Aviator; Eyes Wide Shut; How to Train Your Dragon 2; Babel; Robin Hood; The Talented Mr. Ripley; Ocean’s Eight; Blue Jasmine; The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou; Future BMT: The Monuments Men; Elizabeth: The Golden Age; BMT: Borderlands; Notes: I do love looking deep into someone’s filmography and seeing those weirdo films people must have forgotten about (right?). Pushing Tin? Cate Blanchett was in Pushing Tin?)
Kevin Hart – ( Known For: The 40-Year-Old Virgin; Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle; This Is the End; Jumanji: The Next Level; Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw; The Secret Life of Pets; Central Intelligence; The Five-Year Engagement; DC League of Super-Pets; The Secret Life of Pets 2; The Upside; The Man from Toronto; Death at a Funeral; Think Like a Man; Lift; Fatherhood; Me Time; Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie; Top Five; About Last Night; Future BMT: Scary Movie 3; Get Hard; Along Came Polly; Scary Movie 4; Little Fockers; Superhero Movie; Drillbit Taylor; Night School; Meet Dave; Soul Plane; Think Like a Man Too; In the Mix; Not Easily Broken; Back on the Strip; BMT: Ride Along; Epic Movie; Fool’s Gold; The Wedding Ringer; Ride Along 2; Grudge Match; Borderlands; Notes: What do you think the chances are that any of the following upcoming projects actually happen: Monopoly, Ride Along 3, The Great Outdoors, Planes, Trains & Automobiles. I guess I could see Ride Along 3 (finally!), but the other ones feel unlikely.)
Edgar Ramírez – ( Known For: The Bourne Ultimatum; Zero Dark Thirty; Jungle Cruise; Bright; The Girl on the Train; Joy; Gold; Yes Day; Hands of Stone; The Last Days of American Crime; Wasp Network; Resistance; The Liberator; Furlough; Emilia Pérez; The Quietude; Saluda al diablo de mi parte; An Open Heart; A Dot and a Line; Cyrano Fernández; Future BMT: Vantage Point; The Counselor; Deliver Us from Evil; Domino; The 355; BMT: Wrath of the Titans; Point Break; Borderlands; Notes: From Venezuela. Who could forget his role in Point Break! Such a memorable role indeed.)
Budget/Gross – $110–120 million / Domestic: $15,460,525 (Worldwide: $30,951,794)
(Mein gott! But yeah, they filmed this film at least twice and there is abundant CGI, so obviously a $100 million film was inevitable. But you’d think if WB was onto something they would have eaten it to get tax breaks or something instead of releasing it at all.)
Rotten Tomatoes – 10% (15/154): Glitching out in every department, Borderlands is balderdash.
(Woooooooo, sub-10% films are so rare, i sure do hope it stays that low. And yep, although consensus which boils down to: this is incoherent nonsense.)
Reviewer Highlight: Like the original first-person shooter game, “Borderlands” is set on a junkyard planet named Pandora that was once a home base for an advanced alien species, but has since been overrun by violent marauders and women with formidable push-up bras. – Amy Nicholson, New York Times
Poster – Moreboredlands
(There is too much going on here and the font is terrible, but I kind of dig how weird the color of the title is.That neon yellow like color is very unusual. C-)
Tagline(s) – Chaos loves company. (B+)
(This is a classic BMT tagline. It’s following my rules very closely. Playing on a common phrase, short, and something to do with the film… ish. I actually like it. Just a little generic.)
Keyword(s) – 2024-2024
Top 10: Dune: Part Two (2024), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024), Civil War (2024), Road House (2024), The Fall Guy (2024), The Beekeeper (2024), Inside Out 2 (2024), Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024), Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Future BMT: 68.4 The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024), 65.9 Night Swim (2024), 64.2 The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024), 62.9 Tarot (2024), 59.0 Imaginary (2024), 57.9 The Exorcism (2024), 48.0 The Crow (2024), 35.4 The Garfield Movie (2024), 19.8 Back to Black (2024), 16.0 Harold and the Purple Crayon (2024)
BMT: Madame Web (2024), Borderlands (2024), Argylle (2024), The Watchers (2024)
Best Options (wiki-video game): 65.7 Borderlands (2024)
(Video game films are fun. We actually basically have three left (Uncharted, Prince of Persia, and Street Fighter), a few Uwe Boll films (BloodRayne and House of the Dead), and the entire Resident Evil series. Then we are basically done. Throw in Ratchet & Clank because it features the dulcet tones of one Sylvester Stallone and we got a stew cooking.)
Welcome to Earf (HoE Number 16) – The shortest path through The Movie Database cast lists using only BMT films is: Kevin Hart is No. 2 billed in Borderlands and No. 5 billed in Grudge Match, which also stars Robert De Niro (No. 1 billed) who is in Righteous Kill (No. 1 billed) which also stars Al Pacino (No. 2 billed) who is in 88 Minutes (No. 1 billed) which also stars Leelee Sobieski (No. 3 billed) who is in Here on Earth (No. 1 billed) => (2 + 5) + (1 + 1) + (2 + 1) + (3 + 1) = 16. If we were to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age we can get the HoE Number down to 12.
Notes – The movie was shot in the summer of 2021 and Eli Roth’s first director’s cut was reportedly finished in early 2022. However, it was shelved for over two years due to extreme studio interference while the film was in post-production. Appalled by the film’s extreme violence, the studio wanted the film to be marketed as a blockbuster and hired Tim Miller to do extensive reshoots on the project. These reshoots ended up comprising so much of the final movie that Steve Jablonsky had to write an entirely new musical score, as the original score by Nathan Barr no longer fit the film.
Eli Roth originally shot the movie with a planned hard R-rating, keeping in vein with the original game’s M-rating for mature audiences. However, last-minute rewrites, heavy edits, and reshoots from Tim Miller dialed the film back to a PG-13. This is only Roth’s second film to receive a rating other than R, after The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018), which was PG.
Lilith’s main gun is called “Vladof Infinity” by Marcus, and in the video game, it is a legendary pistol with infinite ammo, which explains why she never runs out and never need to reload it.
Upon its release, the film debuted at an incredibly rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Tim Miller directed the re-shoots in Eli Roth’s place as Roth was preoccupied with Thanksgiving (2023), which also stars Gina Gershon.
Bad Movie Twins 