Film review: Borderlands is a space Western that functions as a relentless shoot-’em-up

This fine cast is reduced so much cannon fodder

Cate Blanchett, Ariana Greenblatt, Kevin Hart, Florian Munteanu and Jamie Lee Curtis all star in Borderlands. Picture: Lionsgate

• Borderlands
• ★★☆☆☆
• Cinematic release

Borderlands (12A) stars Cate Blanchett as Lilith, a bounty hunter commissioned to return to the ‘broken planet’ of Pandora that she once called home to track down Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), daughter of the all-powerful Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) and the key to a fabled vault that contains the technology of a long-extinct species.

Double- and triple-cross swiftly follow as Lilith, aided and abetted by Roland (Kevin Hart), the yappy robot Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) and veteran warrior Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), finds herself lurching from one crisis to another, most of them involving desperate rearguard actions against overwhelming forces.

Set against a Mad Max-style post-apocalyptic backdrop, Eli Roth’s adaptation of the videogame Borderlands is a space Western that functions as a relentless shoot-’em-up, substituting action for character development as the plot tips its hat to the standard beats of the epic quest and a fine cast is reduced so much cannon fodder.