I’ve never played the popular looter-shooter video game that Borderlands is based upon, but I have to say that the fan base certainly deserved more than a low-rent combination of Guardians of the Galaxy merry pranksters with Mad Max freakazoid wasteland gangs. You can clearly tell the specific X-Meets-Y of the pitch, although apparently writer/director Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, The House with a Clock in the Walls) was auspiciously inspired one day by, literally, watching his dog squat over and poop and said, “This, this has to be in the movie.” So, from those noble creative origins comes a movie that labors so hard to be breezy and fun but feels so gassed and desperate. In this future sci-fi universe, there’s a special planet that is populated with different space crooks and gangs all fighting to discover a hidden vault of legend. The world is overrun by masked marauders known cheerfully as “psychos.” There’s also a prophecy about a chosen one, a kidnapped daughter to a very dangerous man, and Jack Black voicing one of the most obnoxious sidekicks in recent memory. That’s the thing about Borderlands: everyone is obnoxious or trying badly to be so indifferently cool. It doesn’t work. Cate Blanchett is not the right fit for the lead character of Lilith, a blase bounty hunter/for-hire killer that finds herself gathering a band of bickering bandits. The movie wants us to see them as a dysfunctional family of lovable losers, but each mediocre character is distilled to an underwhelming essence of quips, snark, and stylish killing. If there was a whiff of personality to be had with the different characters, their different and conflicting perspectives, this universe and its interesting locations for world building, even the unique weapons and fighting abilities, there might be even some fleeting entertainment to be had. Alas. It’s not funny. It’s not exciting. It’s not visually appealing. It’s not interesting. It’s not surprising. It’s just sort of loud with capital A-attitude and a forced sense of jocular PG-13 whimsy. It’s not… a lot of important things. Instead, Borderlands only makes me reflect how much better James Gunn has proven himself with these kinds of funky found families.

Nate’s Grade: C-