“Is there any way out of here that doesn’t involve garbage?”

Lilith

The cartoonishly violent videogame world of Pandora has sufficient space for nuanced narratives, as shown by Telltale’s Tales of the Borderlands spin-off. With a bizarrely accomplished cast (including Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis) and colourful wasteland visuals, Borderlands seemed like it might have something interesting to offer; instead, at a time when videogames are being adapted into prestige TV series, Borderlands is a throwback to the Bad Old Days™ of movie cash-ins. It is bizarre to learn that acclaimed fantasy author Joe Abercrombie contributed to Eli Roth’s script, which amounts to a poorly executed superhero origin story that mistakes backstory for character development. It makes more sense to discover that Blanchett accepted the role of bounty hunter Lilith during the pandemic lockdown (COVID-19 is, after all, known to cause loss of taste). Roth’s oeuvre is horror, and his action direction here amounts to little more than gunfire punctuated by explosions. The production design is Borderland’s saving grace, realising the game’s cell-shaded art in a vibrant, solid form. That is unlikely to sufficient even for fans of the games, but it makes clear this production was not lazy but misguided, its energy woefully misdirected.

3/10