Borderlands

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt, Jamie Lee Curtis, Edgar Ramirez, Gina Gershon, Florian Munteanu, voice of Jack Black

Director: Eli Roth

Cross Mad Max Fury Road with Guardians of the Galaxy, and this is pretty much what you get, as another fantasy franchise gets under way. This one is based on a video game and it sure looks it, as our ill-assorted heroes pinball their way from one hairsbreadth escape to another.

Cate Blanchett (too good an actress for this, but looking fit in more ways than one) plays Lilith, an inter-galactic bounty hunter. She's coerced into travelling to Pandora (wasn't that the world in the Avatar films?), now a desolate planet with more debris than inhabitants, where she is to locate teenager Tina (Greenblatt), who holds the key to opening the vault - the film's McGuffin - which houses technology stored by the super-advanced Iridians before they died out.

But the Atlas Corporation, headed by evil Edgar Ramirez, wants that technology and, of course, the girl, at present rescued by soldier of fortune Kevin Hart.

If it's non-stop action you want, Roth and his CGI experts certainly provide it. No wonder the film runs only 100 minutes, as zombie-like goons by the hundred perish in pursuit of our hounded heroes, two of whom, of course, possess magic powers. It is, however, lazy film-making.

Greenblatt is intensely annoying as 'tiny Tina', but the diminutive Hart is surprisingly fun as her protector. And, while Ramirez and Curtis, who looks uncomfortable throughout, take the money and run, Haley Bennett does terrific work in a one-scene cameo.

If it lacks the wit of Guardians - even with the voice of Jack Black as a cross between R2D2 and Wall-E - special effects ensure that the blasts of action keep on coming.

David Quinlan

USA 2024. UK Distributor: LionsGate. Colour by Colorfront/Company 3/Harbor.
100 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 1, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 07 Aug 2024