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Borderlands
Movie

Borderlands

2024 • Unknown

Woke Score
4
out of 10

Plot

Returning to her home planet, an infamous bounty hunter forms an unexpected alliance with a team of unlikely heroes. Together, they battle monsters and dangerous bandits to protect a young girl who holds the key to unimaginable power.

Overall Series Review

The film adaptation of *Borderlands* is widely criticized for its poor quality, ill-conceived script, and failure to capture the spirit of the source material. The plot centers on Lilith, an infamous bounty hunter, who teams up with a group of misfits to find a powerful corporate magnate's missing daughter. The villain is the corporate overlord Atlas, making the central conflict a battle against corporate greed and power. The main protagonist, Lilith, is portrayed as an unstoppable, hard-as-nails mercenary, leading a team of less-competent male characters. Critics label the lead character a quintessential 'Mary Sue,' whose journey is about accepting her own inherent flawlessness and destiny as the 'chosen one'. The anarchic, future-set world of Pandora focuses on the hunt for a mystical alien vault and its power.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics6/10

The casting of a Black actor (Kevin Hart) as the character Roland, who is visually ambiguous or light-skinned Black/white in the source game, represents a change in an immutable characteristic from the game's depiction. One review suggests the diverse casting may be seen as 'agenda-driven' by rejecting the film's likely demographics. The central plot does not rely on race or intersectional hierarchy but on defeating corporate corruption and finding an ancient alien vault.

Oikophobia2/10

The setting is the fictional, chaotic, lawless desert planet of Pandora, which is set centuries in the future. The main villain is Atlas, the 'corporate overlord,' which frames the conflict as anti-corporate and anti-capitalist. This critique targets a political-economic system rather than Western civilization, its ancestors, or core institutions.

Feminism8/10

The main protagonist, Lilith, is explicitly described as the 'quintessential Mary Sue'. She is established as an 'unstoppable' bounty hunter whose journey is to realize her pre-existing, hard-as-nails, flawless potential as the 'chosen one'. The main male companion, Roland, is described as the 'generic, straight-man soldier,' and the other male characters are largely comic relief or physical brutes, reinforcing the 'Girl Boss' trope of an infallible female lead with less-competent male sidekicks.

LGBTQ+2/10

The available plot and commentary do not include any evidence of centering alternative sexualities, deconstructing the nuclear family as a political concept, or lecturing on gender ideology. The focus remains on the action-adventure quest for the Vault and the conflict with the villainous corporation.

Anti-Theism2/10

The spiritual element of the story revolves around the sci-fi mythology of 'Eridians' and the prophecies surrounding the 'Daughter of the Eridia' and the alien 'vault'. The narrative contains no elements of hostility toward traditional religion, specifically Christianity, and no religious characters are depicted as villains or bigots.