Borderlands

There’s no reset button to hit while watching Borderlands, an incoherent comic thriller that makes you wish the preceding apocalypse had taken better hold.

Adapted from the eponymous science-fiction videogame series, this candy-coated dystopian adventure from director Eli Roth (Hostel) is a frenetic compilation of genre tropes and stereotypes that’s neither amusing nor exciting.

Somehow the ill-conceived project attracted a top-notch cast of willing cosplayers, most notably esteemed Oscar-winner Cate Blanchett, who plays Lilith, a misanthropic opportunist with fire-red hair and a violent disposition. She’s also saddled with monotonous narration like: “I needed a miracle. I got something else.”

As the film opens, Lilith is a bounty hunter in a distant universe hired by a rich sleazebag (Edgar Ramirez) ostensibly to find his missing teenage daughter. That prompts a reluctant return to her home planet of Pandora — no, not that Pandora — which has become an anarchic wasteland.

She locates Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), only to discover that her mission is not as it seems. A loner by nature, she’s forced to assemble a ragtag squad of rogues and outcasts including a second-rate mercenary (Kevin Hart), an eccentric scientist (Jamie Lee Curtis), and a masked strongman (Florian Monteanu).

As they focus their collective efforts on a greedy mastermind out to simultaneously unearth buried treasure and cause mass destruction, Lilith is hiding secrets about her past and hidden powers that could determine the fate of humanity.

Despite some striking futuristic landscapes, this crude and aggressively silly exercise in style over substance tries to capture a Guardians of the Galaxy vibe while lampooning Mad Max, Star Wars, and whatever else. There’s even a wisecracking robot sidekick named Claptrap (voiced by Jack Black) to fill the Jar Jar Binks role.

Anyone not familiar with the source material won’t care enough about piecing together the rules of this dreary and desolate intergalactic wilderness, nor the motives and loyalties of anyone within it.

Any attempt to heighten the dramatic stakes is scuttled by labored gags and overbearing quirks in a randomly assembled screenplay filled with clunky dialogue, thinly sketched characters, and flat showdowns.

Uninspired from start to finish, Borderlands chronicles a desperate attempt to save a world that hardly seems worth the effort.

Rated PG-13, 102 minutes.