I admittedly was not all that excited to see Eli Roth’s Borderlands. Aspects of it interested me – the great Cate Blanchett slumming it in a video game movie led me to think maybe there’s something here. Eli Roth is a director who recently hit the high point of his career with Thanksgiving, a long-awaited adaptation of his own fake trailer from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 Grindhouse double feature, which remains one of my favorite moviegoing experiences of my life. However, there’s no elevation of the material with Borderlands. This is one of the most shrill, grating, insufferable films I have seen in a very long time, and a waste of so much talent.

Open on a derivative you’ve-seen-worlds-like-this-in-a-million-other-movies post-apocalyptic hellscape. Lilith (Blanchett) is a renowned bounty hunter with a hell of a reputation. She is forced to go back to her home planet Pandora (no, not that Pandora), which is the worst place in a universe where nothing has gone well for hundreds of years. She is tasked to find the missing daughter (Ariana Greenblatt) of Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), our villain. She forms an unlikely bond with a ragtag group of outcasts, played by Greenblatt, Kevin Hart, Florian Munteanu and Jack Black as a wisecracking CGI robot character.

Borderlands is filmed well enough and they clearly put some money into this, but it’s also one of the most visually unpleasant films I have seen in quite a while. Aside from Blanchett, rocking a bright red swoopy wig and having one costume (but a good one) for the duration, everyone kind of looks like crap. The film itself is loud and it’s annoying and it gave me a headache. The Jack Black robot character got on my nerves from the very beginning, and it’s touched upon several times that the character is very difficult to kill, and he keeps popping up after you think (hope) he’s gone. They are going for something like Groot or Rocket the Raccoon, or maybe R2D2, with this character, and it fails entirely. The dialogue he’s given and the shrill delivery of it is excruciating from the minute we get going.

I liked Cate Blanchett’s performance here, but I always like Cate Blanchett. Having been a huge fan of her work for many years, this is an entry in her filmography I think she will hope nobody remembers. At this point in her career, after all of the wonderful performances she’s given and accolades she has received, she is clearly above this kind of thing, but she’s giving her all to this insane character whose arc ultimately culminates in something we’ve seen done better in a slew of other movies. She’s clearly trying to have fun here, and trying to elevate this idiotic material, but her screen presence can only go so far. She seems bored a lot of the time.

Ariana Greenblatt is basically doing the same thing she did in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie. She’s the rebellious, mouthy teen who eventually comes around and wants to be perceived as lovable, or special. And her Barbie performance is infinitely more effective than her work here. She’s not charming, she’s not fun to watch. Like many other things about this movie, she’s loud and obnoxious and she gave me a headache. And I have no idea why they cast Kevin Hart in this. He’s called upon to play a classic action hero type, and it’s nearly impossible to take anything he does seriously. His presence is weak and lifeless, and he’s bringing nothing to this material. Boxer-turned-actor Florian Munteanu is wearing a mask and no shirt the entire time, and he’s essentially faceless abs.

Edgar Ramirez, as our villain, is at least trying to have some fun with the kind of cartoonish mustache-twirly villain archetype. But he’s not in a lot of the film. We also have Jamie Lee Curtis pop up in a supporting role, and she looks genuinely bewildered as to why she’s even here. Gina Gershon and Haley Bennett show up briefly and it’s a wonder what made them say yes to this.

There’s an insane amount of world-building and exposition for a narrative that basically culminates in a go-to-the-place-and-get-the-thing action movie. Narratively, Borderlands is not doing a single thing you haven’t seen in a ton of other movies to better effectiveness. It’s abysmal, forgettable garbage that will test your patience every step of the way. It seems like the story got away from Roth and co-screenwriter Joe Crombie in spectacular fashion, because nothing, not a single thing here, ever works.

Borderlands is a massively successful video game series, but I question who this movie is for, as it’s a fan base that doesn’t leave their homes with any kind of frequency. Video game movie adaptations have a reputation for being terrible, and Borderlands reminds you why for 102 excruciating minutes. This kind of thing should be fun, it should be an easy late-summer good time, and the last thing it should be is boring. But the amount of times I fought the urge to fall asleep during this film should not be understated. I don’t see this becoming a new, lucrative franchise. I see it being remembered as a stain on the resume of a lot of talented people, one they all hope will be quickly forgotten.