– Or How PR Convinced Two Oscar Winners to Star in a Sandworm-Filled Nonsense
It’s impossible to ignore Cate Blanchett’s catastrophic acting year in 2024.
It’s a fact: Hollywood is cruel, a place where career-defining battles are fought over even halfway decent roles. For women, it’s even tougher — passing time brings wrinkles and frozen Botox faces, while one has to stay in the bloodstream of relevance. Hollywood dumps easily and forgets even faster.
So what kind of killer PR does it take to talk Cate Blanchett into a nonsense lead — after Tár, no less, where she delivered a truly memorable performance?
What kind of cunning pitch does it take to get Jamie Lee Curtis to say yes to a supporting role that’s borderline incomprehensible?
What is this even about?!
The two actresses above signed their names to a simple-minded sci-fi adventure that borrows the shai-huluds — that is, sandworms — from Dune. Those were then mixed into scenes echoing the world of Mad Max, topped off with military squads resembling Star Wars stormtroopers. Or wait — clone troopers, to be precise. Because they were evil. The only difference? This time, the filmmakers decided to take the helmets off. At least…
Plooooot
In that spacey scenario, the secret of the Universe is hidden on the planet Pandora — where else?! — in three parts that wait to be cracked. You guessed it: kind of like Asimov’s Foundation trilogy.
Our hero, Lilith — aka Cate Blanchett — plays an interstellar bounty hunter, hired by the filthy-rich head of an IT monopoly, Atlas (Edgar Ramirez), to track down a clone girl on that very planet. That girl is Tiny Tina — a nutty character grown from a petri dish in Atlas’s lab, designed with the sole purpose of one day unlocking the secret that could make our baddy the ruler of the Universe. It’s quite likely that the character of Atlas was inspired by the “chip-powered” Elon Musk.
This painfully boring plot is currently unfolding on Netflix — Borderlands, a sci-fi adventure adapted from the game series of the same name, with little success but a lot more booing.
Even so, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this cocktail of borrowed blockbuster elements. We all know: not every film has to tackle the world’s most pressing problems. It’s totally fine to make dumb movies — and to act in them.
But only if the actors know how to handle their goofy roles — if they’re able to leave something lasting behind, even in the midst of all the silliness.
To clarify: Louis de Funès carved out his place in European film history with the Gendarme series, or look at Robin Williams, who also appeared in fluffy comedies like Mrs. Doubtfire — yet no one could question the sincerity of his acting.
But in Borderlands, both Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis fumble through their characters.
It’s sad to see how the brutal Hollywood race — or a cleverly aimed PR trick — can drag such talented actors into these awkwardly shallow waters.
But does it matter? Hollywood throws — and forgets.
Asimov hungarian article is here
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