Everything about Eli Roth’s Borderlands feels at least a decade out of time. From a sense of humor plucked straight out of Reddit circa 2011 to a cast made up of actors who are inexplicably decades older than the characters they portray, every second left me — a fan of the first two games in this franchise — wondering how and why the hell it exists in 2024.
With an ensemble cast featuring Academy Award–winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis, along with comedy stars Kevin Hart and Jack Black, plus a director whose name is recognizable (if nothing else), Borderlands theoretically brings a level of prestige that many other video game adaptations haven’t had. But theory and practice are two different things, and when it comes to the latter, Borderlands is an adaptation that’s equal parts miserable and unnecessary.
No thanks, Chris Pratt. The perfect ‘Super Mario Bros.’ movie already exists.
Put a different way: Sometimes a video game should stay a video game.
Support authors and subscribe to content
This is premium stuff. Subscribe to read the entire article.
