Film Review: Borderlands [2024] – Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt

Borderlands might be the first film based on a game that is barely saved by a child and a sarcastic robot. Not sure how Lionsgate fumbled this one.

At some point, director Eli Roth should have realized thast something was wrong with this movie. I watched Borderlands with a friend in theater, and I couldn’t get over how bad the casting is.

As much as I love watching Cate Blanchett in anything, she clearly wasn’t enjoying herself. However, she’s still better than Jamie Lee Curtis who sounds, feels, and looks like she had a gun to her head the whole time from the moment she signed the contract. This should tell you a lot about what to expect when the two biggest names end up on this list.

Thankfully, this movie has some redeeming qualities in Ariana Greenblatt and Jack Black as Tiny Tina and Claptrap.

Greenblatt’s charisma and character pops out of the screen every second we’re with her. No, I’ve never played the game, so I don’t have a baseline to compare to. But her delusional Tina was almost perfection. She was only complemented by the hostage robot played by Jack Black. He was almost too perfect in balancing the awefulness of everyone else.

To be honest, Borderlands just doesn’t work. It’s one of those movies where nothing is clicking together and you just feel scenes sitting there. If you remove Greeblat and Black’s characters, the movie would have been a hostage situation where Blanchett, Hart and Curtis are forced to spend almost two hours threatening the audience with a good time but never delivering. I would have preferred to do pretty much anythign else.

Should You Watch It?

Borderlands is what happens when you order Guardians of the Galaxy off Temu. – Rendy Jones.

Where Can I Watch It?

Borderlands is now playing in theaters.