Borderlands (2024)

Borderlands cost a reported $110 to $120 million and made about $33 million worldwide, and those numbers are the most exciting thing about it. The games are loud, crude and gleefully strange. This is a PG-13 shrug with a robot sidekick. Cate Blanchett plays Lilith, a bounty hunter who returns to Pandora, the junkyard planet she left as a kid, to track down Tiny Tina, the missing daughter of a corporate boss named Atlas. Tina is on the run with Roland, a mercenary Kevin Hart plays oddly somber, and Krieg, a towering bruiser played by Florian Munteanu. Jack Black voices Claptrap, a motor-mouthed robot left on Pandora with orders to wait for her, and his jokes mostly bounce off the walls. Blanchett gives it real effort, which only makes everything around her look sleepier. Critics gave it 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, and opening crowds handed it a D+ CinemaScore. A 2.4 because Eli Roth sands a wild game down to beige. $8,937 says you reinstall one of the games tonight just to remember what fun felt like.

What works: Cate Blanchett commits fully as Lilith, and Florian Munteanu’s Krieg is one of the few things even friendly critics called fun.

What doesn’t: The script, jokes and action all feel generic, the cast has almost no chemistry, and the movie drains the weirdness that made the games special.

Who it’s for: Die-hard Borderlands players who need to see it for themselves, ideally on a free streaming night.