Katcy Stephan Spoiler alert: This column contains mild spoilers for the “Borderlands” film and game series. On paper, the wildly popular “Borderlands” game series is the perfect fodder for the big screen: Ragtag bunch of space outlaws?
Check. Potty humor to punctuate intense action? Check. A lovable (and a little annoying) robot sidekick? Check! So how did Lionsgate’s film adaptation, helmed by Eli Roth, fumble the bag so badly?
It’s a dud movie by any standard: “Borderlands” holds a meager 5% fresh rating from critics on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, while Variety‘s chief film critic lambasted the predictable plot, writing, “As the film goes on, it’s increasingly clear where things are headed.
By the time ‘Borderlands’ unlocks its vault, not even the characters seem to care what’s inside.” But of everyone who wastes 102 minutes on this middling “Guardians of the Galaxy” knockoff, there’s one group bound to be the most frustrated: the gamers, like me.
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