2 months ago
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Borderlands, starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt, Jack Black, and Jamie Lee Curtis is out in theaters this weekend. The movie is based on the video game series with the same name. It takes place on the fictional planet of Pandora, where players are seeking Vaults with treasures, etc. Video games that are made into TV shows or movies tend to be notoriously hit-or-miss. Some of them translate well onto the screen while others fall flat. Despite its all-star cast, Borderlands is on track to take the prize for one of the lowest-rated video game movies of all time. At one point, it had the distinct honor of having a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
I’m not sure I knew of anyone, Borderlands fan or not, who believed that the movie adaptation of the game was going to be good, based on everything from casting to trailers. Now as reviews come in ahead of its release tomorrow, those fears have been validated. And then some.
As I write this, the Borderlands movie has a flat 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. No positive reviews whatsoever (Update: A single positive review has come in raising it to a 3%), and the ones that are in are not just negative, but brutal. Here’s a sampling:
Discussing Film: “The fans deserve a lot better than whatever director Eli Roth is trying to do with Borderlands. This is the video game movie curse at its worst.”
Men’s Journal: “If Borderlands doesn’t stop studio executives from salivating at the sight of every single IP that comes across their desks, nothing will.”
Next Best Picture: “It’s impressive how Roth can elicit the poor quality of 2000s video game adaptation energy yet somehow forget the discernable sense of fun or style that made even those terrible movies stand out.”
IGN: “Borderlands is an abysmal waste of a beloved franchise that takes a kooky band of murderous misfits and drains the life out of their first adventure together.”
It’s true there are not many reviews in yet, and the score may tick up, but everything I’ve seen outside of some video game influencers who attended premieres (or are literally extras in the movie) has been relentlessly negative, and I would be surprised to find more than a handful of positive reviews come in when all is said and done. If any.
As of early Friday morning, the Rotten Tomatoes score was at 6% for critics and up to 50% for audience rating. I’ve never been a gamer, but I thought the trailer looked fun and after I saw how poorly it was doing in reviews, I was curious. So, after a day of being stuck at home with my kids and no electricity thanks to Tropical Storm Debby, I went to see it on Thursday evening. It was…not good. But I also didn’t think it was 0% not good. I don’t want to say anything spoilery, though! Some of the longer sequences that I thought needed to be edited down are ones that I imagine are homages to the video game itself. My son and I both laughed a lot at the one-liners and jokes that Jack Black’s Claptrap delivered. While promoting the movie, the cast looks like they’re having fun, which always makes for good sound bites. The elements were there for it to be a dumb but fun movie, but parts just did not feel cohesive. I read that in post-production, there were different hands involved in editing it, and honestly, that would explain a lot of its issues. Blanchett physically kicks ass in her role, though, and the entire time she was doing her bounty hunter/action hero thang on screen, I kept thinking how cool it is to have a woman in their 50s be the headline action star in a movie.
Photos credit: Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Avalon and via Instagram
