Borderlands Opens With 0% Rotten Tomatoes Score
Movies based on video games are notoriously difficult to get right, but sometimes they surprise people. When the trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie first released, many fans were highly critical of Chris Pratt voicing Mario, but then the film itself was a huge hit. Unfortunately, the reservations fans had upon seeing the trailers for Borderlands did not seem to be misplaced and the movie’s 0 percent opening score on Rotten Tomatoes reflects this.
Zero With Critics
The reviews do not hold back in eviscerating everything fans expected Borderlands to mishandle, with critics making it very clear why they gave the film such scathing scores.
Even sites specifically dedicated to video games, like IGN, that you might think would look for the positive in a video game movie, made it clear that Borderlands is a mess.
“Borderlands is a catastrophic disappointment that plays like hacked-to-pieces studio slop, betraying everything fans adore about Gearbox Software’s franchise in derivative, regrettable fashion,” said Matt Donato of IGN Movies.
No Passion
Borderlands fans seemed to strongly expect critiques like this for the movie’s scores. Early on fans commented on how bizarre it was that a character like Roland, a large, muscular, stoic soldier in the games, was played by Kevin Hart. They likewise said actors like Cate Blanchett were too old to be playing characters like Lilith.
Prabhjot Bains of But Why Tho? A Geek Community, also gave Borderlands a blistering score of a 2/10. “Borderlands feels like glorified cosplay, where capable performers like Blanchett and Curtis, merely take position and feign emotion to get a nice group picture,” he said.
The lack of passion the actors had for the roles seemed confirmed when in interviews, Blanchett as well as Gina Gershon, who plays fan favorite Mad Moxxi, both confirmed they had never even played the games before.
Bad Imitation Of James Gunn
Nick Schager of The Daily Beast shared his grievances with Borderlands in his score for the movie, calling it a predictable mix of better movies. “So drearily routine and slapdash that even an A.I. would deem it too plagiaristic.”
That echoes the fears that many fans had for the tone of the movie, feeling like it was shaping up to be reminiscent of 2016’s Suicide Squad. Many felt it looked like a bad imitation of a James Gunn movie and other reviews confirmed this.
“In an age of CGI slop, Borderlands gets points for crafting a vibrant post-apocalypse setting. It’s just a shame it all adds up to Guardians of the Galaxy with worse jokes,” said Jake Kleinman of Inverse.
That criticism was leveled at the trailers many times by fans of the Borderlands games, making the scores it is getting ultimately unsurprising. Many fans felt this was another case of a studio using a popular property not to genuinely adapt it, but to use its name value to graft on their own unrelated ideas to it.
A Throwback To When Video Game Movies Were Trash
Evidently Borderlands is not just bad by the standards of video games movies, but in her score Vicky Jessop of the London Evening Standard says it will almost assuredly be considered one of the worst movies of the year.
“Is Borderlands the worst film of the year? It’s definitely in contention — so laughably bad, in fact, that it feels like being catapulted back to a time when video game adaptations were a byword for mediocrity.”
Some reviewers questioned why the movie was even made, as they felt no genuine care or thought was put into any of it. Some accused Borderlands of being nothing more than a cash grab in their scores.
“It’s dragged us back to a time when studios used to make these with all the grace and acuity of a drunk person attempting to place a 3am chicken nugget order,” said Clarisse Loughrey of Independent (UK).
The Critics All Seem To Agree It Would Be Better To Stay Home
All in all, the reviews paint the movie as being the letdown that so many fans predicted it would be. Fans immediately questioned the omission of major characters from the starring roles, like Brick and Mordecai being left out in favor of sillier characters like Tiny Tina.
If the reviews are accurate, Borderlands sounds like an adaptation without much interest in paying respect to its source material, and that is reflected in the scores it received. It sounds like for both fans of the games and casual movie goers, the movie is a recommended skip.
