Borderlands movie lands on Rotten Tomatoes with 0% rating

[zohaibahd]

What just happened? Chalk up another one for the video game movie curse. The big-screen adaptation of Borderlands is getting absolutely destroyed by critics out of the gate. As of now, it's sitting on a 9% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the vast majority of reviews calling this a colossal misfire despite an all-star cast and a somewhat promising trailer.

The movie opened to a devastating 0% on Rotten Tomatoes with reviewers calling it out for sloppy writing, bad directing, poor dialogue, and more – even as some praised it for getting the post-apocalypse setting right.

"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," snarks critic Clarisse Loughrey, completely eviscerating the movie right out of the gate.

After a few more reviewers weighed in, that initial 0% has been elevated to a whopping... 9%. One of those relatively positive takes comes from Beyond the Trailer, but their praise seems almost entirely focused on the always-brilliant Cate Blanchett going full badass as Lilith. In fact, several other reviewers echoed those sentiments.

For instance, Vicky Jessop has this to say: "In her chameleonic career, Cate Blanchett has donned many guises – but never before has she had the chance to be a gun-toting, ass-kicking action star. Sadly, Borderlands is an unworthy vehicle for her swaggering performance."

It's rather depressing considering we hoped the days of stillborn video game movie monstrosities were finally behind us.

We're talking real anti-classics on the level of Tekken (2009) and Assassin's Creed (2016). While Assassin's Creed rocks a still respectable 18% (at least when pitched against Borderlands), Tekken is still stuck at rock bottom with 0% all these years later.

Things seemingly turned for the better after a streak of relatively fresh adaptations like Pokemon Detective Pikachu (68%) and the two surprisingly delightful Sonic the Hedgehog flicks (64% and 68%). Not to mention the now-canceled Halo series, which despite being far from canon, currently boasts a very respectable 80% rating – and of course, the TV masterclasses that were The Last of Us and the upcoming Fallout series.

However, with Borderlands' abysmal performance, it almost feels like we're back to square one – a shame considering the film features a stacked ensemble cast besides Cate Blanchett, including Kevin Hart (Roland), Jamie Lee Curtis (Tannis), Jack Black (Claptrap), Ariana Greenblatt (Tiny Tina), and Florian Munteanu (Krieg).

Hopefully, the upcoming Minecraft movie fares better, which, by the way, stars Jack Black once again.

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Borderlands movie lands on Rotten Tomatoes with 0% rating

 

[Jme Kerul]

Not fun we will lose another European actor to the Hollywood cinéma machine.

 

[twister666]

Not sure what people expected, I couldn't stand an hour in Borderlands 3 due to cringe attempt at humor

 

[fadingfool]

Probably await a few more fan ratings before I decide to go see it or wait for it on a streaming service. I have strange tastes in movies and have frequently enjoyed films that have been panned completely by the critics. In fact if the critics gush over a movie I rarely bother with it.

 

[Burty117]

The casting is terrible, what were they thinking? And Borderlands 3 lost the magic that 2 had, if its the same people involved, unlike a game, where the gameplay can still be great even if the story is rubbish, a movie dies without a good story.

I'll wait for it to arrive on... my personal streaming service...

 

[VitalyT]

I will just quote myself, from the previous article here about that movie:

Everything that Kevin Hart touches turns into a joke that's never funny.

 

[ScottSoapbox]

Completely unsurprising after that dumpster fire of a trailer, as trailers cherry pick the best bits.

 

[Vrmithrax]

The movie itself is a bit fun, doesn't take itself too seriously, and is a decent cinematic attempt at the actual game world it's based on. A non-fan of the Borderlands games can probably enjoy it well enough.

But, for fans of the game series, this is just a punch in the nads. It's like the people who wrote the screenplay never played a minute of the game, just watched a few trailers and went "Ok we got it!" and started writing. The whole movie misses the real tone of the early games that made them such a blast. The characters are all mixed up from different sequels, the vault storyline has been warped in typical Hollywood fashion, etc. And it COMPLETELY missed with Tiny Tina, her manic unhinged personality was what made her great, and the movie version is a muted shadow of her glory - they went for "slightly angsty brat" and ignored the "bat crap crazy" part. Blanchett does way better at Lillith than I expected going in, but it's not enough to keep this movie from being a real disappointment for fans of the game.

 

[Loli Pop Carbon]

The main problem of this movie is the fact that the Borderlands games exist. This movie could have been much much better or even good as stand-alone action comedy.

I heard the producer does not even play the game at all and only Cate actually played the game for her cast. Kudos to her.

 

[brucek]

and a somewhat promising trailer

Source?

As someone who enjoys the Borderlands games, and plenty of stupid silly movies, I was hoping they'd at least making something out of this budget + cast. I'd love to hear the eventual post-mortem on this. Bad writer / director? Too much game dev interference with the movie production? No one really cared that much?

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I enjoyed the first Borderlands game and I like the combat and loot expansion of Borderlands 2, but the story and the cringe addition of the Tiny Tina character was a down grade.

The Pre-Sequel and Borderlands 3 the humor shifted due to change of hands of studios and then nothing having really changed since the second game, the third and fourth entry into the series had progressively gotten worse and worse. The only thing in the end that I liked about the last two games was the wide variety of guns, but that was it.

The trailer I did see for this movie looked absolutely awful, like Disney was behind it. Just awful and it's something I won't watch and I'm surprised anyone wants to see it.

 

[Jarenien]

If don't play the video game then you shouldn't be reviewing a video game movie, it's that simple. Critic reviews are pointless, as they are just stuckup snobs that shouldn't be reviewing this type of movie because they will never like it. If you play the games, you'll effin' love it.

 

[Vulcanproject]

It feels weird that they even thought this warranted a movie. Borderlands are generally good games but it is a B tier franchise at best. The last main entry is five years old. It's hardly a hot property.

There are half a dozen other more suitable games that either deserve a big budget shot or would drum up wider audience interest.

I don't know what the producers were thinking with this.

 

[amghwk]

I don't recommend people seeing the BS rottentomatoes for judging a game or movie. People are giving too much credit to rottentomatoes, which is BS.

OTOH, what else do you expect from a movie made from a game series of mindless rowdies killing each other while countlessly respawning? At least in the games, the saving grace is the rush to get the better loots - guns.

 

[winjer]

On a positive note, it can't go any lower than that.

 

[FaTaL]

I never ever listen to critics. Their opinion means nothing to me .

 

[Atmajaya2020]

Like borderland' series..
kinda "meh" when I watched the trailers..
but I, at least, will try to watch it..
who knows, it might be a gem.. like fallout tv series..

 

[human7]

It surprises me that movie directors haven't figured this out yet: you can't take a positively received video game, cram it into a movie, and expect a good outcome. You have to put in the work of making something original, and it has to be something that can fit in the space of a movie. TV shows tend to do so much better because you know going in that you have to develop a lot of content; you have that space for world building and character development.

IMO, the best video game adaptations tend to be the ones that take the elements from a video game but craft something entirely stand alone and unique with it. With some exceptions (like Tomb Raider which received mixed reviews but doesn't have much choice in the matter), exist in the universe of that game, but don't try to recreate it.

 

[Inthenstus]

It’s probably good, usually Rotten Tomatoes 0% have a high user rating. These critics literally suck at their jobs. Game movies aren’t meant to be Grammy Award movies.

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Well one critic I saw, said Dead Pool vs Wolverine was woeful and it's absolutely killing it at the box office. Usually I will do the opposite of what a critic recommends as most hate sci-fi anyway.

 

[toooooot]

Not sure what people expected, I couldn't stand an hour in Borderlands 3 due to cringe attempt at humor

I am yet to see a person who liked BL3. The franchise self-destructed. Now, its corpse arose from the ground to become a movie.

 

[Crabjuice]

It’s probably good, usually Rotten Tomatoes 0% have a high user rating.

Nope. https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tekken
B3 is at 50% user rating on RT.

 

[rmorris003]

Movie is going to be on Digital on August 30th so just skip the theater and wait until then

 

[Gezzer]

The main problem of this movie is the fact that the Borderlands games exist. This movie could have been much much better or even good as stand-alone action comedy.

I heard the producer does not even play the game at all and only Cate actually played the game for her cast. Kudos to her.

IMHO that's the big problem. Way too many people involved with any cinematic adaptation of a video game that at best never played the game, at worst aren't gamers at all. So they produce a product true to their "vision" that has little to no connection to the original game IP. It's the same stupidity that gave Batman nipples (shudder).

 

[Tinderbox]

Having Jack Black in anything is an anti-selling point for me.