The highly anticipated ‘Borderlands’ movie made its debut today, but it’s not off to a good start.
Directed by Eli Roth, ‘Borderlands’ is based on the popular video game series of the same name. The movie follows a group of misfits who come together to find the daughter of the most powerful man in the universe. It features a cast including Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Ariana Greenblatt, Edgar Ramirez, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, and Jamie Lee Curtis.
Early reviews from critics are overwhelmingly negative, and ‘Borderlands’ currently holds a score of 6% on Rotten Tomatoes. This means almost all critics gave the film a negative review so far, and it doesn’t bode well for its reception among wider audiences.
Critics are drawing comparisons between ‘Borderlands’ and earlier, poorly received video game movies. Some even suggested that the film’s quality is reminiscent of older, less successful video game adaptations like ‘Street Fighter’ and ‘Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.’
Critics Are Quite Harsh With Their Reviews
Clarisse Loughrey from the Independent rated the movie 1 out of 5 and described it as a throwback to a time when studios made movies with little care or effort. AwardsWatch critic Alistair Ryder called it the worst kind of bad movie, lacking originality and failing to be entertaining even at a short runtime of 102 minutes.
David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter criticized the film for being a ‘joylessly gonzo adaptation,’ while Andrew J. Salazar from Discussing Film suggested that even fans of the video game would be disappointed, calling it an example of the ‘video game movie curse.’
‘Video game movie curse’ refers to the long history of video game adaptations struggling to impress audiences. This trend seemed to be changing with recent successes, but ‘Borderlands’ appears to be a step back to when these movies were often failures rather than hits.
‘Borderlands’ hits theaters today.
