The Borderlands movie has started off with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%.
Rotten Tomatoes gathers film critics’ reviews of movies, determines whether they were mainly positive or negative, and assigns them a fresh or rotten tomato accordingly.
At the time of writing, 25 reviews for Borderlands have been logged on the site, and all 25 are considered to have delivered ‘rotten’ verdicts, resulting in a ‘freshness rating’ of 0%.
This may change as more reviews are added to the site, but the law of averages means signs currently point to a score that will end up being very low, even if it doesn’t ultimately remain at 0%.
Vicky Jessop at the London Evening Standard gave the movie one star, writing: “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.”
The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney concluded: “It’s conceivable that longtime fans of the video game might get more out of Borderlands, but I wouldn’t count on it. At one point, Claptrap returns to operational mode after a heavy-weaponry assault and says, ‘I blacked out. Did something important happen?’ Not in this movie.”
Empire Magazine‘s Dan Jolin gave the movie two stars, saying: “Borderlands so wants to be Guardians Of The Galaxy… but it doesn’t come close.”
Peter Debruge of Variety wrote: “When done right, such biting self-parody can serve to excuse tired storytelling. Alas, Borderlands arrives so close on the heels of Deadpool & Wolverine that it feels like a belly flop to that film’s cannonball.”
Jonathan Sim at ComingSoon.net gave the film a score of 3/10, calling the film “one of [director Eli] Roth’s weakest films, offering little excitement or laughs”.
Taylor Gates at Collider scored it 5/10, saying: “It’s just disappointing that the source material has so much more to offer in terms of its layered characters and complicated themes of trauma and survival that the film seems either uninterested in or incapable of tapping into.”
Men’s Journal critic Billie Melissa calls the film “a lifeless cash grab that doesn’t respect itself or the audience”, adding: “If Borderlands doesn’t stop studio executives from salivating at the sight of every single IP that comes across their desks, nothing will.”
Metacritic, which aggregates reviews differently, currently has the film sitting on a score of 32, with only review – Screen Rant’s 3.3 out of 5 – counting as positive.
Things weren’t looking positive for Borderlands when the social media embargo lifted on Wednesday, allowing those who had attended premieres to share their initial impressions. These too were mainly negative.