LogInIt's not looking too good.
Lionsgate
With successful adaptations of The Last of Us, Super Mario Bros., and Fallout, you might have thought we'd finally left the trend of bad movies based on games behind, but Borderlands seems to have opened that door again.
The film premiered in LA on August 6, and the first reviews paint a depressing picture. The words "cliché" and "unfunny" have been used not even once, but the film critic Adriano Caporusso put it especially expressively, calling the movie a "visually repulsive dud."
"BORDERLANDS is a disaster. Filled with every cliché you can ponder, this film swaps the mayhem and imagination of the games for a lifeless, unfunny, and visually repulsive dud with annoying characters and a cast with not one ounce of chemistry," he said on X/Twitter.
"It’s really bad," shared Matthew Simpson. "I really wanted to like it, but an uninspired plot + several phoned in performances + being stuck in a weird place where it looks both expensive and cheap a the same time make it a huge misfire."
A lot of people agree with the general conclusion, calling Borderlands "borderline unwatchable," "utterly forgettable," and "one of the worst films of the year."
Alas, the reaction was not unexpected. Last month, the industry insider Daniel Richtman described the movie as "terrible" and "unfunny" after attending the preliminary screening, noting its chaotic plot and bad jokes.
Not everyone shared the sentiment, of course. Some say the film has "an exceptional level of detail for those who have played the video games" and a "silly chaotic hell of a film with Easter eggs."
Looking at the reception, I think it will be hard for Borderlands to earn much over its $120 million budget.
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