Summary
- Live-action Borderlands movie disappoints fans with poor ratings and lackluster portrayal of beloved characters.
- Director Eli Roth faces criticism for failing to capture the excitement and essence of the popular video game.
- Fans left unsatisfied with PG-13 adaptation, questioning the choice of director and writing quality.
Borderlands fans are disappointed with the game's live-action adaptation. The movie many had been waiting for years received poor ratings from those who had already seen it.
Borderlands has become popular among players because of its dark humor, cool weapons like slot machines with guns, combat pacing, and a good mix of characters with different personalities. Due to the aforementioned elements, one will never get bored with the action role-playing first-person looter shooter video game. Thus, fans were ecstatic when the live-action adaptation of the video game series was announced in 2015. After nearly a decade of waiting, it's finally here, but the movie appears to fail to live up to the expectations.
The Borderlands Trailer Proves The Movie Is Facing An Uphill Battle
The official trailer for Borderlands just dropped and some fans weren't as impressed despite the long wait.
Some Borderlands fans had already watched the hit video game franchise on the big screen days before its official release. However, they seemed disappointed and unsatisfied with how the characters were presented in the film. Borderlands had initially received 0% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 23 reviews as of this writing. The score now sits at a not-much-better 3%, thanks to a positive review from Grace Randolph. Critics were far from happy with how director Eli Roth told Lilith's adventure when she returned to her home, Pandora, the most chaotic planet in the galaxy, to find Atlas' missing daughter. Some critics even blamed Roth for the movie's poor performance.
Some critics also compared Borderlands to one of Marvel's popular franchises, but not in a good way. When the movie's trailer was released, several jokingly said that it was too similar to Guardians of the Galaxy that it appeared like a spinoff due to its soundtrack, absurd humor and visuals, and color palette.
Overall, Borderlands left many fans disappointed. It failed to deliver the same excitement and thrill one feels when playing the game, and the ensemble cast didn't help persuade the viewers to see it differently. Cate Blanchett (Lilith), Kevin Hart (Roland), Jamie Lee Curtis (Tannis), Jack Black (Claptrap), Ariana Greenblatt (Tiny Tina) and Florian Munteanu (Krieg) all did their part, but it just didn't make the cut to convince the viewers that they were watching their favorite video game characters in the big screen. Well, several factors could be blamed for the movie failing to impress the solid Borderlands fans -- bad writing, poor storyline, dull screenplay, and wrong director and choice of casting.
From the start, many had already questioned Roth's qualifications for the film. There is no doubt that he is a good filmmaker, but he is more into PG-13 movies, which are very different from films and computer games classified as M (Mature). Borderlands, a sci-fi action adventure movie, is currently classified as PG-13. Roth co-wrote the screenplay with Joe Crombie. However, Deadpool director Tim Miller took over his directing duties for two weeks of reshoots when he had to leave to concentrate on his festive slasher Thanksgiving. It's possible that his absence contributed to the movie's failure, or maybe writing it as a PG-13 movie made it unrelatable and gave it a different feel. Or maybe making a live-action adaptation from a video game isn't just Roth's genre.
Borderlands hits theaters on Friday.
Randy Pitchford Discusses How the Borderlands Movie Benefits From Its Own Cinematic Universe
The Best War Games chats with Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford about the decision to give the Borderlands film a cinematic universe separate from the games.
Source: Rotten Tomatoes