Summary
- Borderlands movie received negative reviews due to underdeveloped characters, lack of chemistry, and poor script and action sequences.
- The ensemble cast led by Cate Blanchett couldn’t save the film, with critics noting the lack of character depth and believable relationships.
- Critics found Borderlands to be a wannabe Guardians of the Galaxy knockoff, with Cate Blanchett being the only bright spot in the film.
The Borderlands movie reviews are awful, and there are several reasons why critics’ thoughts are so negative. With a director like Eli Roth and a Borderlands cast led by Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jack Black, and others, there was originally plenty of hope that the film could continue Hollywood’s relatively strong streak of producing good video game movie adaptations. But as the marketing continued on and production issues arose, concerns about the overall quality started to mount. It didn’t help that Lionsgate held back reviews until hours before audiences watched Borderlands in theaters.
The publishing of various reviews quickly proved why. Borderlands‘ Rotten Tomatoes score debuted to 0%, but it has risen slightly thanks to a small amount of positive reviews. With a current Tomatometer of 6% based on 62 reviews, the Rotten Tomatoes rating is guaranteed to stay quite low. Judging a movie strictly on its aggregate score is not always fair, though reading through Borderlands‘ reviews help paint a better picture. Unfortunately, it is still a mostly horrible response to the movie, with several major flaws repeatedly being called out among the positive and negative reviews.
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8 Borderlands’ Characters Are Underdeveloped
There Are Too Many Characters
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One of the biggest issues that repeatedly comes up in Borderlands reviews is how underdeveloped the characters are. The movie might have Cate Blanchett’s Lilith and Ariana Greenblatt’s Tiny Tina as the focus, but it is really an ensemble film that includes Roland (Kevin Hart), Krieg (Florian Munteanu), Dr. Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), and Claptrap (Jack Black) among the heroes, as well as Atlas (Édgar Ramírez) and Knoxx (Janina Gavankar) on the villain side. That’s a lot of characters to juggle and develop fully, but the movie fails to do them justice before Borderlands‘ ending.
David Rooney from The Hollywood Reporter repeatedly calls out this failure in his review. He notes that “the characters remain one-dimensional — not much more than cartoonish gamer avatars.” While he notes Blanchett’s solid effort to have fun as Lilith, the review also correctly calls out that “the role is thinly drawn, cut from a familiar template of tough, cynical, cool-headed female action figures.” The poor characterization of Lilith continues across the board, with all the other characters lacking true substance.
Taylor Gates’ review for Collider also notes how poorly conceived the characters are. She says Borderlands is “simply too cramped for any one character to get the time and development they need to be wholly compelling.” The review goes on to note how Moxxi (Gina Gershon) and Knoxx are both not given much to do, that Roland is “woefully underdeveloped,” and Tannis and Lilith’s history is “grossly oversimplified and glossed over.”
7 The Borderlands Team Doesn’t Have A Believable Bond
There’s No Real Relationships Formed
Image via Lionsgate
Bringing a group of unexpected characters together and having them become a great, unlikely team is something that many movies before and after Borderlands use. In the best cases, this works because the movies give the group time to develop chemistry and relationships, allowing audiences to believe that they are friends, if not like family. That is clearly something Borderlands wants to achieve by bringing its ragtag Vault Hunters together to save Pandora. The issue is that the movie never fully delivers on this idea.
Multiple reviews call out how Borderlands‘ team dynamic does not work and their bond is not believable. William Bibbiani from The Wrap perfectly summarized the issue in his review. He wrote, “They crack wise, they fight each other, they fight faceless hordes and at the end, we’re supposed to think they care about each other, but heaven knows why. There must have been a lot of character development and bonding off-camera between scenes, because precious little found its way into the actual movie.” Without audiences and critics buying into the team’s care for each other, the narrative falls apart.
6 The Script For Borderlands Is Lacking
It Is Loaded With Exposition
Among the biggest complaints about Borderlands is the script. Originally written by The Last of Us‘ Craig Mazin (before he reportedly asked to remove his name from the project) and rewritten by Eli Roth and Joe Crombie, the changes that came to the project throughout its development are ever present in the script. The movie is weighed down by lore, unfunny attempts at comedy, and much more.
Peter Howell’s Borderlands review for Toronto Star takes great issue with the final script. Describing it as “moronic” and “the worst thing about Borderlands,” his frustrations with the writing only become more clear. He wrote that the movie is “padded with exposition, including shrugged-off voice-overs from Blanchett” and that “The dialogue is so wooden it could be used for a bonfire.” Similar sentiments can be found in other reviews too.
5 Borderlands’ Action Is Not Exciting
It’s Not Well Shot
The Borderlands video games are known for their action elements as players utilize the different abilities of each character in the first-person shooter. Whether its Lilith’s Siren powers or Roland’s sharpshooting or Tiny Tina’s love of explosives, there was potential for some great sequences. In an era where action movie blockbusters are often the dominant form of entertainment in theaters, the bar for satisfaction and excitement is high, and most critics agree that Borderlands‘ action fails to really do anything particularly memorable.
Bob Strauss’ review for San Francisco Chronicle makes a good point about why the movie’s action does not deliver. When it came to Roth’s direction, the review says, he “directs way too much of the “Borderlands” fight sequences in too-tight shots, blunting the action’s impact. Maybe Roth thought this approach would evoke claustrophobic aspects of playing a combat game (it doesn’t).” Matt Donato’s review for IGN levels a similar criticism, saying “He directs action sequences like he’s posing action figures.”
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4 Borderlands’ Attempts At Comedy Are Irritating
Claptrap Is Particularly Troubling
Image via Lionsgate
Most critics are also in agreement that Borderlands‘ comedy is one of its weakest elements. This stems from a variety of issues, ranging from poor comedic timing to the rather juvenile jokes included at times. Everything from Lilith’s sarcasm and self-deprecation, Tiny Tina’s freakouts, and Roland’s occasional one-liners mostly fall flat. Some of this could come down to the actos’ performances in various scenes, but it also comes from the direction of Eli Roth.
The biggest annoyance when it comes to Borderlands‘ comedy is Claptrap based on the reviews. Andrew Salazar’s review for Discussing Film calls Claptrap “the most annoying aspect of the film” and that Roth often hurts any momentum Jack Black makes with his performance by forcing in “another lame joke.” Giovanni Lago’s review for Next Best Picture doubles down on this criticism by saying the pairing of Black and Claptrap “leads to such unamusing results that it’s frankly embarrassing.”
3 The PG-13 Rating Hurts The Video Game Adaptation
Many Borderlands reviews also take issue with the film’s PG-13 rating. This partially stems from it being a video game adaptation where the source material is rated M, the equivalent to an R-rating for a movie. Tim Grierson’s review for Screen Daily says, “as Borderlands features little swearing or graphic violence, this supposedly irreverent, down-and-dirty action flick feels neutered.” That’s not exactly what players want to hear when it comes to the movie being an accurate representation of the games, but it’s far from that in more ways than just the PG-13 rating.
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The criticisms of Borderlands‘ PG-13 rating continue with other reviews, such as Alison Foreman’s for IndieWire. She said, “The choice to push for a PG-13 rating here was a mistake, one that not only betrays the gleefully perverse and graphic games but makes the end product just a bit too mature for the kid-kids who might actually enjoy its shallow story.” However, other reviews note that the switch from PG-13 to R would not have done much to help, with Jesse Hassenger’s review for The Guardian saying “Blame the PG-13 if you must, but CG blood wouldn’t improve matters.”
2 Borderlands Can’t Escape Guardians Of The Galaxy’s Shadow
It Feels Like A Bad Knockoff
A common point made in most Borderlands reviews is how similar it is to Marvel Studios and James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy. Both movies follow a ragtag group of outcasts who must band together to save the galaxy set against a soundtrack with recognizable needle drops and bright, colorful visuals. Even though the Borderlands games predate the 2014 Marvel movie, the impact of it remained in critics’ minds when it came to looking at the 2024 video game movie. And Borderlands stood no chance in that comparison.
Dan Jolin’s review for Empire repeatedly compares Borderlands‘ faults against Guardians of the Galaxy‘s strengths. The review says the creatives “have neither Gunn’s wit nor his wisdom” leading to stale jokes, lacking emotion, and more. Peter Debruge’s review for Variety called it “a generic Guardians of the Galaxy knockoff where the cantankerous ensemble has guns instead of superpowers.” Kevin Maher’s review for The Times similarly refers to Borderlands as “Guardians of the Galaxy without any self-deprecating wit.” It was impossible to escape these comparisons, and the movie can’t live up to them either.
1 Not Even Cate Blanchett Can Save Borderlands From Its Faults
She’s The Consensus Bright Spot
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If there is one good thing that the bad Borderlands reviews can agree on, its that Cate Blanchett is the brightest spot in an otherwise dismal movie. Practically every review, both positive and negative, sing her praises for committing to the part and bringing some level of fun at times. Tatiana Hullender’s review for Screen Rant notes that “Blanchett knows exactly what movie she’s in, and she seems to be having the time of her life fitting herself into the mold of a video game heroine.”
This sentiment continues across a variety of other reviews. Collider says “she delivers the way we know she can” when given the right opportunities. The Wrap‘s review says “Blanchett doesn’t have to resort to kitsch… strutting and kicking ass even when nothing else in the film can match her swagger.” Of course, not everyone is a fan, with IGN saying Blanchett plays Lilith “with eye-rolling ambivalence that translates into a dry, disinterested performance.” The criticisms against Blanchett’s performance are few and far between, but even the praise only exemplifies how much else doesn’t work for Borderlands.
Borderlands 
3.5 PG-13ActionComedy Sci-FiAdventure
Director Eli Roth Release Date August 9, 2024 Writers Eli Roth , Joe Crombie Cast Cate Blanchett , Kevin Hart , Jack Black , Ariana Greenblatt , Florian Munteanu , Jamie Lee Curtis , Edgar Ramirez , Gina Gershon Runtime 102 Minutes