Borderlands is a well-regarded video game franchise that occasionally calls up some mixed emotions. Many gamers love the looter-shooter gameplay loop and goofy humor, while others criticize the series for its thin worldbuilding, annoying characters, and sometimes juvenile jokes. Still, the movie based on the franchise, Borderlands, seems like an outlier—it’s currently on track to be the biggest box office bomb ever. What happened here?
How Bad is It?
Reviewers are saying Borderlands is abjectly terrible. It’s currently sitting around 10% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, and even regular moviegoers are pretty cold on the movie. It’s extremely rare for a big-budget action movie to fail to impress either of these cohorts, so it’s safe to say this movie is probably pretty unimpressive.
The Box Office Haul
As of the time of this writing, Borderlands has made about $9 million domestically and only around $8 million internationally. That’s a very small sum for a major release like this and will surely sting Lionsgate and director Eli Roth. The film cost around $120 million to make and $30 million to market, meaning it’s among the worst box office bombs ever.
What Went Wrong?
It would be a bit of an understatement to suggest that a lot went wrong while Lionsgate was making this movie. From the timing of its release to the cast that was hired to bring these characters to life, everything about this misfire is laughable and was completely avoidable.
Misunderstanding the Source Material
Firstly, the film shows a clear misunderstanding of the source material. One of the only good things you can say about Borderlands (the movie) is that sometimes it looks a bit like Borderlands (the game). Beyond that, you wouldn’t know if you were watching a generic sci-fi action movie or something based on an existing IP.
The Cast is Bored
No one in the main cast looks like they want to be involved in this movie. Kevin Hart is a terrible fit for the stoic Roland, Cate Blanchett is doing her best to carry this mess with her amazing action movie instincts, and Jack Black is as annoying as ever as the robot Claptrap. No one who was involved with this thing seems to have wanted it to be anything beyond a paycheck.
Glaring Omissions
The weirdest thing going on here is that the movie cherry picks details from across all three games to create its plotline but still somehow fails to create anything compelling. If the filmmakers wanted to just pluck the juiciest story bits from the Borderlands mythos, why not use fan favorite characters like Handsome Jack or Mordecai? Why not adapt the already-excellent plot of Borderlands 2?
Watered Down Borderlands
The movie targeted a soft PG-13 rating to hopefully broaden its appeal. However, that probably hurt it more than anything. The games are known for their crass humor and over-the-top, cartoonish violence. The series would have been better served by a movie with a tone like The Suicide Squad, with main characters getting comically offed with a gross squelch sound and a shower of meaty bits.
Why is Everyone so… Old?
Lillith is 22 in the games, but is portrayed by 55-year-old Cate Blanchett. Tannis is 30, likewise, but portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis, 63. Kevin Hart, 45, plays Roland, 34. Why is every main actor in this movie so much older than the character they’re portraying? Don’t misread this as agism, because the aforementioned actors are all great performers irrespective of their age. It just shows a general lack of care for the source material that pervades this whole enterprise.
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Too Many Cooks
The movie was announced back in 2015, and in the intervening years it had no fewer than seven screenwriters take their hack at making the video game work on the big screen. This could also help explain (some of) the weird age mismatch between the actors and their characters. Still, it’s obvious that someone at Lionsgate should have pulled the plug on this version of the movie before it got anywhere close to a wide release.
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This is Embarrassing
It’s 2024, and it’s no longer possible for fans and studios alike to throw their hands up and say “well, that’s video game adaptations for you.” There are so many good video game adaptations out there now that the old excuse just doesn’t work anymore.
The Last of Us, Fallout, Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Super Mario Bros Movie, and numerous other recent films and TV shows have ranged from “pretty good” to “outright amazing” in just the past five years. Seeing Lionsgate and Eli Roth drop the ball this hard is downright embarrassing, and, frankly, this movie deserves to earn the title of “biggest box office bomb ever” if this is the care the studio wanted to handle a beloved franchise with.
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