Borderlandsreviews are out now and for anyone who was looking forward to seeing Claptrap join the ranks of beloved yellow icons like the Minions, Pikachu, and SpongeBob, it appears you will need to keep waiting. The moviedebuted to zero percent on Rotten Tomatoeseven after 23 reviews, though the number has since risen to a meager three percent. It may rise or fall further as more reviews come in, but the consensus is clear: this thing isrotten.
After the past few years, is that really a surprise, though? . The filmlanguished in a protracted three-year post-productionand its writer Craig Mazin even pulled his name from the credits.
In the time since principal photography on Borderlands wrapped, Cate Blanchett starred in the Oscar-nominated drama Tàr, which came out all the way back in the fall of 2022. Jamie Lee Curtis did the entirety of the Everything Everywhere All At Once awards circuit that won her an Oscar. Mazin penned the critically acclaimedThe Last of UsHBO series which ironically raised the bar for video game adaptations at the start oflast year. And director Eli Roth made Thanksgiving, the minor horror hit that played in theaters last fall. A lot has happened, and the movie has just been there, waiting, unreleased.
It isn’t uncommon for a filmmaker to go make a smaller scale movie while FX work is finalized on a bigger film. Steven Spielberg famously did it withJurassic Parkand Schindler’s List. Whatisunusual is the sheer length of time Borderlands’ post-production lasted.
The Problems Of Adapting Borderlands
Setting aside the specifics ofthisBorderlands movie, it seems unlikely thatanyBorderlands movie could have worked. The series has always been defined by three primary characteristics: its 1) cel-shaded art style, 2) obnoxious and juvenile sense of humor and, 3) billions of over-the-top guns.
From early on, it was clear that while the movie was borrowing the games' character designs and iconography, it wasn’t going to attempt to translate the vibrance of its comic book art style to live-action.
On the other hand, it could work in the plentiful firearms. But audiences don’t turn out to see movies on the basis of the number of guns. They tend to be interested in what the filmmakers do with them. You could sellJohn WickChapter 4 on the sheer amount of guns, but why? As a fan of action movies, I’m interested in if there are any cool new guns on display (like the fire-belching shotgun from the overhead sequence) and what John and the many goons he dispatches are going to do with those cool guns. There could be five hundred thousand, but that isn’t necessarily going to move the needle any more than five would.
Billions of guns is a selling point in the games because their gameplay loops are built around collecting better and better weapons as you progress. A gun that does one percent more acid damage may be a game-changer for your build, but that kind of fine-grained detail isn’t remotely interesting in a movie.
So, that leaves you with the sense of humor, and that’s always been the weakest aspect of Borderlands, despite being one of its most salient. There are cool aspects to the world — like the fact that there is no real government, just multiple gun manufacturers vying for galactic dominance — but it’s hard to care too much about those speculative fiction aspects when the game is mostly interested in loud side characters and Butt Stallions.
