Borderlands
Lionsgate | Release Date: August 9, 2024 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
26
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
16
Negative:
19
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
70
Screen RantTatiana HullenderAug 7, 2024
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. Read full review
50
PolygonSusana PoloAug 9, 2024
Borderlands is the one kind of movie that’s the hardest to get excited about: the kind that lands in the middle space between a project with its own strong identity, and a compromised adaptation trying to play to the masses. It’s tough to live in the borderlands. Read full review
50
ColliderTaylor GatesAug 7, 2024
Borderlands is a fun ride, but a bloated cast and breakneck pacing don’t allow it to reach its full potential. Read full review
42
IndieWireAlison ForemanAug 7, 2024
If granted permission to bring his signature sadism to these infamously batshit characters, Roth could have delivered his “Mad Max: Fury Road.” Instead, restricted by standards that seem equally unlikely to please preteens, he was left holding a bomb. Read full review
40
Film ThreatBenjamin FranzAug 30, 2024
I can only recommend this film for die-hard Eli Roth fangirls or people who want to see what a bad film looks like. If that’s you, Borderlands is for you. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredCharlotte SimmonsAug 12, 2024
One of the best video game movies ever is buried far, far, far beneath this foul, foul, foul thing. Read full review
40
TheWrapWilliam BibbianiAug 8, 2024
All the edges have been sanded down so it can be safe and mainstream, but they went too far and there’s almost nothing left. It’s technically a movie based on 'Borderlands.' Not much else. Read full review
40
NMEJames MottramAug 8, 2024
But as the film lurches into the final third, there’s little emotional sustenance to keep you going. Just one yawn-worthy twist and some dud CGI. Avoid. Read full review
40
The GuardianJesse HassengerAug 8, 2024
With its juvenile humor, fast pace and shaky handle on grownup feelings, Borderlands winds up resembling nothing so much as a children’s film that’s too violent for children to actually watch. Read full review
40
The Irish TimesDonald ClarkeAug 8, 2024
Unfortunately, the longer the thing goes on the less it ceases to be good honest rubbish and the more it expects us to care about the stupid, stupid plot. Console junkies will find themselves involuntarily hammering an imagined X button in the hope of getting back to the gameplay. No good. You’re stuck with this wacko BS. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 8, 2024
It’s fleetingly amusing to watch Blanchett flex her wit and grace amidst this motley crew of outsiders and reprobates. But Lilith so easily outclasses everything around her that Borderlands is that rare would-be blockbuster where you wish the main character could get her own standalone feature, just so she can escape this meagre adventure. Read full review
40
EmpireDan JolinAug 8, 2024
A botched Guardians wannabe that isn’t half as fun as you’d hope from the punky sci-fi promise of its video-game source material and the presence of Blanchett at the top of the cast list. Read full review
40
The New York TimesAmy NicholsonAug 8, 2024
You can see the jokes, but most of them don’t land. Still, there is some neat design work if you squint. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 8, 2024
There are snatches of crude enjoyment to be had, if you venture in with basement-level expectations, and manage to ignore some dire third act CGI. Roth’s fetish for gloating nastiness in his other work makes it hard to decry the mutilation of whatever his original vision might have been. For once, he’s at the receiving end of a rusty blade, instead of wielding it Read full review
40
SlashfilmBill BriaAug 7, 2024
Borderlands makes a point of not being different enough to upset the fanbase, but it's also not unique enough to win over new audiences, either. It's a movie for everyone and no one, a film so unwilling to make a splash that it barely makes a peep. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeAug 7, 2024
Marketed to look like a cross between “Suicide Squad” and a Zack Snyder movie, director Eli Roth’s tamer-than-expected take on “Borderlands” doesn’t have half the attitude or style its cyberpunk ad campaign might suggest. Read full review
40
Total FilmNeil SmithAug 7, 2024
The Gearbox title gamers loved has spawned a frenetic and disorderly shambles they’re likelier to loathe. Claptrap? You said it. Read full review
35
The Daily BeastNick SchagerAug 8, 2024
So drearily routine and slapdash that even an A.I. would deem it too plagiaristic. Read full review
33
The A.V. ClubJarrod JonesAug 9, 2024
ny movie with this Manic Pixie Ellen Ripley in it can’t be all bad, though Borderlands sure as shootin’ aims for it. Read full review
30
IGNMatt DonatoAug 8, 2024
Borderlands is an abysmal waste of a beloved franchise that takes a kooky band of murderous misfits and drains the life out of their first adventure together. Eli Roth is no James Gunn, and this film has none of the lovable lunatics, awe-striking sci-fi visuals, and out-of-this-world storytelling of Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy. Read full review
30
LooperCynthia VinneyAug 7, 2024
While Roth and his production designer, Andrew Menzies, do many of the sets justice, particularly when the ragtag group goes to the city center, the story just can't live up to this. "Borderlands" is a poor man's version of "Guardians of the Galaxy"; while it may look kind of pretty, it has none of the personality of that earlier movie. Don't waste your time on this one. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterDavid RooneyAug 7, 2024
Roth’s messy storytelling is so anxious to get to the next blast of rote action — amped up by Steve Jablonsky’s hard-working synth and orchestral score and lots of shoddy CGI — that the characters have scant opportunity to form real bonds. Read full review
25
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 13, 2024
Regardless of the reason, Borderlands arrives as a legitimate contender not only for worst film of 2024 but one of the worst videogame movies ever released. Read full review
25
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 9, 2024
Nothing that works about the games has been adapted intact in this ugly, boring, truly inept piece of filmmaking, a movie that was mostly shot years ago and should have been shelved even longer. Like, maybe forever. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineJustin ClarkAug 9, 2024
The film makes mind-boggling choices for an adaptation of a game series so inseparable from its obnoxiously rough-and-tumble tone, characters, and humor. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleBob StraussAug 8, 2024
Sadly, fun is a rare element on Pandora, as “Borderlands” trudges through its treasure hunt scenario and endless ripoffs of better franchises from “Lethal Weapon” to “Star Wars.” It makes you want to go home and blow up your Playstation. Read full review
25
Original-CinJim SlotekAug 8, 2024
An hour and 40 minutes of noise without any tension or sense of purpose, Borderlands would be Exhibit Z in the conventional wisdom that video games don’t transfer well filmically – that is, if recent efforts like The Last of Us or Fallout hadn’t proved otherwise. Read full review
23
Paste MagazineJacob OllerAug 9, 2024
At Borderlands’ best, we see some nice concept art, divorced from the movement or humanity of cinema. At its worst, we see some poor saps clearly wandering through unreality, stuck in a CG hackjob not quite as convincing as a Spy Kids sequel. Read full review
23
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzAug 8, 2024
Roth likely deserves much of the blame, though the film is so relentlessly middling that it feels curiously divorced from his typically extreme sensibilities. Read full review
20
The Observer (UK)Wendy IdeAug 22, 2024
The effects are so shoddy, you wonder if the entire post-production budget was blown on fine-tuning Cate Blanchett’s cheekbones. It’s so incoherent, you half expect to see the notorious director Uwe Boll’s name on the credits. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarAug 9, 2024
An insipid mishmash of trite genre tropes, Borderlands is devoid of any real edge. Read full review
20
New York Magazine (Vulture)Bilge EbiriAug 9, 2024
This movie feels like it’s been shredded to bits, stripped clean of personality and character and coherence, presumably in an effort to get it short enough to sneak in some additional screening times. Read full review
20
Little White LiesJuan BarquinAug 9, 2024
There is no joy to be found in the way that Roth parades out his actors in bad cosplay of characters from the series and strips them of any humanity. Read full review
20
The IndependentClarisse LoughreyAug 7, 2024
Wildly miscast actors and an impenetrable script make this long-delayed actioner alienating to fans of the game and incomprehensible to the casual viewer. Read full review
0
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 12, 2024
Borderlands is terrible on every level, a real Dog of August, in movie-lover shorthand. Read full review
0
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 8, 2024
Unfortunately, for the time being, the star of “Tár” and “Blue Jasmine” is stuck as the lead of the worst movie of the year — a grueling, 102-minute endurance test that’s as lifeless as the video game it’s based on. Read full review
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