I’m not sure I know anyone, Borderlands fan or not, who believed the movie adaptation of the game would be good based on the casting and trailers. Now, as reviews start pouring in ahead of tomorrow’s release, those fears have been confirmed. And then some.

As I write this, the film Borderlands has a solid 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. No positive reviews at all, and those that are there are not only negative, but brutallyHere is a selection:

• Film discussion: “Fans deserve much better than what director Eli Roth is attempting with Borderlands. This is the curse of a video game movie at its worst.”
• Men’s Journal: “If Borderlands doesn’t stop studio bosses from salivating at the sight of every single IP that lands on their desks, nothing will.”
• The next best picture: “It’s impressive how Roth can mimic the poor quality of the video game adaptations of the 2000s and yet forget any discernible sense of fun or style that made even those terrible films stand out.”
• IGN: “Borderlands is a miserable waste of a beloved franchise, draining the life force of a crazed band of murderous misfits’ first adventure together.”

It’s true that there aren’t many reviews yet, and the score may rise, but everything I’ve seen, aside from a few video game industry influencers attending premieres (or literally being extras in the film), has been overwhelmingly negative, and I’d be surprised if it ended up with more than a handful of positive reviews, if any.

0% on Rotten Tomatoes is, of course, the lowest you can get. If we look at the worst rated video game movies of all time, that list would now read:

• Borderlands (2024) – 0%
• Alone in the Dark (2005) – 1%
• Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009) – 3%
• The House of the Dead (2003) – 3%
• In the Name of the King (2007) – 4%
• Bloodrayne (2005) – 4%
• Mortal Kombat Annihilation – 4%
• Silent Hill Revelation (2012) – 8%
• Hitman Agent: 47 (2015) – 8%
• Post (2007) – 9%

I’ve included the year here so you can see that most of these extremely bad movies come from a decade when it was almost impossible to make a good video game adaptation, and half the time it was only directors like Uwe Boll who tried. Lately we’ve seen very solid live-action video game adaptations in both cinema (Sonic) and television (The Last of Us, Fallout), and Borderlands seems like a 10-15 year step back.

I Do expect it to rise above zero percent. There are so many critics on Rotten Tomatoes of questionable quality and taste that probably someone will like it and elevate it above some of these others (I’m one of those critics, so no judgement), but that hasn’t happened at the time of this writing.

Who saw this coming? Everyone. Everyone did. And here we are.

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