Borderlands slammed as “worst movie of the year” with embarrassing Rotten Tomatoes score

After a long, long wait, Borderlands fans can return to Pandora in the new live-action movie. However, many are already dubbing it a “disaster” (and that’s being polite).

Borderlands crash-landed in theaters on August 8, with Cate Blanchett in the lead role of bounty hunter Lilith (although you might have noticed there’s a 30-year age difference between the two versions).

However, it’s already off to a sour start with fans, as social posts and reviews are absolutely tanking it – so much so, it’s earned a shocking 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

“Borderlands is a disaster,” one fan posted on X/Twitter. “Filled with every cliché you can ponder, this film swaps the mayhem and imagination of the games for a lifeless, unfunny, and visually repulsive dud with annoying characters and a cast with not one ounce of chemistry.”

A second agreed, “Borderlands is simply one of the worst films I’ve watched this year and a disgrace to one of my favourite video game franchises.

“Eli Roth sucks out all the personality and visual style like a vampire at night. He takes the name of Borderlands and the names of its characters and decides to create his own lore, separate from what we all know and love from the games.”

Alistair Ryder at AwardsWatch wrote, “Borderlands is the worst kind of bad movie; the type devoid of any offbeat quirks that could propel it to a second life as a cult classic, feeling insufferable and overlong at a brisk 102 minutes because of its sheer lack of originality.”

Billie Melissa at Men’s Journal agreed, “If Borderlands doesn’t stop studio executives from salivating at the sight of every single IP that comes across their desks, nothing will.”

Andrew J. Salazar at DiscussingFilm weighed in, “Sure there are tons of Easter eggs and visual references to the video games, but the fans deserve a lot better than whatever director Eli Roth is trying to do with Borderlands. This is the video game movie curse at its worst.”

However, our own take on Borderlands wasn’t quite so damning. We gave the action movie a respectable three stars, adding, “It’s not going to be a play-by-play of 2009’s Pandora – and to get anything at all out of this film, we’ve got to be okay with that.”

Borderlands is in cinemas now. Find out more about its post-credits scene, our breakdown of Borderlands’ ending, and the differences between the movie and the game.