Eli Roth’s ‘Borderlands’: What the Critics Are Saying

Lionsgate‘s Borderlands hits theaters Aug. 9, but the review embargo for the film broke Thursday, and the early reaction from critics has been dire.

A live-action adaptation of Gearbox Software’s popular video game series, Eli Roth‘s film takes place on the planet Pandora and tells the story of a band of outlaw misfits. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Ariana Greenblatt and Jamie Lee Curtis, with Jack Black providing the voice of a wisecracking robot.

As of Thursday evening, the review aggregator sites have damning scores for Borderlands. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film’s score clocked in at a lowly 6 percent from 45 reviews. Mercifully, the audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is markedly higher at 51 percent so far. On Metacritic, the critic score was 29 based on 23 reviews and things were no better on Letterboxd, where users gave Borderlands a score of 2.1/5.

Below are key excerpts from some of the most prominent early reviews.

In his negative review for The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney writes that “the big mystery [with Borderlands] is how such a noisy nothing of a movie landed the stacked cast.” David zeroes in on what went wrong with the film, highlighting big changes during the production. “To be fair, the project for which Blanchett and other major names signed on possibly looked a little different given the number of screenwriting hands it passed through. The most notable of those belonged to Craig Mazin, a co-creator and co-writer of The Last of Us, who reportedly chose to remove his name from the project. The script credit ultimately went to Roth and first-timer Joe Crombie, with speculation that the latter is a pseudonym.”

In a zero stars review in the New York Post, Johnny Oleksinski writes that Borderlands is a serious misstep for an actor of the caliber of Cate Blanchett. “If I was the two-time Oscar winner, I’d hire a crack team to work around the clock to scrub all mention of it from the Internet. The film is that embarrassing,” writes Oleksinski. The critic was not moved on any level, writing that “everything about Borderlands is appalling: the acting, writing, direction, design.”

Jake Kleinman, writing for Inverse, was equally scathing of Borderlands. “Motivations don’t really matter, the characters are paper-thin, and the plot moves at the speed of a gamer rapidly clicking their way through dialogue to get to the next level,” writes Kleinman. He adds, “On the other hand, it’s impossible to cast Cate Blanchett as the star in an action epic and not have it be at least a little fun to watch; and in an age of CGI slop, Borderlands gets points for crafting a vibrant post-apocalypse setting. It’s just a shame it all adds up to Guardians of the Galaxy with worse jokes.”

In his review for The Daily Beast, an exasperated Nick Schager headlines his piece with: “Cate Blanchett, what are you doing?” After a run of great video game adaptations, Schager is confident the streak ends with Borderlands. “Gearbox Software’s games were light on plot and heavy on action, and Roth doubles down on that formula to monotonous results,” writes Schager. “Lacking the emotional depth, narrative creativity, and witty humor of James Gunn’s beloved [Guardians of the Galaxy], Roth’s big-budget venture is propelled only by borrowed ideas and stale execution, both of which cause it to crash and burn in spectacular fashion.”

Writing in The New York Times, Amy Nicholson begins her review with questions over the co-writer of Borderlands, suggesting the mess of the film owed much to production problems. Nicholson shies away from excoriating the film totally, but was still left disappointed. “You can see the jokes, but most of them don’t land. Still, there is some neat design work if you squint,” Nicholson writes, adding that Blanchett was one of the few highlights: “The two-time Oscar winner endures the nonsense by carrying herself like a warrior on a kitschy propaganda poster.”

In what could charitably be described as a mixed review, Empire‘s Dan Jolin writes that the film compares poorly with Guardians of the Galaxy, but does capture “some” of the MCU trilogy’s magic. However, overall, the script doesn’t work. “Roth and co-writer Joe Crombie have neither Gunn’s wit nor his wisdom. The wisecracks are stale (“I’m programmed for humour, so I will process that as witty banter,” chirps the irksomely sassy robot voiced by Jack Black), the reaches for emotional resonance feel stretched (Blanchett’s Lilith has mommy issues, y’know), and the group dynamic is off balance.”

In another mixed review, Collider‘s Taylor Gates felt Borderlands had some positives, including the performances of Ariana Greenblatt, Jack Black and Jamie Lee Curtis, but ultimately the flaws pull the film down. “Borderlands is an action-adventure movie at its core, and it undoubtedly delivers on that front. The action — especially the hand-to-hand combat and more acrobatic fight choreography — is a blast,” writes Gates. “The film suffers when it comes to pacing, too. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have a movie sit well under two hours — something the majority of films these days don’t seem to do — but the speed at which plotlines get resolved feels rushed instead of efficient, the breakneck pace sacrificing clarity and much-needed tension and stakes.”

Despite a 2/5 score, The Guardian‘s Jesse Hassenger felt Borderlands was a mess. Hassenger had some praise for Blanchett for trying to rise above the material. “Blanchett, outfitted in sparkly gear and a swoop of bright red hair, deserves credit for not shrinking from a task so far beneath her. Rather than rolling her eyes like Dakota Johnson, she attempts to swagger through it — not altogether successfully, in part because the material really starts to sputter before the halfway mark.” Alas, Hassenger feels the film doesn’t really know what it is, “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.”