Borderlands Slammed in Early Reactions – “A Complete Mess”, “Baffling” and “Dull”

Cabin Fever director Eli Roth brings Borderlands to the big screen with an all-star line-up of a cast which includes Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Edgar Ramírez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, and Janina Gavankar, with Jack Black as the voice of Claptrap.

The film is an adaptation of the popular video game from Gearbox, which first hit consoles in 2009 following four Vault Hunters travelling to a distant planet named Pandora in search of advanced alien technology and other riches.

In the film, Blanchett stars as Lilith, a bounty hunter who has returned home to Pandora who joins forces with Roland, Tiny Tina, Krieg, Tannis and Claptrap in a hunt for one of Pandora's best-kept secrets and the missing daughter of a powerful man named Atlas.

Borderlands is hitting theaters on August 9, but the first reactions are starting to hit from early previews, and they're not great.

Darren from Movie Scene Canada called it "baffling", saying it has "a rushed and dull screenplay" and "looks cheap due to poor CGI".

On a positive note, Darren says, "Cate Blanchett, Ariana Greenblatt and Jack Black are all great".

Adriano Caporusso of Bitesize Breakdown calls Borderlands "a disaster" that "swaps the mayhem and imagination of the games for a lifeless, unfunny, and visually repulsive dud".

Edgar Ortega also had very little praise for the film, saying, "It’s not even so bad it’s good, just a complete mess."

There is very little positivity out of early reactions. All of them pinpoint the lack of humor and waste of talent, as well as commenting on the film's odd choice of PG-13 rating.

Full reviews remain under embargo, so a more accurate portrait will likely arrive in the days to come, but for now, Borderlands has been deemed a certified dud.