“Borderlands”: One of The Worst Films From 2024
- Matt Palmer
- Mar 12, 2025
- 4 min read
For those who don’t know there is also an award ceremony that honors the worst films of the year called the Golden Raspberry Awards, or the Razzies. This year, the Worst Picture nominees were: “Madame Web” (which eventually won), “Joker 2,” “Reagan” (which I thought was decent), “Megalopolis” (Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film that has received negative reactions and I’ll check this out when it's available on streaming) and the topic of this review “Borderlands.”
I looked over some initial reactions for the 2024 movie “Borderlands” and several people (including longtime fans of the video game) agreed that it wasn’t good at all. So, I finally decided to take the plunge and just had to see whether or not this video game movie adaptation of the beloved video game is just as bad as they say it is - and the answer is definitely yes.
Returning to her home planet Pandora, an infamous bounty hunter forms an unlikely alliance with a ragtag team of misfits.
Together, they battle alien monsters and dangerous bandits to uncover one of Pandora’s most explosive secrets.
One of the best things (and probably the only best thing) about this movie is the cast. With a cast featuring Cate Blanchett, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis and Edgar Ramirez, despite this not being such a good movie, I can tell the cast did what they could in this movie. Also, I never thought that I would see either Curtis or Blanchett in a video game based movie.
This sci-fi action-comedy can also lack the action and the comedy. The movie does deliver us some action sequences that should be exciting to watch. Yet, they aren’t exciting at all and they are honestly sort of bland. The character of Tiny Tina also can get slightly annoying throughout most of the movie.
The visual effects in this movie definitely needed some work. Jack Black and Kevin Hart also did try to be funny at times, yet didn’t most of the jokes didn’t quite work at all. Now, granted there are probably some things I couldn’t really understand in this movie since I’m not familiar with the “Borderlands” video games. So, maybe, down the road, I’ll give this another chance. And, that’s a big maybe!
Cast: Cate Blanchett (Lilith); Kevin Hart (Roland); Edgar Ramirez (Atlas); Jamie Lee Curtis (Tannis); Ariana Greenblatt (Tiny Tina); Florian Munteanu (Krieg); Jack Black (Claptrap); Janina Gavanker (Knoxx); Gina Gershon (Moxxi).
Writer/director: Joe Abercrombie (writer); Eli Roth (writer/director) (Thanksgiving; Cabin Fever remake - didn’t know there was a remake)
Trivia: Roth shot the film in the summer of 2021 and finished it in early 2022. However, the movie was deemed incomplete due to varying rumors and reasons, including the studio objecting to the first cuts extreme R-rated violence, Eli Roth’s refusal to return due to studio interference, and poor test screenings. Roth originally shot the movie with an R rating in mind, keeping it closer to the style of the M-rating held by the video games. Further rewrites and reshoots dialed it back to a PG-13, which probably hurt the movie.
“Borderlands” was also nominated for not only Worst Picture at the Razzies, but also Worst Director, Worst Actress (Blanchett), Worst Supporting Actor (for both Jack Black and Kevin Hart) and Worst Screen Combo.
MPAA rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material (running time 101 minutes)
Where to find the movie? If you do ever want to check out this movie, you can rent this movie through various PVOD services.
Eli Roth shot the film in the summer of 2021 and purportedly finished it in early 2022. However, the film was deemed incomplete due to varying rumors and reasons, including the studio objecting to the first cut's extreme R-rated violence, Eli Roth's refusal to return due to studio interference, and poor screen testing. The film lingered for over two years while in post-production. In January 2023, the studio hired Tim Miller to undertake two weeks of re-shoots. These re-shoots wound up being so extensive that Steve Jablonsky was hired to write a new musical score, as Nathan Barr's original score no longer fit the film.
Upon its release, the film debuted at an incredibly rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Eli Roth originally shot the film with an R rating, keeping it closer to the style of the M-rating held by the original Borderlands video games. Further screenplay rewrites and two weeks of reshoots by Tim Miller dialed the film back to PG-13. This is only Roth's second film to receive a rating other than R, after The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018), which was PG.
Grossed $8.6 million domestically in its opening weekend, the lowest opening weekend for a film based on a video game since Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), with $5.3 million.
Craig Mazin was attached to write the screenplay before co-creating The Last of Us (2023) with Neil Druckmann. Mazin envisioned a film much closer to the video game. After Mazin's departure, Eli Roth took over the primary writing responsibilities.
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