It looks like Eli Roth's Borderlands could be about to reignite the video game movie curse. The idea of a live-action video game movie once conjured up visions of bargain basement outings like Alone in the Dark and the Dwayne Johnson-led Doom, making 2005 a particularly bad year for adaptations.

Bob Hoskins even called 1993's Super Mario Bros. movie the worst thing he ever did, while the noughties were particularly rough for the genre thanks to everything from BloodRayne to Far Cry and Max Payne being panned by critics. We thought all of the above were distant memories, but now, Borderlands is here to trigger our PTSD.

First Borderlands reviews aren't kind to Eli Roth's movie

A Borderlands movie has been in the works since 2011, but after falling into development hell, Eli Roth took the reins in 2020. Boasting an all-star cast of Cate Blanchett, Jack Black, Kevin Hart, and Jamie Lee Curtis, it should've been the next Jumani: Welcome to the Jungle. Unfortunately, it's been ravaged in its first reviews.

Borderlands officially releases in cinemas tomorrow (August 8), and with the critics' embargo being just one day before the release, there were already red flags that Lionsgate didn't have much confidence in the movie. As the reviews trickle in, Borderlands is already being lambasted as one of 2024's worst movies.

On Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, Borderlands is being torn apart. Looper's Cynthia Vinney writes, "Borderlands is a poor man's version of Guardians of the Galaxy; while it may look kind of pretty, it has none of the personality of that earlier movie. Don't waste your time on this one."

The Independent's Clarisse Loughrey adds, "The film’s sacrilegious treatment of place and character will likely send its fans into a white-hot rage, while it remains simultaneously impenetrable and incomprehensible to the casual viewer."

The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney chimed in to say, "It’s conceivable that longtime fans of the video game might get more out of Borderlands, but I wouldn’t count on it. At one point, Claptrap returns to operational mode after a heavy-weaponry assault and says, 'I blacked out. Did something important happen?' Not in this movie."

It was much the same on X (formerly Twitter), but if anything, even more brutal. Jonathan Sim called it "borderline unwatchable," and Edgar Ortega summed up, "There is not a single earnest character moment here, just obnoxious quips that feel dated as soon as they leave the actors’ mouths."

Easily the most savage comes from Tom Caswell, dubbing it "an absolute dull and trite experience," concluding that Borderlands is "cancerously unfunny." It's not clear what went wrong here, but with Borderlands having to scramble for reshoots with Deadpool's Tim Miller, it suggests the tone was off.

Someone points out an interview with Roth, with him confirming the movie was never going to be canon with the games - with them arguing he wanted to make something that wasn't Borderlands but got stuck with its characters. As Roth is known as the director of the Hostel movies, who really thought locking Borderlands into a PG-13 rating was going to work?