Movies News Talk
You've seen the action-packed trailers, with Cate Blanchett swinging her way into the fantastical world of Pandora. "Borderlands" is hitting theatres with its star-studded cast and, well, it seems that those Critic Scores weren't all that thrilled. Critics are calling "Borderlands" a big fat "Rotten" tomato. Talk about brutal.
However, here's the thing: audiences are a little kinder than the critics when it comes to rating this big screen version. While critics are stuck with 10%, a ridiculously low "Tomatometer score," audiences have brought "Borderlands" up to a respectable 50%. While still firmly in the "Rotten" category, the score's still a huge improvement. It just shows those moviegoers love seeing all those Borderlands characters like Lilith, the quirky soldier, the mad scientist, and those bad guys on the screen in this new flick. Maybe audiences have a lot more fun when they don't have to review Movies!
It's true! Video game Movies aren't exactly known for knocking it out of the park. We're talking, some serious bad adaptations that didn't live up to the game’s potential - so much so that some folks feel it's impossible for these big franchise Movies to ever be great.
That being said, audiences tend to be more forgiving with those movie adaptations compared to the critics! "Borderlands", it seems, isn't an outlier. Check out the numbers; lots of video game adaptations that have dismal critical scores still find a fan following! Even though a video game gets turned into a movie, people just wanna have some good ol’ time seeing those cool characters they've played in the game on the big screen. So maybe that's where that “audience vs Critic Score” gap is coming from.
"Borderlands" got a "D+ CinemaScore" after its first weekend, which basically tells us those audiences didn't feel all that good about it. And that low user score on Metacritic (a 2.8 out of 5) also adds to that story. That’s some real middling reviews – nothing like that initial "fan love" feeling they have when those movies are first announced.
It's tough to say what happens next! We’ve got a "50% Audience Score" now, and even if that does improve, there’s so much more it’d have to climb. Maybe "Borderlands" could end up as one of those word-of-mouth successes, where folks don't love it, but just kind of tolerate it. I don't know - a movie can surprise you in the most unexpected ways!
"Borderlands" might be stuck with those "Rotten Tomato" reviews, but we have to remember, we're looking at the movie's launch right now! We’ve seen this happen before; a movie can get a terrible score but get to those people who will actually watch the film later and see its appeal - and sometimes it might actually take years to get its proper fan following.
What I think is really interesting is how all these movies about games take those familiar storylines and characters and try to translate them to the screen in a way that both appeals to those longtime fans, and brings something new for newcomers too. I mean, how do you really put that sense of "playing" in a movie, where you're exploring a new world with all that choice and interAction, without having a remote in your hands?
It’s also really common for people who love the original games to get bummed when those adaptations don't match up to their ideal expectations! Maybe those "low scores" and those "disappointments" come from those fan expectations! Maybe if a Video Game Adaptation doesn't quite get that story "right", it could end up with more bad reviews!
What's really fun to watch with this stuff, is how the games continue to evolve even after their movies! They adapt them over and over again, because the gaming world has those big, ongoing updates - something Hollywood has trouble with! It's not easy to follow those changes. That could be why, even if a film doesn't perfectly live up to a big game, it's just fun to see some iconic game figures getting some screen time.