A team of VFX artists is ripping the Borderlands movie apart. The adaptation of the hit video game franchise, Borderlands featured an all-star cast. Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Jamie Lee Curtis, Florian Munteanu, and numerous other stars signed on, but none were enough to save it. Despite having a budget of over $110 million, it earned just $30 million at the box office. According to sources, international pre-sales covered a significant portion of the budget, but the total was undoubtedly still disappointing for a franchise with so much potential.
The Corridor Crew, a VFX team with a strong presence on YouTube, believes that the failure is largely attributable to visual issues. In the latest iteration of their “VFX Artists React to Bad & Great CGi” series, they tackled the painful issues with this adaptation. In particular, they identified the bar scene and the sniper attack as visually problematic. While mocking the muzzle flashing issues and the lack of blood, producer Sam Gorski identified the lack of attention-to-detail when it came to the gunfire:
This is a rated M game, where it’s gun porn. You are sexualizing these guns, because they’re so beefy and sexy. Three barrels, they’re spinning. This gun, the more you spin it, the faster it shoots. This one starts guys on fire. This one does crazy acid stuff! Like, each time you pick up a gun, you’re like ‘oh yes, this is sick’. And the reason it’s sick is because each time you pull the trigger, crazy stuff happens, and you have fun with it. And this movie somehow forgot that that is what happens in the game, and that is what the player experience is.
What The VFX Issues Meant For Borderlands
It Explains Some Portion Of Its Box Office Failure
The adaptation faced extreme issues with poor word-of-mouth and reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it earned a 10% Tomatometer score and a 55% audience-led Popcornmeter score. Critics did specifically cite the CGI as being a major reason for their disdain, but they also tackled the overabundance of trope-driven narratives and the complete lack of connection between the characters. Instead of thrilling viewers, many of Borderlands‘ reviewers were simply bored by a movie that should have been incomparably thrilling.
The Borderlands movie was rated PG-13, while the games were rated M for Mature.
Borderlands disappointed at the box office because it failed to satisfy anyone, and the VFX issues were a major part of that. The Corridor Crew believed that the movie was “muting” the source material by avoiding bloodshed, color, and even the impact of bullets. One member referred to the bullet marks as nothing but “cheerios.” Another explained that the villains were “not even dying” but instead simply falling over. While they admitted that “you don’t want it to be super gory, super bloody,” they still believed that the movie lacked the environmental destruction it needed.
Our Take On Borderlands’ VFX Issues
Borderlands Needed To Embrace Its Source Material
The VFX issues reflect the actual problem with the movie: It’s inability to embrace its source material. The game is a bloody fare that regularly includes extreme gore and horror. The movie, however, attempts to keep a fun atmosphere that younger viewers should still be able to enjoy. Attempting to appeal to everyone meant that it would appeal to no one. The lack of blood made the action scenes less realistic, taking away from their overall effect. Had Borderlands embraced more than just the aesthetic of the games, it might have succeeded. Instead, it remains another failed video game adaptation.
