Movie Reviews
Borderlands Movie Reviews Get Worrying Update
A new update regarding the Borderlands movie and its incoming reviews has some worried about the long-awaited film.
Originally announced as an adaptation of Gearbox Software’s uber-popular looter shooter video game back in 2015, the road toward the Borderlands film has been a long and arduous one.
Originally directed by Hostels Eli Roth, the movie underwent several spurts of extensive reshoots, with Deadpool director Tim Miller stepping in to finish up the movie in Roth’s stead.
However, it should finally hit theater screens on Friday, August 9, taking fans on this R-rated romp through the wasteland.
[ Borderlands: Who Is Cate Blanchett’s Lilith? Movie vs. Game Character Differences Explained ]
Borderlands Movie Reviews Are Not Looking Good
According to some recently surfaced information, things may not be looking good when it comes to Borderlands movie reviews.
As posted by review aggregator Metacritic on X (formerly Twitter) fans should not expect to see reviews for the upcoming video game adaptation until after its release date.
More specifically, reviews are reportedly set to go live after Thursday previews for the film have been screened at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday, August 8.
While not a surefire sign of the movie’s quality, such a late review embargo usually signifies a lack of confidence in a product by the studio.
Typically movie reviews usually drop anywhere from as far out as two weeks to a handful of days before release. Usually, if a studio knows it has a hit on its hands, it will want the press to talk about the movie as much as possible in the lead-up to its release date.
At least for the Borderlands movie, that does not look to be the case.
Previous to this, movies like Madame Web and Five Nights at Freddy’s shared a similarly delayed review-to-release timeline.
While Five Nights at Freddy’s (FNAF) found an audience thanks to the viral nature of its source material, both of those films flopped critically, with Madame Web earning 57% and FNAF 32% on Rotten Tomatoes.
This does not bode well for the highly anticipated video game adaptation, especially after fans waited for nearly a decade since its announcement for the movie to see the light of day.
As of writing, the film is tracking to make somewhere between $10-$15 million domestically during its opening weekend, which would be disastrous seeing as the film is reportedly carrying a sizeable $120 million budget (per Puck).
Is Borderlands In Trouble?
Again, it is worth noting that the quality of the Borderlands movie is still yet to be determined.
It could turn out to be a massive hit despite its delayed review release date; however, all signs are pointing to the contrary.
As mentioned above, the movie has had plenty of ups and downs since its initial announcement.
The biggest of these troubles came in January 2023, when extensive reshoots were ordered for the project, nearly two years after it had finished principal photography.
And seeing as the film’s original director, Eli Roth, was busy at the time working on the holiday-themed horror film, Thanksgiving, Deadpool filmmaker Tim Miller was brought in to finish the project.
Usually, this passing of the director’s chair at any point in production is not a good sign, but the fact that it happened as late as it did, could spell signs of the studio hoping to Frankenstein together a hit after it has been shot.
This director switcheroo was not the only major creative shake-up the film had on its way to release.
One of the movie’s original writers has since disowned the project after being brought on to help pen this film’s first draft.
The Last of Us showrunner Craig Mazin was first attached to the Borderlands movie in 2020 when it was announced Roth would take on directing duties.
However, as time has gone on, and the movie has seemingly gone through massive changes, Mazin has removed his credit from the title, telling Variety in July 2023 that he “cannot claim any kind of authorship of Borderlands:”
“I am not a credited writer on the film, so I cannot claim any kind of authorship of ‘Borderlands,’ much less ‘co-writing.’ I did see the report about the pseudonym, which is false. I did not use a pseudonym. If the name in question is indeed a pseudonym, all I can say is… it’s not mine.”
All this could make for a dangerous concoction of creative misfortune, potentially making Borderlands a disappointing effort for longtime fans.
Borderlands comes to theaters on Friday, August 9.
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Movie Reviews
1986 Movie Reviews – Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit | The Nerdy
by | May 9, 2026May 9, 2026 10:30 am EDT
Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1986 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1986 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1986 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s May 9, 1986, and we’re off to see Dangerously Close, Fire with Fire, Last Resort, and Short Circuit.
Dangerously Close
I would love to tell you what the point of this film was, but I’m not sure it knew.
An elite school has turned into a magnet school, attracting some “undesirables,” so a group of students known as The Sentinels take up policing their school, but will they go too far?
The basic plot of the film is simple enough, but there is an oddball “twist” toward the end tht served no real purpose and somehow turns the whole thing into a murder-mystery. Mysteries only work when you know you’re supposed to be solving them, and not when you’re alerted to one existing with 15 minutes left.
Decent 80s music, some stylistic shots, absolutely no substance.
Fire with Fire
Oh wait… I may want to go back and watch Dangerously Close again over this one.
Joe Fisk (Craig Sheffer) is being held at a juvenile delinquent facility close a high-end all-girls Catholic school. One day while running through the forest as part of an exercise he spots Catholic schoolgirl Lisa Taylor (Virginia Madsen) and the two fall immediately in love because… reasons.
This film is just so incredibly lazy. The ‘love story’ really can just be chalked up to ‘hormones.’
Last Resort
Once again I am baffled how Charles Grodin kept getting work so much through out the 1980s.
George Lollar (Grodin) is a salesman in Chicago in need of a vacation. He loads up the family and takes them to Club Sand, which turns out to be a swingers resort as well as surrounded by barbed wire to keep rebels out.
There are a lot of talented people in this movie such as Phil Hartman and Megan Mullally, but the film lets them down at every turn with half-baked ideas of jokes. Supposedly, Grodin rewrote nearly the entire script and I think that explains a lot about how this film feels like unfinished ideas. It’s a Frankenstein monster of a script with half-complete ideas that feel like they are from completely different movies.
Short Circuit
Lets just get this out of the way: What in the world was Fisher Stevens doing?
NOVA Laboratory has come up with a new series of military robots called S.A.I.N.T. (Strategic Artificially Intelligent Nuclear Transport). Following a successful demonstration for the military, Five is struck by an electrical surge and finds itself needing ‘input.’ After inadvertently escaping the lab, it wands into the life of Stephanie Speck (Ally Sheedy), who cares for animals and takes Five in. Dr. Newton Crosby (Steve Guttenberg) is trying to get five back, while the security team wants to destroy it.
Overall, the film is thin, but harmless. The 80s did seem to love a ‘technology being used for the wrong reasons’ theme, and this falls into that camp. What is mind-blowing, however, is Stevens as Ben Jabituya, Crosby’s assistant. Not only is he wearing brown face, but he’s doing a horrible Indian accent and later reveals he was born and raised in the U.S.
His whole character is mystifying.
Honestly, a couple of decades ago I may have recommended this movie, but it’s a definite pass now just for being offensive.
1986 Movie Reviews will continue on May 16, 2026, with Sweet Liberty and Top Gun.
By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer
Posted: May 8th, 2026 / 08:34 PM
AFFECTION movie poster | ©2026 Brainstorm Media
Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Jessica Rothe, Joseph Cross, Julianna Layne
Writer: BT Meza
Director: BT Meza
Distributor: Brainstorm Media
Release Date: May 8, 2026
AFFECTION is an odd title for this tale. While it is about a number of topics and emotions, fondness isn’t one of them. Obsession, definitely. Love, possibly. The kind of general warm fellow feelings associated with “affection”? No.
There have been a lot of movies lately in which characters – mostly women – are grappling with false identities and/or false memories imposed upon them, mostly by men.
Let us stipulate that the protagonist (Jessica Rothe) in AFFECTION is not an android or in an artificial reality. However, we can tell something is way off from the opening sequence. A car is stalled on a tree-bordered highway. Rothe’s character is lying face down on the asphalt beside it, possibly dead.
But then the young woman rises, dragging a broken ankle. She experiences a full-body seizure. Fighting to recover, she sees oncoming headlights and tries to run, only to be hit by a car.
The woman wakes up in a bed she doesn’t recognize, next to a man (Joseph Cross) she likewise is sure she’s never seen before. One big confrontation later, the man says his name is Bruce – and that the woman is his wife, Ellie.
Ellie insists that her name is Sarah Thompson, and she is married to someone else, with a son. When she sees her reflection in a mirror, she doesn’t relate to the face looking back at her.
Bruce counters that Ellie has a rare neurological condition that causes her to block out her waking life and believe her dreams are real. This is why they agreed, together, to move to this isolated house, without the kinds of interruptions that can hinder Ellie’s recovery.
The set-up is presented in a way where we share Ellie’s skepticism. But Ellie and Bruce’s little daughter Alice (Julianna Layne) immediately identifies Ellie as “Mommy!” Alice appears to be too young to be in on any kind of deception, so what is going on here?
AFFECTION eventually explains this via a helpful videotape, though it’s so convoluted that viewers watching on streaming may want to replay the sequence to make sure they understand the exposition.
Writer/director BT Meza musters a sense of menace and lurking weirdness, as well as making great use of his location.
We still have a lot of questions, many of which are still unanswered by the film’s end. It may not matter to the points AFFECTION is trying to make, but a better sense of exactly how all this started might help our investment.
As it is, despite a heroically versatile performance by Rothe, a credible and anguished turn by Cross and appealing work from Layne, we’re so busy trying to piece together what’s important and what’s not and how we’re supposed to feel about all of it that it can be hard to keep track of the action as it unfolds.
Agree or not, Meza’s arguments are lucid and illustrated clearly by AFFECTION’s events. However, the movie is structured in a way that becomes more frustrating as it goes. We comprehend it intellectually but can’t engage viscerally.
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The hosts gave their reviews and assigned the following star ratings:
Deanna: ★★★★.5
Allison: ★★★.25
Julia: ★★
To watch more livestreams and digital video content, head to the WRIC+ Originals page. You can also watch full on-demand videos on your smart TV using the WRIC+ app.
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