10 Recent Critical Duds We All Saw Coming

Unlike with many of the films on this list, the trailers for Borderlands didn't look that bad. Admittedly, the PG-13 rating and some casting choices that deviated heavily from the video games hinted that the studio wasn't respecting the source material enough, but to be fair, Borderlands actually looked mildly fun. Having said that, even a cursory glance at the film's nightmarish production history instantly quelled that cautious optimism. 

Borderlands finished its original shoot a whole three years before it was actually released, reshoots were done with a different director in 2023, and by the time it finally got released, the original screenwriter had removed his name from the film. The few people who actually went to see it will know exactly why. 

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Borderlands was once again considerably worse than feared - an inane, unfunny, genuinely broken attempt at a blockbuster that fails in pretty much every department. It's that rare film where pretty much none of it works, and while it is a fascinating disaster to dissect, as entertainment it is completely incompetent. It's the worst movie most of its cast and crew have ever been linked to - a list that includes Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Cate Blanchett), Halloween: Resurrection (Jamie Lee Curtis), and even Epic Movie (Kevin Hart). 

In other words, Borderlands is a historically dire turkey, one of the worst films of the 2020s so far.