For a few beautiful hours, the Borderlands movie's $90m flop wasn't the worst-reviewed film of the summer

For a brief window, the Borderlands movie wasn't the worst-reviewed film to release this month, but it's now reclaimed that un-enviable title. 

Earlier this month, Borderlands debuted to a 0% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, with none of the 23 reviewers who offered their early impressions returning a positive verdict. Since then, that figure has increased to 10% - which, for a brief time, was enough to ensure that Borderlands wasn't the worst-reviewed movie of the month.

When The Crow, a reboot of 1995's gothic superhero franchise, first appeared on Rotten Tomatoes last night, it did so to a score of just 6%. That was enough to see it swoop in underneath Borderlands as this month's worst film. Cue much celebration at Gearbox and movie distributor Lionsgate, presumably.

Unfortunately, any of those celebrations were to be short-lived, as The Crow saw its own gradual improvement, with its overall score rising from that initial 6% to the dizzying highs of 24% critical approval. That's hardly a glowing reception, but it's enough to see The Crow clamber back over Borderlands and avoid the bottom spot.

It's been a tricky run for the Borderlands movie - terrible reviews don't often make for excellent box office returns, and the movie's still running about $90 million shy of its $110 million budget. Possibly as a result of that, Borderlands is reportedly about to turn its back on cinemas, heading to streaming at the end of this month after only three weeks in cinemas. In turn, that saw Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford doing a bit of what we in the industry refer to as 'posting through it', but that did actually appear to pay off - the reveal of Borderlands 4 earlier this week has been hailed as perhaps Pitchford's greatest "big brain move" thanks to its ability to distract from the movie's critical and commercial failure.

Save yourself a sad trip to the cinema with our Borderlands review.