Today, during IGN Live, we got our first real look at the Borderlands movie, and folks, I’m not sure this is going to be very good.
Based on the popular looter shooters developed by Gearbox and published by 2K Games, Borderlands was first announced all the way back in 2020. The movie is being directed by Eli Roth and has been in production hell for years now. But finally, our long national nightmare is almost over as Borderlands arrives in theaters on August 9. Sadly, I’m not sure its going to be worth the wait based on a scene released earlier today during IGN Live’s Day 1 showcase.
In the new scene, we see Roland (Kevin Hart), Lilith (Cate Blanchett), Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), Kireg (Florian Munteanu), and Claptrap (voice by Jack Black) in a dark underground facility filled with boxes and not many lights. It’s hard to see what’s happening.
This is supposed to be an action-packed sequence from a major motion picture, but it feels more like a pre-recorded skit from a so-so episode of Saturday Night Live. Enemies get shot and just fall down with no blood or gore, characters move around slowly even though this is meant to be a fast-paced sequence, and all of this is done to generic music that you’ll forget about the moment the scene ends.
The fact they chose Kevin Hart to play Roland shows how little they care about the games themselves
Or Cate Blanchett. Like if me and my friends were dream casting this movie one of us would say Cate Blanchett as a joke and we’d all laugh and move on. Don’t get me wrong, she’s one of my favorite actresses, you can Tar and feather me all day but this was frankly a bizarre call.
Reminds me of the show Barry, the character Sally is on a press circuit and someone throws the question at her “Who should play the next Spiderman” and confused by the question she says Ben Mendelson
Looks wise Hayley Williams is great for Lilith, don’t think she acts but there has to be a ginger actress other that Karen Gillian interested
anya-taylor joy so that it all comes full circle to mad max
But then noone will watch it
She could rock a Lilith.
Me and my sister have a running joke casting for a movie of the Uncharted games, I’m pretty sure Danny DeVito was Sully and Mel Gibson was Elena. I’d rather watch something that stupid than something as uninspired as this.
That sally example is such a good pull lol
Tar and feather
I see what you did there
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Or Jack Black. I love him, but this dumb Hollywood trend of hiring Jack for anything comical is absurd.
Supposedly he met the creators at a party after the first game came out and asked to play claptrap. I don’t have a source to share with you, but if that’s true then I’m fine with it.
But yeah, most of this movie looks very bad.
It’s all IP baby. They think we are the unwashed masses with no taste or critical thinking and just consume whatever they excrete.
Close, but they genuinely think video games are a lesser medium than movies. So of course they don’t take this movie, or our standards seriously.
I think some game developers think like this too, that’s why they try to turn their games into movies, either directly or by making their games more “cinematic”.
In my opinion, not all cinematic games are trying to be movies, some do it right and preserve the essence of what game is, about others we probably not hear too much except for how bad they turn out to be
At least it’s not still just Uwe Boll making adaptations.
At the same time movies based on a recognized intellectual property tend to omit crucial pieces of character and world building, because come on, the audience is supposed to know that.
And this is how they often produce garbage that is impossible to understand if you are not in the know, and impossible to watch if you are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My personal theory is that they wanted The Rock (who would be straight out of central casting for Roland) but he declined and so some exec was like “okay, just use KH instead, they both work together on a lot of the same movies”
The Bad:
No Marcus narration. How are they so out of touch with the source material to miss THAT one? And there’s like… five guns. And while I like all the actors, what the hell are they doing playing those characters? Claptrap already had a voice, and it sure wasn’t jack black. Poop jokes. They’d be fine if they were, you know, funny. But they weren’t. How do you fuck up a poop joke?? The absolute lack of a coherent timeline that follows the canon. How is Tiny Tina the most subdued performance in the whole trailer? WHERE THE HELL ARE LILITH’S TATTOOS? Why are the cars so… lame? Why is the part where the narration says “Weirdest and most dangerous world” playing over a shot of random boulders? Why is Roland being played by a comedian? Where the hell is Zer0? Mordecai? HANDSOME JACK? Chris Sabat isn’t listed on the cast so we’re not getting Mr. Torgue. There’s no vending machines. This fight is so rough it looks like I choreographed it. NO HAMMERLOCK.
The Good:
Florian Munteanu (Krieg) doesn’t have a shirt on.
The Bad Again:
This movie isn’t 1hr30min of Florian Munteanu not wearing a shirt and hitting things. Preferably in slow motion, and glistening. Maybe throw in some cute Pandorian animals, too. How cute must a baby skag be? I don’t know, but I want to find out the answer.
I mean come on you could do ANYTHING with this, a feature length movie just of Granny Flexington’s Story Corner would be lauded as one of the best troll moves in history. Sure, I’d go and throw a brick through Gearbox’s windows for that, but I’d make sure nobody was behind said window first. … Probably.
Both this clip and the first clip emphasize the same poop joke. And that’s a problem. Somehow they’ve managed to make poop jokes in Borderlands a problem.
And keep in mind this is the scene the producers and people involved thought was good enough to debut online. This is what they are selling the movie on. This is their big “Take a look at this and get excited!” clip. If that’s the case, well, I fear for the rest of the movie.
Sums it up pretty well. I’m just astounded by how awful this is going to be. This looks bad enough I’m not even going to hate watch it, just… just no.
Poop jokes
- it creates symmetry when paired with the pee joke from the trailer
- honestly this is the part that feels most on brand for the game
This fight looks like I choreographed it
atlas had better fight choreography, and 90% of that movie was arguing with siri
Yeah, I hope people don’t mistake bad comedy for letting the games down. The games probably got a laugh out of me once every 75 jokes.
NO MR TORGUE!!!
I don’t have the right rant to express my displeasure at this, someone wanna help me out??
EXPLOSIONS!!!
Yeah the jokes bring entirely unfunny of the one part that feels fitting.
See its not that the poop jokes are bad its that there’s only one damn joke and they keep recycling it. Like the poop jokes were rarely funny in the games (I’m secure enough to admit that I laughed at more than a few…) but at least there was a variety. This is the same damn one as in trailer #1. What kind of person can’t write two “claptrap shitting bullets” jokes???
Fairly certain this is supposed to be a Borderlands 1 movie so Jack will be in the sequel. Mordecai should’ve been in here, so should Brick. But there are loads of missing characters.
Regarding Claptrap: the voice actor from the first three games (counting Pre-Sequel) quit and was replaced in 3 and Wonderlands. But yeah the new guy could’ve been in instead of Jack Black.
Bottom line is this movie is not for the enjoyment of the Borderlands players, it’s more likely it’s made to get people to buy Borderlands 4 (and maybe try the older ones while they’re at it).
This is the game series that seriously gave a quest where you tried to rename one of the enemies to Bonerfarts, and this movie is failing to even hit that level of unfunny.
I guess it’s PG, so maybe it’ll hit Gearbox’s new target audience; 10 year old boys.
I had already resigned this movie to the shit bin just because they cast a comedian for the role of the only character in the games that was a serious straight man (as in the comedy trope) instead of someone more suitable like Idris Elba.
Then again, maybe they wanted someone else but Hart was the only one who accepted to work on this turd.
I’d honestly have been interested if Kevin Hart just did Roland instead of being Kevin Hart.
Based on that clip I can’t say he’s not, it’s not like Roland never gives any snark, but I can say Hart is a weird choice for the role by his typecasting. But, hey, maybe he’ll break free with this?
I mean Borderlands 1 Roland is pretty different from the guy allergic to smiling we all know from Borderlands 2. I guess Handsome Jack changes comedians into Idris Elba.
I just don’t understand why this is even being made. Borderlands is definitely nowhere on my list of games I want adapted. I understand I am not the arbiter of what gets made into movies, but it definitely feels like a shared sentiment among the general gaming population lol just feels like a bizarre choice
It’s being made because there is a successful franchise to be exploited to death for the sake of earning a few more pennies for shareholders.
You aren’t looking at the creative human spirit here. You are looking at a stupid money printing machine banking purely on the inertia of fans hoping for more of what made the original work of art magical.
I get that normally but my point is…can borderlands still be considered a successful franchise in 2024?
BL2 was 13 years old and it’s never hit those heights since. Each mainline release has performed poorly or mediocre and TFTB has been pretty well received but they weren’t huge releases like the main games. They’ve been sort of irrelevant for almost a decade, limping along to middling applause lol
BL3 did well financially for the most part but that was what? 5 years ago? And critically it did poorly/had no staying power. It died pretty quickly.
The first Tales was well received, but it was made by Telltale and much closer to the Borderlands 2 era. Gearbox made another one recently that was terrible and panned.
I think you’re right in saying the franchise is just dead. As someone who played actually thousands of hours of BL2 in my youth, I have zero interest in the rumored Borderlands 4. I think I own all the DLC for 3 and just never bothered to play through all of it.
TWAU2 when telltale :(
they’re about 10 years too late on this. can’t even blame the pandemic.
Yeah no one has been excited for it in years. It peaked a long time ago. Pre-sequel was a disaster, 3 landed with a mediocre thud, tales has a following but it’s modest. This is not going to go well.
You could easily exploit borderlands- but live action? Its like a live action Kerby.
That would be an awesome horror flick.
Yeah it’s relying in star power and the drooling masses to get money. It’s an awful awful attempt and it’s extremely apparent from the trailers that this is going to be hot fucking garbage. The only thing that would potentially save it, is if all this shit was promo trolling and the actual movie used completely different better suited people with better lines etc.
The only thing that would potentially save it, is if all this shit was promo trolling and the actual movie used completely different better suited people with better lines etc.
That would be hilarious as shit.
It would be the most on brand thing to do too imo.
Not going to happen. Nobody can afford promo trolling because then people are simply not going. Word to mouth propaganda doesn’t bring the masses needed to pay the bills nowadays.
I always wished a Batman movie would do that. Imagine going into it and realizing you have no idea who Batman is. That would be fun.
A villain POV where you see Batman dismantling the organization until the very end would be amazing.
Hell yeah.
Just remake The Usual Suspects with Batman instead of Kyser Sosey.
It’d be fun to make it halfway through the movie to reveal Bruce Wayne is a worthless playboy, and have Barry Allen show up and explain to the current Batman “I’m here to correct a mistake. In my timeline, that drunkard over there is Batman.” “I’m sorry, what?”
but then you can’t promote george clooney in all the marketing to draw people in.
They didnt promote him in the last one. So it’s not too far fetched.
if all this shit was promo trolling
we can only hope
Realistically, celebrities get about 8 movies to perform in their career before my brain is unable to see them as some sort of new character. Kevin Harts comedy stopped carrying his horrible acting about 5 movies ago.
It depends on the actor. When you have an actor, like Gary Oldman for example, that really transform into its role, they can play in an infinite number of movies and they won’t get boring.
But actors, like The Rock or Kevin Hart, that just play themselves over and over again get tiring fast.
To his credit, the trailer does make it look like Kevin Hart is making a genuine attempt to play Roland from the game. Still a weird casting decision.
When you got movies like Tom Cruise in them, you can’t lose!
After how expertly Fallout nailed its landing by using literal assets from the game for set design…
Yeah this is gonna flop hard.
It blows my mind that we’re still getting uninspired shitty adaptations after Fallout, The Last of Us, honestly even stuff like Sonic and Mario showed suits that people will praise any adaptation as long as it shows them what they know.
Tinytina coyly laughing behind her hand actually made me angry
it was over as soon they casted kevin hart
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Rated PG. It can work (The old Mortal Kombat movie), but this looks like crap.
The casting alone is a reason to be skeptical.
…they ruined Roland and Tina, JB, though I love him, is a terrible choice for Claptrap, not really butthurt about the lack of guns (are they supposed to just have a billion guns in every shot or something?), Curtis doesn’t give me Tanniss vibes either, though…man, why is Krieg so quiet? Fuck…
are they supposed to just have a billion guns in every shot or something?
Fucking. Yes.
I mean, not every shot, but the variety of firearms should absolutely be a big part of every action scene at least. It’s Borderlands, and that was it’s original claim to fame: countless combinations of procedurally generated guns.
Have your prop department whip them up as different parts that they can stick together, like how the games do it. Firing effects can be added in post.
are they supposed to just have a billion guns in every shot or something
a variety of different gun designs would at least be something to look at as the main characters expressionlessly shoot towards their off-screen enemies
Yeah I mean I get it, just feels like something tricky to adapt to a movie. Maybe they’ll constantly swap guns throughout the movie too?
Omg, haven’t been this hyped since the live action Dragon Ball movie.
Almost as hyped as the live action Avatar movie!
James Cameron really knows his stuff.
I remember hearing that some Hollywood contracts require that if you sign up for some studio, you must make X amount of films. Big stars get to chose those films to some degree, but once in a while, they have to do “a stinker” to end the contract as “X amount of films done, okay?” or something. Contractual Obligation and all. This film feels like a dumping ground of a lot of those contractual obligation hires from the trailer alone.
Requirements like that in the music industry are why there’s an excess of Christmas music albums. I like the idea that video game movies and other slush-level movies are the equivalent.
Wouldn’t it be smarter to do a lower budget drama, then? This seems like an expensive throwaway.
True, but a movie like this, if successful, has a much higher potential profit than a small drama. As an actor, why not take a bit of a gamble on a big blockbuster for a potentially massive paycheck?
Hollywood always fucks up movies based on games. I’m not expecting much from this movie.
I think we’re past this now, we’ve had a number of good (or at the very least enjoyable) adaptations now, Sonic, Mario, Pikachu. Werewolves Within was really good though no one has heard of the game. And of course TV has been knocking it out of the park, Last of Us, Fallout, Cyberpunk, Castlevania, League of Legends, hell I’d even throw in Twisted Metal. Even stuff about people who play games like Gran Turismo and Players were really good. We also have things that considered bad at the time are being reclaimed like Mortal Kombat
Borderlands is (by the looks of it) just an IP dump which isn’t exclusive to video games.
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They should’ve hired Uwe Boll as a director, at least they would’ve had an excuse then
There are exceptions
Had a drunken discussion about this last month. Basically there’s less than 10 decent game adaptations ever. I remember the first mortal kombat, first 2 resident evils, tomb raider… A few others. But yeah.
