[Film] Borderlands

[gilraen]

FWIW, I'm pretty sure I enjoyed it more than I did the first (or any) Transformers movie.

[hepcat]

Can you compare and contrast Borderlands with, say, Citizen Kane?

[gilraen]

Can you compare and contrast Borderlands with, say, Citizen Kane?

Nope, never seen Citizen Kane

[hepcat]

Well, it shares the same core story as Borderlands.

[Blackhawk]

Except the sled is named "Flesh Slider"

[Max Peck]

It's more complicated than that, and really quite poignant. While Krieg's last words do come out as "Flesh Slider" his interior monologue refers to "Rosebud" in a psychodelic 5-minute soliloquy that appears as a post-credit scene. Unfortunately the studio left it on the cutting room floor, so we won't get to see it (in non-bootleg form) until Zack Snyder's Eli Roth's Borderlands: Cursed Chalice of Bloody Forgiveness Extended Directors' Final Cut is released.

[Blackhawk]

Well, that was a thing I watched.

[Blackhawk]

Some observations, of the spoilerific variety:

Spoiler:

• Yes, it was that bad.
• 75% of all of the references to things from the game were just background set dressing and served no purpose
• 25% of all remaining references were actively used, but were used incorrectly. The Tundra Express was a desert. The Caustic Caverns were a sewer. Krom was Mouthpiece.
• Krieg, Claptrap, and Markus were well-cast. None of the others were. That includes Mae Moxxi (not a typo - she seemed to be doing a bad Mae West impression.)
• Krieg and Claptrap weren't well-written. Krieg's comments were always on-topic (they shouldn't be), and while Claptrap's were always off-topic (when they should be.) Markus was poorly used and his makeup sucked.
• There was zero chemistry between any of the actors.
• The characters were all introduced in such a rapid-fire manner that they were impossible to keep track of. They could have dumped a couple of them with no problem and it would have been easier to follow.
• To go with the above, with the short runtime and excess of characters, none of the characters had meaningful screen time. We didn't get to know any of them, and there were almost no scenes that weren't either jokes or action scenes.
• In this group, Tina, Roland, Claptrap, and Krieg were all the comic relief. Yeah - practically every character was meant to the be the funny one. The only who wasn't was Lilith, but they didn't use her as the straight man at all.
• There wasn't a single likeable character. Every one was either annoying, or awful.
• Much like BL3, there was an excess of poop jokes.
• One thing they got right: Borderlands had bugs. Like Lilith speaking without her mouth moving (presumably added post-production.) Or guns firing without their muzzle flash (presumably forgotten to be added post-production.)
• It felt like they randomly took random groups of pages out of the script and tossed them in a fire. They'd go from one thing to another with zero sense of progression - it was just a sequence of moments.
• It was an action film, but I've rarely seen such poorly shot action. There was no sense of narrative in the fights (compare to John Wick.) The cuts were fast and jerky. Their camera angles removed cause and effect. You'd see a couple of characters shooting off-screen, then you'd see bad guys charging down a hall with a few of them falling (with no sense that there was any connection between the two shots.) The camera of of the shaky variety. One running battle was just awful. Like a CL4P-TP with Energizer batteries, it kept going, and going, and going.
• The twist was either not a reveal, or it was meaningless. If you were a fan of the games, you understood the twist, but you knew it was going to happen in the first five minutes. If you weren't a fan of the games, it wouldn't have made any sense at all. There was no audience for this film!
• The ending was... WTF? They arrived at their goal, gained access to the vault, went inside, and... then left and went back home. Because.

[Holman]

Some observations, of the spoilerific variety:

Spoiler:

• Yes, it was that bad.
• 75% of all of the references to things from the game were just background set dressing and served no purpose
• 25% of all remaining references were actively used, but were used incorrectly. The Tundra Express was a desert. The Caustic Caverns were a sewer. Krom was Mouthpiece.
• Krieg, Claptrap, and Markus were well-cast. None of the others were. That includes Mae Moxxi (not a typo - she seemed to be doing a bad Mae West impression.)
• Krieg and Claptrap weren't well-written. Krieg's comments were always on-topic (they shouldn't be), and while Claptrap's were always off-topic (when they should be.) Markus was poorly used and his makeup sucked.
• There was zero chemistry between any of the actors.
• The characters were all introduced in such a rapid-fire manner that they were impossible to keep track of. They could have dumped a couple of them with no problem and it would have been easier to follow.
• To go with the above, with the short runtime and excess of characters, none of the characters had meaningful screen time. We didn't get to know any of them, and there were almost no scenes that weren't either jokes or action scenes.
• In this group, Tina, Roland, Claptrap, and Krieg were all the comic relief. Yeah - practically every character was meant to the be the funny one. The only who wasn't was Lilith, but they didn't use her as the straight man at all.
• There wasn't a single likeable character. Every one was either annoying, or awful.
• Much like BL3, there was an excess of poop jokes.
• One thing they got right: Borderlands had bugs. Like Lilith speaking without her mouth moving (presumably added post-production.) Or guns firing without their muzzle flash (presumably forgotten to be added post-production.)
• It felt like they randomly took random groups of pages out of the script and tossed them in a fire. They'd go from one thing to another with zero sense of progression - it was just a sequence of moments.
• It was an action film, but I've rarely seen such poorly shot action. There was no sense of narrative in the fights (compare to John Wick.) The cuts were fast and jerky. Their camera angles removed cause and effect. You'd see a couple of characters shooting off-screen, then you'd see bad guys charging down a hall with a few of them falling (with no sense that there was any connection between the two shots.) The camera of of the shaky variety. One running battle was just awful. Like a CL4P-TP with Energizer batteries, it kept going, and going, and going.
• The twist was either not a reveal, or it was meaningless. If you were a fan of the games, you understood the twist, but you knew it was going to happen in the first five minutes. If you weren't a fan of the games, it wouldn't have made any sense at all. There was no audience for this film!
• The ending was... WTF? They arrived at their goal, gained access to the vault, went inside, and... then left and went back home. Because.

Thank you! You just saved me two hours of my life.

[Blackhawk]

To be honest, I am glad I watched it. With the gazillion hours I've dedicated to the franchise, I would have wondered what I was missing. And I did have fun watching it, but it had more to do with laughing at the absurdity and bad ideas that the film itself.

[Jaymann]

This pitch meeting tells me all I need to know.

[Zarathud]

Wow, that was a mess. The start was actually decent but things fell apart. Apparently heavy edits and reshoots happened to reduce the rating and that required even redoing the music. It shows, the story/pacing was a mess.

They really missed with their portrayal of Tina, Tania and Moxie. Claptrap was close, and Kreig worked but was shallow.

[Max Peck]

They really missed with their portrayal of Tina, Tania and Moxie.

Tania? Do you mean Tannis?

[Zarathud]

Autocorrect is puppies. And puppies are bullshit.

[Daehawk]

I just watched this on youtube. It was a GREAT movie! I dont know why people have problems wit hit.

[hepcat]

There's an audience for everything, I've learned.

I love Hot Tub Time Machine 2, for example.

[Max Peck]

For the curious, there actually is a bootleg copy of the full movie on Youtube. It's already been up for over 9 hours, so who knows how much longer it'll be before it gets nuked...

https://youtu.be/NJxW1BfCSIc

[hepcat]

Wow, they don't even care if it gets bootlegged, it was so bad.

I heard a USB thumbdrive with the movie in digital format is included in cereal boxes now.

[Max Peck]

One hour and thirty minutes later, and I didn't hate it. It's an OK but not great action movie, and they made some questionable choices in adapting the canon, but I found it to be a far cry from the unwatchable dumpster fire that the influencers make it out to be and don't regret the time I spent watching it.

It's almost as if exaggerating its flaws makes for profitable clickbait. But what am I saying, the internet that we all know and love would never manipulate us like that...

[stimpy]

For the curious, there actually is a bootleg copy of the full movie on Youtube. It's already been up for over 9 hours, so who knows how much longer it'll be before it gets nuked...

https://youtu.be/NJxW1BfCSIc

Nuked

[Max Peck]

I'm surprised it stayed up as long as it did. Hollywood could take notes from Big Music about speedy DMCA takedowns.

[hepcat]

Yeah, that it was on a site like youtube in its entirely for that long is amazing.

My guess is that Cate Blanchett kept putting it back up in order to get at least SOME views.

[Zarathud]

Cate had time in her schedule and wasn’t doing anything else. She’ll survive and enjoy her check. I doubt she took any percentage.

[gilraen]

It's not just this movie. YouTube's algorithm takes a while to catch up.

[Max Peck]

Blanchett was fine as Lilith. The only performance that seemed distinctly off to me, beyond simply having the character written differently for the film than they were in the games, was Moxxi. IMO Gina Gershon certainly looks the part, but she comes off in the movie as though she's doing an unethusiastic Mae West impression. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that she went in blind without ever seeing how Moxxi is portrayed in the games.

[Daehawk]

That was my take on her Moxxi as well. The eye makeup was off but her southern accent was more her trailer park pre Moxxi self than Moxxi persona.

Also I thought Jack Black did a great job as Claptrap. After being drawn into the movie I didn't even hear Jack anymore at all just Claptrap. The most stand out non character like was Kevin Hart as Roland. The acting plus his short size just kept taking me away from him as Roland every time I saw him.

When I saw Jamie Lee's Tannis I said to myself...."Yep thats Jamie Lee, Id know those boobs anywhere". Ive had a crush on her since the movie Halloween when she was 20 and I was 9.

[Max Peck]

I dunno, I see Roland in the film as being more the result of the writers than Kevin Hart's performance. I think he did fine with what he was given.

Claptrap was a wasted opportunity for true fan service. Jack Black did a fine job, and brought some additional name recognition to the cast, but I would have preferred Jim Foronda (the replacement Claptrap voice actor, after David Eddings had his very public falling out with Gearbox) to reprise his role.

[Blackhawk]

IMO Gina Gershon certainly looks the part, but she comes off in the movie as though she's doing an unethusiastic Mae West impression.

Heh, that was exactly what I took away, and why I referred to her as "Mae Moxxi" up above. "Is that an Unkempt Harold in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?"

[hitbyambulance]

It's really remarkable that the games are apparently so much funnier than the movie.

Somewhere in a better world, Anthony Burch wrote the script. I have no idea who the director would be, though.

Villeneuve!

or George Miller. i would have gone to see either of those. ha

first Gearbox title i ever played was their port of Halo: Combat Evolved for Windows. i put a lot of (read: way too much) time into online multiplayer for that back in 2003....

[Max Peck]

or George Miller.

I still have a hard time grasping that the man who gave us Mad Max is also the man who made Babe: Pig in the City and Happy Feet.

[hepcat]

...and Three Thousand Years of Longing.



I really enjoyed that one. It was the best Tarsem Singh film Tarsem Singh never made.

[Daehawk]

Babe was an excellent movie.

[Max Peck]

I'm sure they're all fine movies. I just meant that they are very different genres.

[hepcat]

The version of Babe Daehawk is referring to may not be.

[Daehawk]

I knew that. I was saying that I loved the movie

[Smoove_B]

Not sure when it was added, but Prime Video now has it available to rent or purchase. Rental price is a bit bonkers ($19.99 vs 24.99 to own).

[Zarathud]

When you’re about to lose $100 million, you charge. I still figured it was a bargain compared to the theater.

[Max Peck]

Don't think of it as money lost. Think of it as a tax writeoff gained.

[coopasonic]

Paid $6 to rent it on Amazon and watched it with my 18yo that played through all the Borderlands games with me. We mostly agreed that it wasn't as bad as we expected, but it shouldn't have been called Borderlands. Hardly anything that happened in the movie fits with the games at all other than names and locations existing.

[Blackhawk]

There was an oversized rakk eating a solitary skag. That was kinda Borderlandsy.