• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Borderlands Movie | Rotten Watch

Esca

Member
She (Cate) took the role iirc cause she was going a bit mad during the pandemic and did it to work and save her sanity and figured this would be a fun role uou wouldn't expect to see her in. She even bought a PS5 as well as the games and got into the games and community a lot after accepting the role
 

Doom85

Member
She (Cate) took the role iirc cause she was going a bit mad during the pandemic and did it to work and save her sanity and figured this would be a fun role uou wouldn't expect to see her in. She even bought a PS5 as well as the games and got into the games and community a lot after accepting the role

Yeah, the Youtuber Birdman (who mainly does Sins videos of CinemaSins videos, pointing out their many mistakes) criticized a lot of the casting and acting, but said Cate, while miscast, was the one who at least felt like she was genuinely doing well, it’s just the movie itself isn’t that great particular in the final act at least in his opinion.

I wonder if Jamie Lee Curtis has ever played them, seeing as she is a bit of a gamer/nerd as she does play Street Fighter and has watched a bunch of One Piece.
 
I watched it. Is it good? No. Is it the worst thing ever? Also no. It's strange because the tone of this movie is like the polar opposite of the games. The games try way too hard to be edgy (didn't finish the second game because I reached my limit for such 'witty' writing), but the movie is completely toothless in comparison. It feels like another crappy PG-13 MCU movie in disguise, complete with a CG-heavy third act against <insert bad guy here>.


That said, I gotta give this movie credit for vaporizing Janina Gavankar (spoiler, but who gives a shit?) - that was actually satsifying to watch. Also, Gina Gershon in Moxxi getup is (y)

3/10
 

Giallo Corsa

Gold Member
Yeah, the Youtuber Birdman (who mainly does Sins videos of CinemaSins videos, pointing out their many mistakes) criticized a lot of the casting and acting, but said Cate, while miscast, was the one who at least felt like she was genuinely doing well, it’s just the movie itself isn’t that great particular in the final act at least in his opinion.

I wonder if Jamie Lee Curtis has ever played them, seeing as she is a bit of a gamer/nerd as she does play Street Fighter and has watched a bunch of One Piece.
 

Vyse

Gold Member
I thought it was fine. Absolutely no need for Kevin Hart to be in the movie. He brought nothing. Much better than Madame Web.
 

Nydius

Member
I don't know a single Borderlands fan that asked for or wanted a movie. Most of us know that writing in the games is usually the weakest part of the game. Out of four games (five if you count Wonderlands), only Borderlands 2 had a decent story with passable writing -- but even then it relied heavily on puns, innuendo, and juvenile humor. This was never a game that would have translated well to a movie... and especially not with this cast. I give Cate Blanchett credit for learning how to play games so she could play the actual Borderlands games and 'connect' with Lilith, but she was never going to do well.

Then there's the fact that Borderlands 3 is years old and had a middling reception. It's not like this was a blockbuster gaming property.

At best, Borderlands would have worked as an adult-oriented, cell-shaded cartoon series. Something like a potty humor version of the Heavy Metal movies of old.
 

Robot Carnival

Gold Member
my friend got some reward thing at AMC and paid like $2 or something for the tickets, so he dragged me along to go watch it. now, my Borderlands knowledge is very barebone and I've only played the first two games for a bit. watching this is like watching a huge cringe fest. EVERYTHING is done wrong. the casting, the humor, the bad guy of the whole thing. nothing feels right. I expected nothing but I still came out disappointed. I did see they still have a whole bunch of the Claptrap popcorn buckets there and I asked to take a look a one. that thing does look cool. not $40 worth of cool but it's cool non-the-less. that's about the only good thing I can say about the movie.
 
my friend got some reward thing at AMC and paid like $2 or something for the tickets, so he dragged me along to go watch it. now, my Borderlands knowledge is very barebone and I've only played the first two games for a bit. watching this is like watching a huge cringe fest. EVERYTHING is done wrong. the casting, the humor, the bad guy of the whole thing. nothing feels right. I expected nothing but I still came out disappointed. I did see they still have a whole bunch of the Claptrap popcorn buckets there and I asked to take a look a one. that thing does look cool. not $40 worth of cool but it's cool non-the-less. that's about the only good thing I can say about the movie.
It's pretty sad when the best thing you can say about the movie is about a popcorn bucket, but not the movie itself.

Will Smith Smh GIF by The Academy Awards
 

Robot Carnival

Gold Member
It's pretty sad when the best thing you can say about the movie is about a popcorn bucket, but not the movie itself.

Will Smith Smh GIF by The Academy Awards

haha, yeah. that's sadly the real only good thing I can think of. and I would love nothing more than for this to do well. hell, even just average would be fine. but nope, it just had to drag us back to the time when video game movies are a guarantee flop, when so many other game related projects had done so well lately.
 
haha, yeah. that's sadly the real only good thing I can think of. and I would love nothing more than for this to do well. hell, even just average would be fine. but nope, it just had to drag us back to the time when video game movies are a guarantee flop, when so many other game related projects had done so well lately.
It really isn't difficult to make things like this a success. Video game movies and TV shows that respect the source material succeed. It's that simple. Games have millions of fans because of what they are. Just capture the spirit of the game, try and stick to the source as much as you can while adapting it for the big screen or streaming service, and you've got a hit. But Hollywood, in their arrogance, keep thinking they can improve on it ... and they fail every freaking time. The casting is the most ridiculous part of this movie.
 

Robot Carnival

Gold Member
It really isn't difficult to make things like this a success. Video game movies and TV shows that respect the source material succeed. It's that simple. Games have millions of fans because of what they are. Just capture the spirit of the game, try and stick to the source as much as you can while adapting it for the big screen or streaming service, and you've got a hit. But Hollywood, in their arrogance, keep thinking they can improve on it ... and they fail every freaking time. The casting is the most ridiculous part of this movie.

tbf, they at least got Fallout right with that series. Last Of Us and Arcane both got great reviews. Mario movie did great too and the Sonic movies seems to be a hit also since it got a 3rd one now. hell, even that Gran Turismo movie was actually decent. but you really need the whole cast and crew to all be on board and all understand the original material in order to get it right. which, in Borderlands' case, they definitely didn't. hell, I think I heard most of the cast never even touched the games until after the shooting's wrapped up. and combine that with the inevitable studio executives butting their heads in where they shouldn't, of course it would fail.
 
tbf, they at least got Fallout right with that series. Last Of Us and Arcane both got great reviews. Mario movie did great too and the Sonic movies seems to be a hit also since it got a 3rd one now. hell, even that Gran Turismo movie was actually decent. but you really need the whole cast and crew to all be on board and all understand the original material in order to get it right. which, in Borderlands' case, they definitely didn't. hell, I think I heard most of the cast never even touched the games until after the shooting's wrapped up. and combine that with the inevitable studio executives butting their heads in where they shouldn't, of course it would fail.
That’s what I mean. All those examples you gave honored the source material in some way. I haven’t seen the Gran Turismo movie simply based on the uninteresting source material to begin with, even though I like Gran Turismo. That game just never struck me as something that needed to be turned into a movie. I may give it a watch, though. Fallout was great. TLOU was mostly okay except for a few changes I didn’t like, but it was still great. Mario was insanely nostalgic and awesome. The Sonic movies are surprisingly good and have tons of Easter eggs for fans. Borderlands is just all over the place bad. Anything can be turned into a good movie or show with the proper team and respect for the source material.
 

Rockondevil

Member
my friend got some reward thing at AMC and paid like $2 or something for the tickets, so he dragged me along to go watch it. now, my Borderlands knowledge is very barebone and I've only played the first two games for a bit. watching this is like watching a huge cringe fest. EVERYTHING is done wrong. the casting, the humor, the bad guy of the whole thing. nothing feels right. I expected nothing but I still came out disappointed. I did see they still have a whole bunch of the Claptrap popcorn buckets there and I asked to take a look a one. that thing does look cool. not $40 worth of cool but it's cool non-the-less. that's about the only good thing I can say about the movie.
I mostly had the opposite thoughts.

I just watched it and I can say I enjoyed it. Was it a 10/10, absolutely not. But it wasn't the horror fest people are making out.
Beside the casting, which we knew was terrible as soon as it was announced and a somewhat meh villain, everything else felt like the games to me. And I've played them all a few times.

I likely won't watch it ever again, but I'm not mad I did.
 

Esca

Member
I was expecting it to be horrible from everything I've seen online about it but I actually enjoyed it. I love the games and feel a lot of what people complained about in the movie is in the games as well. The casting isn't great and they changed some stuff but overall it was an easy watch. Would of liked to seen more of the group dealing with the various creatures on Pandora along their adventure.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Movie has earned about $23M globally so far. $15M domestic and $8M international. Number of theatres showing it domestically dropped like a rock lately.

So maybe it tops out around $25M and call it a day.

 
Top Bottom