The First Borderlands Movie Clip Looks Like An SNL Skit ( kotaku.com )

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.

KingThrillgore ,
@KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml avatar

Ah yes, the movie that's lost all of its original writers and been in reshoots for many years.

Blackmist ,

I didn't even like the game, so the chance of this appealing to me is less than zero.

Wandering_jaguar ,

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.

Croquette ,

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.

OlPatchy2Eyes ,

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.

davepleasebehave ,

When you got movies like Tom Cruise in them, you can't lose!

affiliate ,

it was over as soon they casted kevin hart

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

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.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

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?

Vinny_93 ,

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.

taiyang ,

Omg, haven't been this hyped since the live action Dragon Ball movie.

xenoclast ,

Almost as hyped as the live action Avatar movie!

Alexstarfire ,

James Cameron really knows his stuff.

RGB3x3 ,

Hoo boy, Kevin Hart doesn't even look like he knows how to hold a gun at all. Did nobody think to give him any semblance of weapons training?

mPony ,

that would involve having to talk to Kevin Hart

LiveLM ,

Is he a dick or something? lol
I don't really keep up with celebs

JigglySackles ,

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.

mPony ,

if all this shit was promo trolling

we can only hope

TachyonTele ,

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.

DragonTypeWyvern ,

A villain POV where you see Batman dismantling the organization until the very end would be amazing.

TachyonTele ,

Hell yeah.
Just remake The Usual Suspects with Batman instead of Kyser Sosey.

acosmichippo ,

but then you can’t promote george clooney in all the marketing to draw people in.

TachyonTele ,

They didnt promote him in the last one. So it's not too far fetched.

Katana314 ,

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?”

AAA ,

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.

Kolanaki ,
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

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.

JigglySackles ,

It would be the most on brand thing to do too imo.

HeavyRaptor ,

It's okay. I played Borderlands 3 with voices off, only sfx/background sounds/music. I'm sure I can do the same with this. Maybe turn picture off too while I'm at it.

SnotFlickerman ,
@SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

After how expertly Fallout nailed its landing by using literal assets from the game for set design...

Yeah this is gonna flop hard.

djsoren19 ,

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.

p5yk0t1km1r4ge ,
@p5yk0t1km1r4ge@lemmy.world avatar

.....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..

polonius-rex ,

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

wizardbeard ,
@wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

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.

TachyonTele ,

The clip doesn't make any sense. Cate Blanchett is shooting people standing up, then she's suddenly inside of a box? When does she gets in the box, why is she suddenly in that box? She doesn't get out of the box either. She's teleported from there box to somewhere else. But now she has a flamethrower.

polonius-rex ,

Yeah I had the exact same confusion, so I watched it again and she gets tackled into the box, then stands up from inside it.

If this was all in one continuous shot, it would probably be kind of funny. Quite why directors are still making the exact mistakes called out by a 9 minute youtube video 9 years ago is beyond me.

So it looks like bad editing is another thing to get excited about.

Warl0k3 ,

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.

polonius-rex ,

Poop jokes

  1. it creates symmetry when paired with the pee joke from the trailer
  2. 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

HappycamperNZ ,

NO MR TORGUE!!!!

I don't have the right rant to express my displeasure at this, someone wanna help me out??

EXPLOSIONS!!!!!

all-knight-party ,
@all-knight-party@kbin.run avatar

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.

Warl0k3 , (edited )

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???

Vinny_93 ,

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).

djsoren19 ,

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.

punkwalrus ,
@punkwalrus@lemmy.world avatar

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.

Kecessa ,

Link to the trailer

https://youtu.be/lU_NKNZljoQ

polonius-rex ,

"from the producer of uncharted, spider-man and venom"

i feel like i can guess which version of spider-man

Kecessa ,

What's funny is that when the producer is mentioned in trailers I always think "Ok so the director is an unknown person and they're the one who has the most influence so it must not be great..."

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