Games

The writing doesn't seem great (forced and unfunny), but it's just a trailer, so I don't put a ton of stock in that. Besides, some of Borderlands' best jokes are slow burns over the course of the game or even the franchise, so that might be why it feels a little off.

But the cast...they're going to have to win me over.

Lilith as the lead, I'm fine with. But Cate Blanchett as Lilith I'm a little more concerned about. She's definitely older than Lilith, yes, but that's not the big problem; for me, I just don't think that she has the vibe to pull off Lilith (and I don't think she did even when she was 25). She's got too much gravitas.

Including Tiny Tina in the main cast, I'm over the moon for. But casting Ariana Greenblatt, I just don't see. In fairness, I don't think I can see anybody in particular as that character; she's so singular and wide-eyed, I don't know if there's a young teenager-passing actress who could pull it off. You need the 16-year-old equivalent of Helena Bonham Carter, and she's a pretty singular person. Tina needs to be absoluely unhinged, but in a gleeful way; maybe this could be a Millie Bobby Brown role, or maybe it could be Jenna Ortega (though she might be a bit too sardonic; Emma Myers perhaps?), but I don't know that we have any evidence of any actress in the right age range to pull off Tina.

Not including Brick or Mordecai is sad; I think Dwayne Johnson could pull off Brick decently well, and Michael Pena would've been a funny Mordecai, though it would be even better to bring people into those roles who we've never seen before.

Krieg was kind of a blank slate to begin with, so he's no problem. Marcus, Hammerlock, Scooter, great. Jamie Lee Curtis as Tannis, fine. No major issues with any of that casting. Same with Jack Black as Claptrap; yeah, it would've been nicer to have the original voice actor, but I get that you want somebody with a name in that role and Black is as good as any. I would believe he's played the game, so I trust that he understands the role.

But Kevin Hart...I mean, come on. Idris Elba was right there, and you went with Hart?

After watching the trailer, my opinions shifted slightly. Hart was actually the least of my concerns after watching the trailer; I liked his role in Jumanji, and it seems like he's channeling that same vibe, so I think he'll probably do fine here. And Blanchett's performance as a more grizzled, almost Jane Lynch-ian Lilith kinda works for me.

But Tina still isn't quite right.

All in all, if this had been the same cast in different roles (Blanchett as Captain Scarlett, retconned as a hero? Greenblatt as Gaige?) or the same roles with a different cast (Saoirse Ronan as Lilith? Kiernan Shipka as Tina?) I'd be totally down. The world feels right and the story sounds interesting, I'm mostly just worried about the dialogue and the cast.

Shamelessly stolen from elsewhere, the best way to summarize my thoughts on the trailer is: "It looks like a Borderlands porn parody, but without the porn."

I don't watch very many movies and I'm by no means a movie critic; I think it looks terrible.

I feel like they just completely missed on this. They tried to capture the cel-shaded style of the games but everything looks low-budget as a result. Pandora is a backwater, if you’re going to do it live action everything needs to look like it’s been sandblasted and sun-bleached for a decade and repurposed at least twice. Everything just seems too clean.

The dialogue is bad. Can’t really blame the actors for that, but I also struggle with all of them in their roles except Jack Black (I actually don’t mind that casting).

Also, unless this is set between 1 and 2, I’m not sure how Krieg and Tiny Tina ended up on an adventure with Roland and Lilith.

Randy Pitchford is a piece of shit and forced out the original Claptrap VA. Jack Black is great and I really respect him because he likes games, seems to treat fans well, and seems to care about the communities he participates in. He should not be voicing Claptrap just like Chris Pratt shouldn’t have been the voice of Mario (aside from Chris Pratt also being a piece of shit which I don’t think Jack Black is).

It just felt weird and off the whole time. Maybe I’m conditioned to be sick of the quips we saw in the preview because of the flood of super hero movies we’ve had. Maybe if I went back and replayed Borderlands I’d respond the same way. It wasn’t violent enough, it didn’t have enough explosions and bullets, the characters weren’t the models and that was jarring. It’s not cell-shaded. I got so fucking annoyed at the trite “it’s in my mouth” scene that I just don’t have a good feeling.

I’m hoping it will be a fun, mindless action movie. I’m reserving judgement other than Randy Pitchford being a piece of shit until it actually comes out.

The specific casting bugs me:

• Budget Deadshot
• Old Nami
• Hit Bunny-Girl
• Box Wheatley
• Extra #1216 from the Mad Max set

It's just... I dunno. Doesn't quite fit the tone from the games. But hey maybe it comes out and is surprisingly funny in it's braindeadness.

Casting is dogshit, jokes aren't funny, trying way too hard to be guardians of the galaxy 2, and where's mordy/brick?

It looks fun enough, but I'm keeping expectations low. It has a "This is what a successful, funny movie is like, right? Right?" vibe, imo.

Had to check if it's not made by Uwe Boll. Guess in a sense he was ahead of his time as Hollywood is now doing his shtick.

I read the cast and decided that's all I needed to know that the movie would be bad. Why use the characters if you're not even going to get actors that fit the roles? They could have just used news characters set in the same universe.

I won't be going to theaters to see this movie. It feels forced, and the cast doesn't inspire confidence that it's going to be good.

I said this elsewhere, but essentially it looks like a "Turn your brain off" movie which kind of hits the notes that Borderlands is known for while also having a bit of a fun house mirror / "We've got [game] at home" feeling to it.

Overall though, it feels... forced. From the limited bits you can hear, I don't think Jack Black really works for Claptrap (no reason to not just keep the original VA outside of "Jack Black is so in right now" or some shit); the dialog feels overly filtered, if that makes any sense.... Like too many people edited it so that it achieved maximum 'for the lolz' (not that the first two games (the ones I actually have experience with) were the peak of writing, mind you); and I don't have any feelings one way or the other for Kevin Hart, but for this role I think he was also a bad casting choice (but what do I know, I've only seen a quick trailer... maybe he nails it).

Action looks decent enough, and I do appreciate that (at least from the looks of things) they're pushing Cate's character as the lead.

I'm avoiding everything about it. video game movies are generally a misrepresentation of the source material entirely. so I never have hope for any video game movie. and borderlands is a franchise I actually really love.

and after seeing the cast, I think it's going to be a disaster. 😭

Seen Kevin Hart and immediately checked out. Name his last good movie/stand-up? I know Jack Black will try and hold it together but their is only so much one person can do.

The aesthetics are on point but the comedy seems like it'll be forced and to be frank, Lilith is just too old

I've got hundreds of hours across all of the games. Played every single one to almost 100%.

Honestly, I think I might enjoy watching this movie. I'm definitely not going to pay money to watch it in theaters, but I only watch maybe 3-6 movies a year that way. I'll easily be entertained for a couple hours watching this when I can inevitably stream it for free or pay like $3 off redbox.

This movie seems like it's getting an absolute ton of hate, but doesn't really look that terrible. It's a silly movie based on a silly game series that sets itself apart by being extremely silly. The fuck do people expect?

You know what I expect?

MOTHER#$@&ING EXPLOSIOOOOOONS!!!!!

This looks like a Netflix movie in a Cowboy Bebop live action way. Me no like.

They've got the look spot on, but everyone's miscast and none of the jokes land.

Looks pretty awful to me. Wild casting choices. I like Jack Black but he doesn’t read right as Claptrap to me at all. Roland is a gruff tough guy, not whatever Hart is going to do here. And Tina here comes off as a scared child instead of the absolute firebrand she ought to be.

I put weeks of time into these games so I really want the movie to not suck

54 year old Lilith is wild. I'll watch it but it needs to be really over the top to work

Oh, It's Kevin heart. That will make the humor mediocre at best. I'll just avoid any material and watch it long after release.

Eh. Seems alright. Definitely not going to a cinema to see it. Gearbox milked the franchise to death, I really only liked Borderlands 2. Looks like Krieg is in this, which isn't canonical. But fun. He also says nothing in the trailer?

My hate for what they did with tiny tina is unmeasurable. The character does not work when she is not a child. If they had put an actual child actor in their shoes and THEN made them blow up a lot of people, with gore, that would be the level tina is at. Like, if Borderlands had realistic graphics, it would be as PG 18 as Doom (2016) +. For understandable reasons. She is a traumatised child that got ate up by pandora and lived. On a revenge quest. All other characters +1 or +2 Tina gets a -20.

Not hating on the actor, lots of things can go wrong for the "magic" to not happen, most aren't on them.

I actually don't care for the prequel or BL1 backstory part. I'm not hooked by the premise.

Expectation is "mid". If an opportunity to watch it falls right into my lap I might, but realistically I will probably forget it exists when the ad campaign is through.

Tiny Tina falls completely flat. I'm convinced that only Ashley Burch could actually play the character.

It looks surprisingly not bad but still the sort of movie like Fast and Furious where you just have to turn your brain off.