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.

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[–] rbesfe@lemmy.ca 126 points 5 months ago (4 children)

The fact they chose Kevin Hart to play Roland shows how little they care about the games themselves

[–] MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world 54 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (5 children)

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

[–] JJROKCZ@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] polonius-rex@kbin.run 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

anya-taylor joy so that it all comes full circle to mad max

[–] swayevenly@lemm.ee 1 points 5 months ago

But then noone will watch it

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

She could rock a Lilith.

[–] bigmclargehuge@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] bolexforsoup@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 months ago

That sally example is such a good pull lol

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Tar and feather

I see what you did there

[–] oxideseven@lemmy.ca 30 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Or Jack Black. I love him, but this dumb Hollywood trend of hiring Jack for anything comical is absurd.

[–] w3dd1e@lemm.ee 20 points 5 months ago

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.

[–] NegativeInf@lemmy.world 21 points 5 months ago (2 children)

It's all IP baby. They think we are the unwashed masses with no taste or critical thinking and just consume whatever they excrete.

[–] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 23 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] zaphod@sopuli.xyz 10 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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".

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 5 points 5 months ago

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

[–] TexasDrunk@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

At least it's not still just Uwe Boll making adaptations.

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 7 points 5 months ago

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)_/¯

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 19 points 5 months ago

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"