August 21st, 2024. Borderlands Movie

Oh yeah this was a good time.

I struggle to find the words for what to say. I just finished watching this movie during my summer vacation, and... it truly surpassed all my expectations.

The sets looked bad, the lighting was bad, the characters are miscast and annoying, the story is both unfaithful and boring. This movie just... doesn't work.

And we can see how it could work. I mean, Borderlands' humor isn't for everyone, but you can kind of see it right?

Just imagine, a bloody R-rated summer blockbuster action movie, with emphasis on fun, gamey elements. Deadpool and Wolverine just did it, this season!

I mean, there were so many elements of Borderlands missing here. And I'm not even the biggest Borderlands fan. I played maybe 40 hours of the second game, and have never played any of the others. But c'mon man, even I know some of the basics you gotta do.

Guns, abilities, explosions, monsters and crazed psychos. Crass humor that doesn't take its story too seriously. You could have a party of crazy people that hate each other working together to plunder the wasteland and get to the Vault, while comparing loot from bloody corpses.

But nooooo, this had to be an ACTUAL movie. Or at least try to. And my god it is all the more boring for it. You have Kate Blanchett giving bland narration, Jamie Lee Curtis constantly delivering stiff exposition, and characters like Krieg and Tiny Tina are about four notches too sane. The green screen is obvious and flat. The combat is boring, with just generic guns that don't get any spotlighting. There's no blood because the PG-13 is sacred. The camera is unclear, with the lighting dark and murky during the biggest fight scene. The Vault is generic alien ruins with nothing of note besides a tentacle monster and floating cubes.

Like... oh my goodness. How was this the path they decided to go with? Why was this movie not R? Why was this movie live action? How did the movie end up looking so bad?