The Last Movie You Watched

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: Eli Roth's Borderlands. Now, I don't play video games, and the only thing I know about the Borderlands series (outside of the stuff I looked up specifically because of this movie) is this:




But I'm told that this movie strays really fucking far from the original games, and not in a way that actually elevates it. 

• One thing worth noting is that, apparently, Eli Roth's original cut is a lot more violent, and apparently in keeping with the original games' violent nature. This led to a recut of the movie because the studio wanted a PG-13-rated movie based on an M-rated franchise for some reason. (That and, somehow, Eli Roth thought that even his cut could be a good family film a la Star Wars). This led to reshoots that changed it so extensively that they needed to commission a new score.
  
• Apparently, Cate Blanchett's playing a character who's supposed to be 22 when her actress is 55.  At least they worked her advanced age into the film, and at least I hope this movie staved off her COVID boredom.
  
• Also, it seems like this includes the plot of the first game, but also includes characters from later games who weren't even introduced in the first in the main cast? Say what you will about The Last Airbender, at least Shyamalan didn't include characters from later in the series.
  
• Is that robot the one who's supposed to be voiced by Jack Black? You have a man with a very distinctive voice and you have him voice a character, and then pitch it up so that you actually have to check and make sure who he actually is? Why does he sound like Master Shake?
  
• Now that I'm done (So far) regurgitating facts I learned about a video game franchise I don't play, one of the most common critiques of the film was that it basically turned it into a retread of Guardians of the Galaxy. But then again, it's worse than that, because at least James Gunn gave his characters, well, distinctive characters. With this film, you could easily just replace Tiny Tina with Louise Belcher and gave her a plasma cannon and norhing of consequence woudl change.
  
• "Sweet, one of you kill the other. I'm gonna get a coffee." And if I actually drank hot drinks, I'd be thinking the same thing.
  
• Given that the movie debuted to a Rotten Tomatoes score of 0%, the scene where the robot proclaims that the odds of them getting away with a distraction are 0% is surprisingly funny for all the wrong reason.
  
• And fuck you for including Motorhead in this scene.