Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's Wednesday. Welcome to joint BombCast Revengeance. I'm
your host, Jan Shoa. I'm an avid moviegoer and movie
enjoyer and joining me today co captain of the ship.
He is the Waldorf to my Stantler, the Ropert to
the Ebert, and I think that's his name. I don't
actually know. He's the thumb to My's up.
Speaker 2: Jeff Grub, Hi, everybody, I'm on Pandora. I'll give me.
Speaker 1: I'm upset Grub that. Uh, you know, I was thinking
of the world of Pandora. I was like, I can't
wait to recommune with Awa.
Speaker 2: And there was no communing with anything, let alone Awa
in this movie.
Speaker 1: No, folks, welcome to BombCast Revengeance. If you're listening live.
We're doing this a little bit earlier in the week
then we normally do, because we thought, let's just talk
about this movie now and get it out of our brains.
The hot topic of this week is not a game,
but a video game movie. That's right. For whatever reason,
Jeff Greb and I went to go watch the Borderlands movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I went to go see it at the theater
that's the closest to me. But I've never actually been there,
and I realized why because when I take the family,
they want the comfort and all that stuff. They want
the reclining sofa chairs and all that stuff in this
place didn't have that. So when Steph was picking the theater,
we went to the other one, but went there. I
was in line for the concessions and actually got someone
recognized me because they were also going to the Borderlands movie.
It's like, oh, buddy, yeah, this is what this is
where we're gonna meet, isn't it? Yeah? Fun? But went in,
sat down and watched that movie, and I was I
was not prepared for what I actually ended up seeing.
Speaker 1: Right, neither was I grub. I believe you might have
watched it opening night even Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's right. I went to I think I went with
Friday Night. Yeah.
Speaker 1: How big was the crowd? How how big was the
border It was?
Speaker 2: It was me and the guy that recognized me. There
was like three other people. It was his buddy, uh,
and then there was a couple in front of us.
Speaker 1: There might have been more.
Speaker 2: People behind, but not many. There was under ten total
for sure.
Speaker 1: Okay, I went and watched it. I want to say
it was either Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon peak movie times,
I believe, you know, for people just going spending some
weekend time. And I think everyone else other than my
partner that I dragged to come with me was one
of those types of moviegoers that like, oh, I'm gonna
sneak into another movie. I think I've heard of this, because, uh,
I don't know if if this is everywhere. At least
my movie theaters, everything is all assigned seats, and you
definitely had a lot of people kind of like looking
around and then just like slowly sitting down suite to.
Speaker 2: Steal a seat, and they're just they refuse to give
Randy any money.
Speaker 1: And I guess, oh, yeah, yeah, I should have done that.
I should have made Grub Jeff Grub. There's a lot
of movies out now. There's a lot of video game
adaptations to movies, specifically.
Speaker 2: All over TV and the cinemas.
Speaker 1: Yes, trans media, big gigantic.
Speaker 2: I read the book for well, I didn't, that's a lie.
I read the first chapter of the Ball and Wonder
World books, so yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh god, oh god.
Speaker 2: Immediate thoughts, Yeah, my immediate thoughts were the I mean,
I don't think there's any other way to describe this
movie other than painful. I think it is legit painful
to watch. The big part of that is it gives
you nothing to stand on. There is nothing to care about.
The characters don't care about anything. There is, like the
motivations are completely a mystery, the uh sort like the
cool action is filtered through Eli Roth's insane horror filmmaking
techniques that don't fit the style, but they're going for
here at all. And that is also an assault on
the senses. So there were multiple times where I found
myself with my hands on my head sort of kind
of like trying to stop it from hurting so much,
because it is an assault on the senses in every way,
in all the negative ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I you know, a big part of Borderlands. You know,
I've played through the games. I don't remember the story
at all.
Speaker 2: If I'm being sure there was a door to open
like that, now, I'm like I recognized that. I remember that,
Like I remember the.
Speaker 1: Characters Tiny, Tina, Roland, Lilith, et cetera. Claptrap of course,
I hate to spoil it, folks, but clap trap does
not dab in this movie, right, Yeah, But I associate
a big thing that I associate with Borderlands, and they
even kind of hinted at it in like the beginning,
like Lord Dump is like just a bunch of gun
a bunch of ridiculous guns, right, that.
Speaker 2: Is what I remember to the lead up to the
game as well, you know some number that like you know,
they did the factorial on it or whatever. It's like
fourteen million guns are possible to be combined in this game.
Speaker 1: Right, and then you know, I remember the however, we
thought it was so funny that you reload a gun
by just throwing it and then you just pull out
a new gun. As the gun combat in this movie
is absolutely atrocious and bored.
Speaker 2: It's trash. Yeah, it's uh. And I think she like
makes a point Lilith Kate Blanchet's character, who is the
star of the movie. As hard as that is to
even process at this point, even after seeing seeing it,
I think there's a point where she like treats her
gun as very precious or something like that, and we
had not that had not been built up through the
movie up to that point. It was weird. It's just yeah,
they they don't They're constantly grasping at something that feels
like a story or a character progression, or or even
like a quirk for the audience to care about, and
none of it ever worked.
Speaker 1: None of it ever lands. There's specifically a moment where
Roland Kevin Hart's character sacrifices himself to the for the
good of the team. Oh sorry, I'm blocking my face
and him and Tiny Tina are you on a green
Blatt have a moment and I.
Speaker 2: Just felt nothing, felt nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I felt nothing.
Speaker 2: I mean you, It's one of those movies where and
you know, I was having a Colorado night, so I
was even maybe perceiving this little bit more than normal.
But it's one of those movies where, like you can
see and feel the set in a really strong way. Yes,
especially I felt, especially in the scenes with Kevin Hart
where I got this. You get the vibe from Kevin
Hart that he's like, oh man, what am I doing here?
Like I think Kate Blanchett like sells it and owns
it as much as she can. And there's some fun
stuff in there. We'll get into that eventually. And I
don't blame either one for like if I was Kevin Hart,
I'd feel the same way, Like what am I doing here,
and that really came across. So it's just like would
always take me out of those scenes. But also the
scenes aren't good and the chemistry that they're going for
is so off, and they are constantly fainting like, oh
is he a bad guyer is a good guy? And
every time I don't care, I don't care. That's so
they've given me nothing.
Speaker 1: They also just continue to do nothing with the characters.
I feel like with Kevin Hart's character Roland specifically odd
casting to begin with already, sure, but if you're going
to cast Kevin Hart, let Kevin Hart be Kevin Hart,
I guess. And he didn't even do that in the movie, Like.
Speaker 2: He's kind he's kind of doing like a little bit
of the Rock is kind of what he's trying to be,
like where he's like kind of serious but still there's
a you could tell there's a funny edge there, but no,
he's being serious action guy. It's weird.
Speaker 1: When I left the theater, grub, I felt I tried
recording my immediate thoughts and I tried like five times
in a row and different places around the mall I
was at, and I couldn't bring anything out of me.
I couldn't bring any like goofs or to like to
dunk on the movie because there isn't even a lot
to dunk on the movie.
Speaker 2: I have the plot here, and I wrote like a
really short synopsis of it so we can just kind
of get people an idea of like what this movie is.
So it's like on Pandora Mercenary. Roland kidnaps Tiny Tina
with the help of Krieg, who's like the big psychopath. Meanwhile,
bounty hunter lil is hired by Atlas to rescue Tina
from them. After realizing Atlas's true intentions, which is basically
to use Tiny Tina to open the vault, Lilith teams
up with Roland and Krieg. They discover Tina was genetically
engineered to open the vault where secrets of the Indurians
technology are kept. Lilith the Firehawk, actually opens the vault
and spoilers everybody opens the vault and traps Atlas inside,
where he is dragged away by a creature. The team
celebrates that's the whole movie and if it feels like, okay,
well what is in between that stuff? And the answer
is nothing. There's nothing between those points. They just hit
those beats and what they actually do fill things in
with Jen is one of the most mindless and again
since assaulting action I've ever seen. There is a portion
in the middle of this movie where the team is
like working together now, working towards the same goal. I
never fully understood why Lilith was like moving from one
team to the other. They don't really get into that
or have a good answer, but whatever, she needed to
be on the good team because she's a good character.
That's what that needed to happen. So it did. But
there's a portion in this movie about halfway through where
they are just doing Borderland stuff. So it is they
are clearly just doing Borderlands missions, and there's no dialogue,
there's no like, you're just seeing them kind of go
through caves and shoot a bunch of things, and they
try to make the stylistic, They try to make it
feel like there's stuff happening by you know, it flourishes
with the camera. But eli Roth can't help himself. He
gives into horror filmmaking. And then we're like zooming in
on the crazy psychopaths and they are supposed to look scary,
but everything's so garish and bright and it's just terrible.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I've had a couple of people in our circles
grub describe I have this movie as like very Spy
Kids adjacent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think that the big part of
that is the obvious green screen every I mean, God,
Gravina or what the genie excuse me, Genia Gavan cars
that Hey, sar maam, I'm sorry. I never actually met Gina,
but every scene she was in Bless Her Heart was
the most green screen thing I've seen in a movie
in a long time. I still think her character looked
pretty cool. I liked her haircut a lot, and part
of me likes that trashy green screen look. But when
people see that and they are thinking Spy Kids, I mean, honestly,
that's almost kind of insulting the Spy Kids a little bit.
Because Spy Kids is doing that on purpose and having fun.
You're not doing it on purpose. Here.
Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like a lot of this movie was
having fun, even with the source of material like that.
It was just like, we're gonna base this serious, heart
hitting movie off of this series franchise when that's not
Borderlands to begin with. I you know, this movie was
stuck in production hell for a bit grub right, there
was a bunch of reshoots. I believe there were some
rewrites as well. Well. I don't know if that's like
studio intervention popping in or whatever, or eli Roth being
eli Roth, But I'm curious if they're I don't want
to say the Wroth cut or like some director's cut
is laying around out there. That kind of makes more sense,
and some of the relationships are a little bit more
fleshed out or at least like, I don't know, maybe
the action could have been better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, Like because this is the reshot version, right,
there was a lot of pickups done and all that stuff.
They they did a lot to get this movie to
this point, which makes, you know, begs the question what
did it looked like before? And maybe I mean, I'll
say when I recorded my thoughts afterwards. Jan Other than
the stuff about Kate Blanchet, which we'll get into, my
biggest takeaway was this movie feels like it was made
by the stereotypical coked up executive that has no thoughts
in their head and doesn't even have feelings, And it's
just like, wouldn't that be coolouldn't that be cool? Wouldn't
that be cool? And part of me is like, did
they do reshoots to make it more like that? Because
otherwise how do you end up with this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Uh we You know, there's a fear in Hollywood of
AI intervening too much and taking over the movie making process.
And if you told me that AI had edited this
movie together and like put the script together based off
of like scraping information of Borderlands, I'd one hundred percent
believe you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was this movie film during the strike?
Speaker 1: The writer I wanna say this was pre prior to
this the w GA strike.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it feels like it was filmed like maybe, yeah,
well before that, because it's this was in production now
for a long time. Everyone's says, no, it was way earlier. Okay. Also,
someone chat mentioned that this movie was like going to
be R rated at one point. I mean, Eli Roth
needs probably that R rating, But that doesn't fix this movie, right,
Nothing like that would not be That's not what this
movie needs. The movie needed something to care about, and
I found myself in the movie. Really all I could
care about was imagining what Kate Blanchett was thinking, which
is I don't know how she ended up here jan So,
So I mean to kind of recap that she's a
fifty five year old, beautiful, accomplished woman actor who has
just done everything and kind of on top of her
game in a film that she was filmed after this
and Tar, I think she's incredible and I would just
love for her to have an opportunity to explain what
led to her doing Borderlands. Is there someone in her
life that's like, oh, I like Borderlands, you should do that.
This could be a franchise. Maybe maybe it's her, you know,
her agent saying you need a franchise. This could be it.
It could be that cynical whatever it is. She is
trying pretty hard still in this movie. Like she is
not like just phoning it in. She's doing stunts and
stuff like that and like rolling around and I couldn't, like,
I respect it. And I'm at a point where like
she had fun And I don't think this hurts her
career even a little bit because it just makes her
seem more interesting now that she did that weird Borderlance movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too. And if you were looking
at like the costumes for this movie, she probably had
I guess the most intricate costume, like she had the
whole Lilith wig with like a side swoop. Jamie Lee
Curtis just wore a red jacket and Kevin Hart only
put on a beret. Also, oh my god, the wig
that they put on Ariana green Blat was the worst
fucking wig in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and a lot of this this movie
sends like, you know, the tiny Tina character, all that stuff,
It does go back to the game like that that's
who these characters are a lot of times, just a
manic pixie dream girl that with explosives, right, That's who
that character is. So they put that in the movie.
It doesn't It doesn't. Maybe it works in the games,
I don't care. It definitely doesn't work here. The one
that I was like, I'm the most conflicted about is
Jamie Lee Curtis because that character Tannis is autistic in
the games. It's just we know Jamie Lee Curtis so well.
So it feels like a caricature to me. I don't
know how other people feel. I don't know if people
on the spectrum are going to feel about it. I imagine
that it's probably not going to be like the greatest representation.
But also maybe people know Jamie Lee Curtis is a
big actress. She's going for it, and I don't think
I think JLC was trying to be as respectful as
possible when she was doing it. Definitely, I definitely was
like weirded out a little bit throughout the movie because
of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also I don't know if this is I mean,
this may be attributed to poor directing, but the actor
that they got to play as Atlas, the big bad
of the movie. I didn't buy it. Completely unbelievable.
Speaker 2: That's the most nothing right because of the threat never
like really expressed itself in the movie. Early he comes
in as like this, uh vision on another person's face,
Like it's a sort of a projection on someone else's face.
So he's not present in that scene, and like he
does some people get killed for sure. Yeah, but it's like, okay,
now Willith is like working for this guy, and then
she's making all these choices and you don't feel the
threat of Atlas like weighing on any of those choices.
So he just feels completely absent until then the very
end of the movie where he shows back up and
he needs to open the vault and he's going to
do some bad things at that point, and that point
just looks like a business middle manager. You're right, I don't.
I don't just not buy it. It's like really actively bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh odd. Further odd decisions is the actor that
they got for Krieg Creed.
Speaker 2: Kreeg Krieg as I think. I think, yeah, uh.
Speaker 1: He played Victor Drago in the Creed movies, which I
thought he was very good in the he crushed that.
Speaker 2: That was awesome.
Speaker 1: Here he was kind of a nothing burger again of
a character, and I understand that, you can. You're they're
going for that mindless U psycho. Yeah, sure, that that
type of brutish character, but we've seen that archetype of
a character. And they try to have him have like
a relationship, like a big brother relationship with Tiny Tina,
but I never bought it ever. It just feels very forced.
It's like, what is the relationship here? Why do you care?
You're not even giving me a moment to show the
softer side of this character because he is just like
a blabbering, like ah type of dude.
Speaker 2: That that that I think goes back to another one
of the fundamental sins of the movie is that it
is there's never a time where you have a character
that you get to know and then they are confronted
with a problem, and then when they make a choice,
you go, yeah, that's just that's just who they are.
That's of course, that's what they had to decide. It's
not great whatever it is, but but you know, I
get why they did that, why they're in this situation,
and why they found themselves making these choices. It's not
that kind of movie. It is the kind of movie
that you described there, where this is Kreig. He's a
big brute, he's friends with tiny Tina, he's of mice
in maning her, so he's got to be He just
has to do with those things because that's what that
character always does, and that was sort of working backwards
from the character. Archetype is boring and it's especially again,
especially bad here because everything else isn't working as well.
I'm someone who doesn't really care that much about plot
and about many of the or like a movie even
saying something, but I want to feel something. I think
one of the blockbusters have really found this strong space
recently with like Top Gun Maverick is a movie that's
not saying a lot, but it makes you feel a lot,
and I think that's where blockbuster movie should try to be.
And this movie is on the opposite end of the
spectrum where it's definitely not saying anything, but it also
is completely devoid of any emotion as well.
Speaker 1: And there are so many movies that this movie itself
could try and ape and try and just be another
one of those, but I don't think it even does
that particularly well. You mentioned yesterday on the BombCast Scrub
that this was definitely trying to go for kind of
like the Guardians of the Galaxy esque vibe, you know,
assembling the crew together, the whole found family thing. Kate
Blanchett is star Lord, and I did not pick up
on that at all until yesterday.
Speaker 2: I did a poor job of it. Yes, it's that
bad of a job where it's like, even though it's
obvious what they're going for when you hear it, yeah,
when you're watching, it's like wait, no, wait what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it just seems incredibly damning that there are
so many examples to pull from, not even in the
like the last couple of years, but the last ten
fifteen years of cinema to do like a overly bombastic
action movie that is not taking itself too seriously. They
could have done like a Bad Boys, you know, and
it just it's just it feels lifeless. It feels super dull.
Like I'm struggling to think of like any fun moments
that I had with the movie other than like what
I said yesterday where I was just jazzed to see
Janina and thinking like, hal roll got the bag. There
we go.
Speaker 2: Even like Jack Black, who's usually pretty reliable in these
kinds of roles, first of all, it's like he's not
doing exactly Jack Black voice. He's doing what's cupcake with
the house the robots name, laptrap, clap trap, thank you
and whatever. Like he's acting, so of course that's how
it goes sometimes, but you could tell he wasn't on
set he said he was. He never was on set
or talked to any of these people about this movie ever.
He recorded forever ago, and they used those lines and
you could tell, like to certain points like we have
to sort of build the rest of the movie around
what we have with Jack Black here, because we had
him for a little bit where not maybe we can't
get him back or something, or we don't want to
pay him again, because it's like a lot of it,
like he is important to just about every scene that
happens at a certain point, but it's like even he
is not very fun in this movie, which is when
you kind of like mess up Jack Black like that,
where again I think he's very reliable for them to
be sort of fun in these movie roles, you have
got a real problem.
Speaker 1: He's a super reliable hand. Especially if you're just going
to be using Jack Black's voice, then let Jack Black
be Jack Black.
Speaker 2: That's Dantandem Bowser, Yeah, exactly, And it works really well
in both of those. So hey, I I mean, I
don't think Borderlands was ever sort of fertile ground for
anything great. But this the way I feel about this,
other than it being like a gauntlet of pain and sadness,
is it is it represents the worst of corporate filmmaking.
It really does. It is just just people who don't
understand why people like stories in the first place, making
a movie and wanting to be important. And I know
that Randy has distance himself, but he kept saying he
was on set every day and they were going to
be overseeing everything, and I believe him after we watching
the movie, I do.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It just screams like the type of move corporate
overlord type of movie where it's like, you need to
hit these beats, and we don't care. You need to
hit these beats. I don't care about the in between,
I don't care about the script, I don't care about
the look of the movie. You just have to do
this much for the trailers. Greb. As of the weekend,
this clocked in an eight million at the box office.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with about one hundred and fifty million dollars after
budget and marketing. It is one of the biggest flops
of the year, one of the biggest flops in a
long time. It is a real mess.
Speaker 1: And I'm scanning through the IMDb here and the thing
is like, I can't get over it that this movie
has talent attached to it. Yeah, and not just in
terms of the cast. You know, we've talked about Kate Blanchett,
Kevin Hart. However you feel about Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart
is a person that will bring audiences to movies because
of Kevin Hart's comedic stylings, whether you like it or not.
Jamie Lee Curtis Ariot a green Blat are in a
green Blatz was on a heater of a run she
was in like the Barbie movie. She played Little Gomora
in the Guardians movies.
Speaker 2: That's right, yea, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Would even put Flory in Montaneau in that, and you
have Jack Black and Gina Gershawn crub Yeah. But then
I'm also looking at the crew and I feel some
type of way about Eli Roth. I could leave them.
I think he sucks.
Speaker 2: I don't. I've never liked any of his movies. I
really haven't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I liked him in uh Inglorious Bastards. But that
was a great character.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 1: That's that's the character and does not show off his
directing skills at all.
Speaker 2: If you wanted to get Adam Sandler for that role,
which would have been even better.
Speaker 1: But oh my god. Yes, But like the cinematographer, like
I had a lot of problems with how the movie
was shot. But it's the same dude that was a
cinematographer for Uh, let's see a movie that most folks
would know death, which I believe is like the Groundhog
Day move. Nope, never mind, this is a Bruce Willis movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, uh, never mind, it's okay, he did he
did School of Rock.
Speaker 2: Okay, sure, work with right, that's pretty good, pretty good.
Speaker 1: I mean like doing so many like sorry, but like
even you could you could ape the action timing of
a movie like Zombie Land, which I feel like could
have been like a one to one thing of like
let's just take the psychos and just turn or zombies
and turn them into psychos here, And that doesn't get
uh conveyed well at all.
Speaker 2: You don't get anywhere close to that.
Speaker 1: Like the mini horror sequences that you alluded to in
the middle of the movie. It's just like this is
out of place. We didn't earn this at all. We
just literally walked up to this spot.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. And it really feels like filler in a
way that uh, it's probably not how it was shot
or written, but like what it what they needed after
these sort of reworked this movie into whatever this is.
At this point, one of the names involved the movie
you didn't mention because he asked his name to be removed.
Craig Mason, who responsible for Chernobyl, one of the best
television mini series of all time and also the last
of us and he saw this, Shay, He's I please,
what's it? What's it called when you change your name?
Speaker 1: Me?
Speaker 2: Yeah, expunge. Yeah, they have like a name they use
in Hollywood, Alan Smithy, like Alan Smithy. Me, I don't
they don't think they even did that. They just actually
full up removed his name. But yeah, that's he could
see it coming and I can see why now after
watching the movie. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like hmm. This feels especially weird though for me
Grub because we're in like a post Marvel boom right,
like we've done and adapted like comic books, several video games.
Now the even the Twisted Metal Show was fun for
a couple episodes. I wound up checking it out.
Speaker 2: Who was okay?
Speaker 1: You you see Anthony Mackie getting punched by some moa Joe.
That's fun. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I just think that they just fundamentally don't understand what
they what they were doing. I think this it's a
it's a movie that has a lot of stuff that
does happen, and it feels like someone describing their their
tabletop RPG game to you, where they don't tell you
any of the reasons why people made choices or who
these characters are. But it's like, then this this it's
an eight year old telling you the plot of their
favorite show blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah, and that's that's it. And I think that
there are some people probably responsible for this movie that
think that's what a story is, and that's what a
movie is, and it just it's completely wrong. And this
movie feels completely wrong as you're watching it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, grub it. God, I'm just staring at the IMDb
and just seeing Kate Blanchett attached to this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she'll be fine. Uh. And I parts
of the parts of the movie where I'm looking at
I'm like, she's striking. She's amazing to look at. She
is making this kind of bad costume work. Even you know,
I will associate the character of Lilith with her that much.
I don't think I'm not gonna talk about the video
game character and that, you know. But but yeah, it
is really baffling. And did I did go like into
Mike's chat afterward, and the thing I did say was
this will be the movie I think about the most.
When Kate Blanchett dies now, I don't think I'll probably
die before she does. But still that like, that's where
I'm at with this, where it's I think this makes
her more mysterious and interesting. Like I said earlier, where
I'm I just I'm so desperate to know how she
ended up in this movie.
Speaker 1: God, I need to learn that half of that eighty
five million dollars went to her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, I hope please. Yeah. The last thing I
said i wrote this on Twitter was it does feel
like the movie they were making a tropic thunder where
it's just everyone feels like they're they're maybe doing something
and they have nothing and it's all just a bunch
of egos bumping into each other and kind of people
looking around like, wait, how did I end up in
this movie with you doing the thing that you're doing.
Speaker 1: I think I put this in our little Compadre's discord Grub.
But this definitely, the entirety of this movie feels like
a bad Saturday Night Live sketch during one of the
off seasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one and one that goes on way too long. Yeah,
it doesn't really know what it's doing and so they
have to They really don't know how to end it. Yeah.
I the moment that really broke me the most jam
was at the end where they are building up Tiny
Tina throughout the movie to be to be special, and
she is like coded as a very young girl in
the movie, and she's like, I'm I'm special. I'm I
like and I believe that I'm special, and I'm going
to deliver on this promise and I will open the
vault and I'll use what's in there to save the day.
And the way they handle that is, no, you're not
the main character special actually, and she's gonna be so
badass and then you're gonna have to sit there and
be kind of sad that you're not special. But don't worry.
She'll tell you you're just not special in that way,
but you're still special. Ab what just on its face? Like,
what did you want us to feel in this moment? Yeah,
I feel the disappointment of a little girl. That's what
I feel. Do you want to be excited that Kate
Blanchetz being a badass with fire wings because I do not?
Speaker 1: Are you crazy?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: I don't know how that's scene. That's like that series
of storytelling moments gets through to actually be on film.
It's crazy.
Speaker 1: It feels very confusing, Grub because as you bring up
that sequence, I don't think this movie knew who its
main character was while he was shooting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really feels that way. Yeah, because it's like
the way that you do that is Lilith thinks she's
going to open the vault and like she didn't believe.
And then halfway through the movie she's like, all right,
I'm back in. Actually i am a vaut Hunter, because
the whole first half of the movie she say, I'm
not a vallhunter of vaut Hunder, I'm not a Valt hunter.
I was born in Pandora. I'm not a Vaalt hunter.
You make her believe she actually is a vault hunter,
and that not only that she's special, and then in
the last moment she recognizes, no, I'm going to empower
this other character that I've been protecting, that we've all
been protecting. Let her become empowered and recognize her strength.
And then that moment is cathartic and beautiful and nice,
and instead what we get it is no, my oc
the number one character, my favorite Lilith is so sweet.
Don't you want to get a tattoo of her. It
fucking sucks.
Speaker 1: There's a moment where, you know, the movie opens with
Kevin Hart saving or I guess, kidnapping Tiny Tina, And
even in that moment, it's like, Okay, is he the
hero or framing him as a good guy?
Speaker 2: And I think it's like they were conflicted, right because
it's a four player game where you could pick any
one of these characters, so they're like, well, we got
to give each one of them their time. They don't
even really accomplish that, but all it does is just
mess up the storytelling.
Speaker 1: All right, grub. I one of my favorite movie podcasts
specifically is The Rewatchables. They have a bunch of segments
that I enjoy. I'm gonna lift some.
Speaker 2: Of those podcasting works.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lift some of those segments, and we're gonna
give out some awards here, grub. Okay, right, all right? Casting,
what ifs? Who do you think could have been maybe
made this movie a little bit better with a casting
or who could have substituted in for a different person.
Speaker 2: I think, across the board, get rid of everyone who's
in this movie and instead replace every single person with
a WWE superstar. Make this a WWE film, and then
it's like it really quickly becomes it's so bad it's good.
I think at that point.
Speaker 1: We that's the problem as well, Grub, it's not even
bad that it's good. This is it is not a
fun to watch movie.
Speaker 2: Right, I was. I got to a point where I
was enjoying it because I'm just I was like, I
cannot believe this movie is hurting me as much as
it is, Like how is this possible? And I was
like curious to see how much more pain it could inflict.
But if that doesn't sound fun to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're right, Like cast cast montez Forda's Roland
and have him do the street profits gimmicks exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they could do their finishing moves exactly.
Speaker 1: They could Yeah, oh my god, yeah yeah maybe not
Bronz Stroman as Kreeg clearly, yes, Tiny Tina could be
Alexa Bliss or lig Morgan either one.
Speaker 2: They're already basically these characters.
Speaker 1: Becky Lynch's Lilith because neoon orange hair. Uh, and then
Jamie Lee Curtis's character I don't know, I don't know. Yeah,
it's the rock there you go, perfect, Yeah, and then
have Dominic mysterio be clap trap there.
Speaker 2: Oh god, he would be perfect. Stereo is perfect?
Speaker 1: Actually all right? Another segment from The Rewatchables. Could this
be remade as a ten episode Netflix series?
Speaker 2: Uh? Yeah, and I think it probably would be better,
but not good necessarily.
Speaker 1: Yeah, crub, I can't believe I'm about to say this.
I think Rebel Moon is a better movie than that.
Speaker 2: I think Rebel Moon's better and Rebel Moon is complete
trash too, but it resembles filmmaking a little bit, like
it like looks like someone who's made a movie before,
and this this does not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, I can't believe those were just
exited my mouth.
Speaker 2: I do think this movie is pretty close to being
on the level with a U Babel movie. I mean
it is higher budget, but in terms of like the
way I feel about the story and the characters, where
which is nothing, it is always how I felt about
you Babel movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. Next next segment or award
is Apex Mountain, whose movie is this the best work
that they will ever do top of their career?
Speaker 2: I mean, I again, I think when I look back
and I think about what has Cate Blanche had accomplished.
I will think about this movie in those terms a
little bit, like, clearly she's done better movies, but has
she done a movie that has had more of an
impact on me? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: God, yeah can't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bobby, this will be Bobby Lee's best movie. That's right,
Thank you, zig Free. That's good. A man.
Speaker 1: I really wish we could talk about the thing I
want to talk about grub, but we can't. We can't
one day, one day, yeah, you know, yeah, one day
that's embargoed forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's not our story to tell. Really, everybody,
that's sorry to tease. We're just so excited about what
happened in this thing. We wish we could tell you
one day.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm pretty sure I can share this. There was
a moment where mid interview, Bobby Lee stops the interview
in points at me and goes the Asian guy with
the mustache him and I vibe, and then he blew
a kiss to me. He yeah, he's a character, mister
Bobby Lee. Okay, okay, last couple of segments that rewatchables does.
Speaker 2: That that interview is like up somewhere right, like.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Okay. Emma goes with Janina,
Gavin car friend of the site, Bobby Lee, and Gosh,
I forget his name, he's Dutch in Red Dead Redemption
the bus driver in this movie? What what video game
would you adapt into a movie or TV show?
Speaker 2: Right? So you can watch the content that was produced
out of this at least?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: And the last segment is who won the movie? God?
Speaker 2: Do we have to pick a winner? I don't know
if anyone won this movie. I think I think that
the streaming services have won this movie, because what's gonna
happen is after this one, everyone's gonna be like movies
are still too complicated and dificult to pull off for
a video game adaptation, So we should take them all
to Amazon and Netflix, and I think that they will
have more of the pick of the litter, even more
so than they had before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even as a streamer movie. And like the morbid
curiosity to check it out grub, I can't say that
I'd be motivated because in the time that I had
unlimited paramount plus, I never once checked out the Halo
TV show.
Speaker 2: No way, Yeah, I would rather do anything else, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry, one more segment that The Rewatchables does. This
is called the Danny trayho Award. Would this movie have
been better or worse with the involvement of Danny Treyo better, It's.
Speaker 2: Usually got to be better, right for that one, Yeah,
it would be better. I would love that would have
at least popped a little bit, though, well, I probably
would have felt sad for him quickly after that, So
I don't know.
Speaker 1: Danny tray Hoo is like clap trap for a second, you.
Speaker 2: Know, yeah, yeah, his programming gets scrambled and gets reset.
As Danny Treyo, I'd like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, whenever I hit my head I
talking to like Danny Treyhoe.
Speaker 2: For a little Yeah, I call you myself onetic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It's not a big hit at parties. It's
very it's kind of upsetting, just like this movie. Jeff Grebb,
do you think we'll see a sequel?
Speaker 2: Fuck? No, no, absolutely not. We're not gonna yeah that
they're gonna bury this thing. Everyone that is not Randy Pitcher.
I mean, Randy Pittriord's gonna bury the movie. I mean, yeah,
it'll be something that will be a sore spot, Like
right now, he's making jokes about it, but that that
you know, that Dominic interview he did with Logan Paul
where Logan Paul's still but hurt that Dom's bringing up Japan.
That's how Randy Pittchrick's gonna feel about this movie in
the future if you bring it up. So, yeah, I
think this is the end of the Borderlands movie franchise.
Speaker 1: Gosh. Yeah, yeah. I can't even see this doing well
in other markets because it's just not fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like I'm yeah, I think that. Uh. I think
I had like a sixteen million dollar total global opening,
so it made it about a smile and that's us how
it goes. You think about as much worldwide as you
do in the United States, and uh yeah, that's not
gonna save it here. Yeah, it's rough.
Speaker 1: Last question for your grub. Do you think this movie
will get referenced at all in the next border Lands game?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think some of the writers will try to
be cued with it. Yeah, I think I think they will.
I mean, you know that's scene in Evil Within two
where they're like they say, like the title of the
game and they like look at the screen. I think
they'll do that that in the next Borderlands game, and
that'll be fine. That's that's where the movie should live
is in vague references as jokes in the video games.
Speaker 1: I hate that I'm gonna say this. I hate that
I'm gonna say this, Jeff Grubb, But I you and
Lucy talked about this earlier today on Game Miss Mornings.
But I am quite tired of Ryan Reynolds wholestick. Yeah,
I think this movie would have been better with Ryan Reynolds, yeah,
directing it and or writing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because sort of being on set to like be
the guiding hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, Okay.
Speaker 2: It's I mean, that's You're not wrong on both counts.
The shtick is getting old, and this movie would have
been greatly improved actually with his I mean, I think
having someone with any sense of humor and storytelling on
that set would have been a positive influence. Because we
talk about Kevin Hart was there checked out, Kevin Hart
was probably thinking about whatever five other projects he has
going on at any one time.
Speaker 1: It's like Dwayne's not texting me back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: God, Okay, Grub, what's the what's the next upcoming video
game adaptation? Is it the Last of Us?
Speaker 2: Part two Last Us Part two is definitely coming up
pretty soon. There is I think, doesn't Sony have some
other ones in the works? You know, last I heard
that Horizon Show kind of got reset because it was
coming in over budget based on the scripts, and the
scripts weren't very good. But again, I hear that stuff,
and I don't follow Hollywood close enough to know how
much of an off, how much of a problem that is,
But that could still happen. I don't know. I'm not
sure what else is happening, especially at the movies. It
does feel like it's all streaming going forward.
Speaker 1: You know, I did watch that New Kingdom of the
Plan of the Apes movie because the director is supposed
to direct the upcoming Legend of Zelda movie.
Speaker 2: That's right. I liked it.
Speaker 1: It was good.
Speaker 2: I'm going to I have that. I'm going to watch
that at some point. I really like the previous ones
that weren't directed by him, so I'm gonna I'll check
this out. I like the actor that plays I think Proximus, Caesar, Caesar, Proximust,
whatever it is. I like that guy a lot, So
I'm like, Okay, I'll definitely check this out. But yeah,
I mean I think that's where we're at now. It's like, oh, hey, man,
that Zelda movie live action from Sony Pictures is happening. Yeah, Like, like,
what is that going to be able to buck this,
you know, this trend that. I mean, that's another show
that probably would be much better served as being a
streaming show where steaks are a tiny bit lower, but
the budget's still really high for a TV show, and
they can for like the world a little bit more, uh,
the way they do on you know, Lord of the
Rings TV shows and other stuff like that. But I
don't know, we'll see. I'm I'm hopeful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh. It's just this seems like, uh, several steps
back after the last couple of years grab, but I'm.
Speaker 2: We're back, like bad video game movies are back, and
it's kind of cozy and and warm and homey. Like
I'm like, yeah, this is what it should be. I'm like,
I was never worried that we were not going to
get bad video game adaptations, and of course we were,
but I was like, there, they'll probably be bad in
a boring way. And as much as this is a
boring movie, the ways in which it is bad are
still pretty fascinating, So sure, sure, yeah, I mean I
think this will be right at home in the pantheon
of the dead or alive movie and even like like
a Double Dragon, Like I think it's like worse Double Dragon.
Even Double Dragon's kind of fun in some ways, this
is just not so Yeah, it's in that pantheon.
Speaker 1: I believe you and Mike ran like worst video game movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did not Rushmore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would watch Street Fighter chun Lee several times
before this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of those movies that.
Speaker 1: Are shouts out to Kristin Kruk, what's up?
Speaker 2: I think maybe and maybe in like ten years, this
might be an object of curiosity. It will, I think,
need that time to ripen into the kind of bad
that people are like kind of like remember that we
should watch that. It's gonna take a few years before
that can be the case, though, because right now it
just feels so sad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it feels it feels definitely, definitely really sad.
And folks, that about does it for today for this
week's episode of BombCast Revengeance. That's the beauty of the
BombCast Revengeance. This will serve for whatever we need it
to be. It's right, Jeff Grub and I are going
to get the hell off of this version of Pandora
and we're gonna go to the proper one.
Speaker 2: You watch Way of Water.
Speaker 1: You're right, jan I know. Oh my god, I almost
kicked Bailey off of that podcast. Ya for the Way
of Water slam watch your mouth. Oh my god. I
don't care that it's Women's Day a right, like it's
Way of Water Pandora. Right, God, it's a different frame
rate when they go on the water anyway, Jeff Grubb,
thank you for joining me, Folks of Christ, thank you
for joining me. Uh. At the end of the day,
don't even go watch this movie for curiosity's sake. It's
it's not bad enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, congratulations on Randy pulling a fast one to get
this movie made. I'm well done, dude.
Speaker 1: God, I hope he got to shake some hands and
now has like celebrity phone numbers in his phone.
Speaker 2: He definitely does.
Speaker 1: Oh boy boy. Folks will well, we'll kind of see
you next week for another episode of the Blombcast from Germany.
The cruise. Part of the cruise headed out to Games Calm.
We're going to record a podcast out there. We're going
to do our best to do that well. Jeff Grubb
and the home team hold down the Fort brub Thank
you for joining me.
Speaker 2: People in chat would be fucking begging for way of
water if they were watching this movie right now, Manna
from head.
Speaker 1: Oh just just let me burst in the Heurvens water.
I can't wait for fire and Ash now next year.
So God, there was like a headline I saw rolling
around read it today saying that Michelle Yo won't be
released until Avatar four. And I don't know if that
means James w Yo. I don't know James Carmeron is
holding Michelle Yo hostage. We'll figure it out. We'll see
you next week for another episode. Oh joy bubba.
Speaker 2: God.
Speaker 3: Roland only has one gun in this movie. He doesn't
shoot the little girls and you're like, they're not special.
He he never fires off a turret ever. There is
a turret sequence though, on top of the car.
Speaker 2: I don't know who fired that, yeah, but I was like, yeah,
turt sequence a video game movie automated turret. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: When when are when Tiny Team is throwing like the
rabbits at Lilith and they were just like the worst
throws in the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they made that real, Like all those explosions really boring.
Speaker 1: God, I'm so sorry to everyone, but you got paid, right,
you got paid.
Speaker 2: You got paid.
Speaker 1: Stainted him, blad