Video game film adaptations have always had a bad reputation, but things seem to be turning around, at least relatively recently. wonderfullike a family movie Sonic Series, Illumination Super Mario Bros. Movies, and Detective PikachuStreaming has brought about real benefits in the form of fantastic game adaptations such as: Arcane, The Last of Usand CastlevaniaBut perhaps just as with the humor in the original, Borderlands This movie comes back to slowly remind us just how bad things were.
Reviews of Eli Roth’s adaptation of Gearbox’s sci-fi shooter series have been pouring in today ahead of the film’s release this week. Borderlands As of this writing, it has a mere 3% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. So how bad is this movie? Ultimately, the answer is “very bad.”
“The biggest problem with Eli Roth is Borderlands “It’s not that it’s bad, it’s that it’s so bad that it’s not interesting. It’s a mass-produced, boring movie,” wrote The Wrap’s William Bibbiani. “It’s cut all the corners to be safe and mainstream, but it’s gone too far and there’s almost nothing left. Technically, it’s a Border area. There isn’t much else.”
“Super stylish Borderlands “The game’s recreation is only done on a very superficial level, with the PG-13 rating replacing the dismemberment, crude humor, and uniquely insane themes with mass-market banal cliches,” IGN’s Matt Donato added. “It’s the worst-case scenario. Borderlands A film that goes against everything Borderlands As a series it’s a miserable failure.”
“Long-time video game fans Borderlands“But I wouldn’t expect that,” concludes The Hollywood Reporter’s David Rooney. “At one point, Claptrap goes back into operational mode after a heavy weapons attack and says, ‘I lost my mind. Did something important happen?’ That’s not the case in this movie.”
Despite the scathing reviews and the obviously wasted yet odd casting of Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Ariana Greenblatt, critics could agree that BorderlandsThe film’s distinct lack of quality is at least due to the fact that famously chainsaw-loving Cate Blanchett is good as the film’s protagonist, the psychic bounty hunter Lilith. In fact, most of the reviews so far seem to be centered around the perplexity of Blanchett ever agreeing to star in the film in the first place.
“Blanchett seems to enjoy strutting around in sexy leather gear, holstered on her hip, ready for lightning-fast gunfire,” Rooney’s review continues, “but the role is a thin one, cut from the familiar template of the tough, cynical, stolid female action figure. Can we expect more of the bombastic authority that Blanchett brings?” Thor: Ragnarok It’s unrequited.”
“Blanchett tries desperately to embody her protagonist as a three-dimensional person,” wrote The Daily Beast’s Nick Shager, “which is wise (since the screenplay makes such an endeavor impossible), but her overly cool attitude feels terribly unnatural and unconvincing, as do her false jokes and threats.”
“chance [for Blanchett] “Maybe the intention to evoke the spirit of Clint Eastwood also played a part; maybe he just wanted to play an action hero in a potential VFX-laden franchise starter,” Rolling Stone’s David Fear said. “What we want is a time machine to transport us back to the moment Ms. Blanchett first picked up this horrific tragedy ‘script’ and begged, ‘No.'”
Perhaps not even Blanchett can save us from a return to the dark ages of gamification. Borderlands “Play a shooter. Watch six hours of gameplay videos on YouTube. Get several chlamydia tests in quick succession. All of these options are far more beneficial and far less painful than this,” Fear concludes. it hurts.
Borderlands It hits theaters tomorrow, August 9th. That is, apparently, if you’re brave enough to try.
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