Borderlands (The One Where Cate Blanchett Is Too Old for This Sh*t)

This week on The Worst Movie Podcast, Ade and Aaron tackle Borderlands (2024), the $120 million video game adaptation that earned just $33 million at the box office and a 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. Directed by Eli Roth and starring Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Jack Black, this one boasts a ghost writer who doesn’t want to take credit for their work, action sequences with zero stakes, and the rare achievement of making Jack Black unfunny. Aaron calls it his least favorite movie they've covered — and they've watched Troll 2.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, and welcome to the worst movie podcast. Amade.

SPEAKER_00 0:03

And I'm Aaron, and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Enjoy.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yeah. I watched 30 minutes of a guy on YouTube just doing um hand checkering on a gun stock. I don't know some of those words. So you know like the the diamond pattern that's cut into wood stocks sometimes for like extra grip. Yeah, yeah. You can do that with machines or like press it in, but um the old-fashioned and nicest way is to cut it by hand, and it's just it just involves cutting a ton of lines. Okay. It was like meditation to watch this guy. I watched 30 minutes of it and I was so into it and I that I was like super distracted when you were ready to finally record.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Wait, so it's can you send me a link to the video? It's just because I feel like I understand the words you're saying, but it's not compu it's not computing. You're just watching a guy just make a bunch of cuts in wood.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Yeah. It's basically a pattern. He's cutting a pattern. Okay. Uh, and it's just very meditative and soothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Is this like a genre that you watch frequently?

SPEAKER_00 1:42

I've I just discovered it.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

So we know what you're gonna be watching for the next month.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Yeah. Every time we do a an episode, this is what I've been watching.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Is it like meditative?

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Or is it like an ASMR type thing, or is it like I don't know what he just has a calming voice and it's just a soothing video, and I don't know, it's like it's just a repetitive process that's satisfying to watch.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

What's he talking about while he's doing this?

SPEAKER_00 2:08

He's teaching you how what he's doing. I sent you the link.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, I'll watch it later.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

I don't know how you don't have to watch all 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Oh, believe me, I won't watch all 30 minutes. I mean, uh maybe maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and like sucked into that world. But wow, what a interesting age we live in in terms of the diversity of content you can find. I mean, I already knew that, but you know, it continues to surprise me, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah, I have a cat on my desk. This might be all right. We'll uh see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

A tale has entered the picture.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Okay, fun.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

What have you been watching?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Uh in more traditional content, we started watching uh watch the first two episodes of Rooster, the new Steve Corell show on HBO. Have you heard about it? Uh it was created by Bill Lawrence, the guy who did uh Scrubs, Spin City, Tent Ted Lasso, Shrinking. Oh done a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Is he involved in with the reboot of Scrubs?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

I would have to imagine I haven't read anything about the reboot of Scrubs, but um I I don't know how it would happen without him, I guess. Yeah. Because he was yeah, he was the creator and showrunner of of Scrubs. Yeah. Um in all those shows. You know, you can kind of see like some of the like Scrubs actors appearing in all those like shows. You know, the neighbor on shrinking. You've been watching Shrinking, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

The neighbor on Shrinking.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

She was Jordan and Scrubs?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

Yeah, she's his wife in real life.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Her husband and Scrubs of the character, uh, you know, the snarky doctor and scrub older doctor. Um was she married? John McGinley. Yeah, yeah. He John McGinley is in Rooster, the Steve Carell show.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Oh, I just saw a clip from that. Uh he they were doing like a sauna into a ice bath.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah, the whole premise is Steve Carell visits his daughter, who's a like associate professor or something on camp on campus in this small New England college. She has just been dumped by her husband. Her husband left her for a grad student. And so Steve Carell is there ostensibly to lecture some students, but he's really there as an excuse to spend some time with his daughter. And it's uh it's funny, but it's not like rapid fire joke sitcommy like scrubs, but it's uh it's a lot funnier than I thought. It like is it's heart heartwarming and there's some drama, I guess, but it's really a comedy. And yeah, I'm good so far. Like I said, only two episodes in, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

I am enjoying shrinking, but parts of it are too sappy for me.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah. I don't know if we said this last time we talked about this, but I I really started getting annoyed by it um towards the end of season two. Is it on season three now? Yes, towards the end of season two. Like there are parts of it that I really like. I I liked season one a lot and the parts of it that I still like, but some of the characters just really great on me.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

They feel a little too saccharine and like forced. The relationship between the neighbor and his co-worker uh lady seems so forced and fake.

SPEAKER_01 5:23

Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot that seems like the yeah, um, what's it? Jessica Williams's character is one of those that she's it seems almost cartoonish in the way that she Is she the neighbor? No, she's the coworker.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Hopefully this isn't spoiling anything for anybody watching this, but you know, she's a therapist, and I feel like so many like she acts like she's a child sometimes, and much less like has no like she's supposed to be a really good therapist and understand, like I mean, I don't know, and the way she conducts herself in her personal life sometimes. It's just like you have no basic understanding of human behavior, it seems like.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Well, uh, that seems kind of the the point of the show, though, is that like they're the these therapists that are good at what they do, but they're also a mess in their personal life. What is that picture that just uh hopped on my screen there? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Uh for those uh listening to this, what I mean, do you have a rotating collage thing or whatever? Yeah, it's just supposed to be artwork. It looks like Johnny Depp uh as painted by Picasso or something like that. It's terrifying. That is terrifying. Well, that's probably a good time for a segue. Speaking of terrifying. Speaking of terrifying, we're today talking about the movie Borderlands from 2024, directed by Eli Roth, famous for directing a lot of horror movies and for being the bear Jew and Inglorious Bastards. Uh Donnie Berkowitz. Yeah. Oh, was it Berkowitz? I think so. I think that's right. Uh incredible character. I'll come back to director writer, uh, because I have some background stuff on this. Starring Kate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis, 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, $120 million budget, and made $33 million at the box office. Huge flop. You've probably heard about this um since it just came out a couple years ago. And I guess it's recent enough that we should say spoiler alert. We'll spoil spoil everything about this movie, probably. Um what had you heard about this movie? And did had you seen it before?

SPEAKER_00 7:36

I had not seen it before, and I had heard almost nothing about it. I like I was surprised that it existed, to be honest, when we were doing our research.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Really? Like the marketing didn't hit you at all?

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Oh, and that's like you would think that it would.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah. I think it was kind of buried. Uh there there was a lot of so we'll come back to coming back to director writer. This was in development hell for a long time. I forget when they finished um filming, uh, at least the first round of filming, because there were a bunch of reshoots. But yeah, I I'd read just that I don't know. It it was it was terrible and predicted to be um, yeah, predicted to be terrible pretty early on, and and just you know, a lot of stories came out before it was even released. Um and so Tim Miller was brought in as director to do resh reshoots because Eli Roth was unavailable for another movie. At least that's like the official, like I don't know what I what I read in Wikipedia or or elsewhere. Um and then the original writer, did you have you read any of this background stuff? No. Okay, so originally written by um oh, I didn't write his name down. Anyway, somebody, and he took his name off the Craig Mazin, um, and he took his name off it and was like, I don't I'm not I'm not associated with this. That's not a good sign. Yeah. And then uh the writer who's credited in the credits and like in official like Screen Actors Guild stuff is Joe Crombie. Yeah, who doesn't exist or uh has no other writing credits, uh, can't find any, you know, no Wikipedia page, can't find anything about him. And there was speculation that uh Craig Mazin, the original writer, used that as a pseudonym to like distance himself from it. And he's like, nope, it's not a pseudonym. Uh it's not me. Like, I have nothing to do with this, with this movie. And uh if you look on IMDb, it links to somebody named Joe Abercrombie, which I discovered right as about to I was about to watch this, and I was like, holy shit, that's one of my favorite authors. Like uh, I've read like seven of his novels. Uh he writes this kind of really good fantasy-ish series that I don't know, uh the first law series, which I I really like.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

And I was like, Joe Abercrombie wrote this. Like, that's weird. And so I kept digging into this. He's never said anything publicly about writing this. Yeah. Uh, you know, nothing, yeah, he hasn't talked about it. I found a blog post of his where he mentions uh this was from his like year-in review blog posts from 2025 where he talks about playing the new version of Borderlands. He's really into video games and and how much he likes it. But no mention anywhere of and he talks about a bunch of like not admitting it. He talks about a bunch of film and he's mostly a novelist, but he does some like film and TV work, and he doesn't he's says in some of his posts that he like can't talk about all of it. Some of it is in development. And I guess the only link to uh this is that so Tim Miller, the director that was brought in for reshoots, yeah, has been working on one of Joe Abercrombie's novels to adapt it into a TV show.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

So maybe that's why it's him. Do you believe I mean Joe Crombie is such a weird name to use and so close to Joe Abercrombie?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

It's so close to his real name, though, that it feels like it shouldn't be him.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, but like why? I mean, if you were going to do this, you would be like, it's not Barack Obama, it's Barack Obama. You know, like you would use a completely different name if you were trying to use a pseudonym.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Right. That's what I I think. Like it's too close. If he was trying to throw people off the trail by using a different name.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

But could it be that like Tim Miller wrote it and like they were having drinks or something, and he was like, hey, why don't you you know he gave some tips or something and he's like, I'll it's mostly me, but maybe I'll use some advice from him. Like he didn't actually like sit down and write. I don't know. It's it's a weird, it's weird. I I read a lot of stuff. Like to just have nobody come out and be like, yeah, I wrote Nobody wants to claim credit for this. Like the writing is bad, but it's not like so bad that I mean I I like I don't know. Yeah, it just seems weird to me that nobody would claim it. Yeah. Like every other movie we've covered, people have been like, yeah, that was really shitty. And then they like you know so many things come together to make a bad movie, right? Some studio notes, reshoots, whatever, to just like completely disappear behind a pseudo name is kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, what if it was the first writer that uh is is Joe Crombie and he picked a name that's so similar to somebody else that might be tied to it that to throw everybody off. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, I think that'd be hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

I'm curious if there are uh rules though in Hollywood about like credits and who gets paid.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

And so like somebody's probably getting paid under the name Joe Crombie or Yeah, there they're definitely rules about it, and that's like you have to I I don't know all the specifics, but you you have to um I think you have to be part of the screen actors guild to get uh or no uh screen writers guild, what's it called? One of the guilds. I mean they're unions and unions and guilds and I don't know how I'm not a I'm not a uh Hollywood lawyer. Yeah, I don't know. I I I thought it was kind of funny. What's your uh so what's your connection to Borderlands the game?

SPEAKER_00 13:35

I don't have much of one. Uh I've played some of them. Some of three, I think, is one of the newest ones. They might be on four now. Uh it wasn't my favorite, but I had fun. I like that style of game. But really, Amanda is the one in our house that's into it.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Can you describe the game I like I don't know really anything about the game.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

It's like a looter shooter, so you play through a story, uh, I'm pretty sure it's fairly linear. I don't think it's like an open world game. Yeah. Uh and you just like loot stuff. You get guns off out of like chests. There's tons of opening crates and go like buying new guns. They ha have like uh weapon vending machines that you can go to and like spend coin that you've collected or or whatever the currency is to upgrade your gun or get new guns. Like it's just a it's just a it's a looter shooter, basically.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah. You want to give a quick synopsis of the movie.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Uh so Kate Kate Blanchett plays Lilith, who's a bounty hunter, and she is hired by a man named Atlas, played by Edgar Ramirez, to bring back his daughter, who's on a planet called Pandora. And uh she f her his daughter's name is Tiny Tina, which is I I she's a real character from the game, I guess. All of these are characters from the game.

SPEAKER_01 15:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

Uh can you play as these characters in the game? I don't think so, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Who are you in the game? Like, is it are any of the characters the characters that you play that you are in the game?

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Your guess is as good as mine. I I know that the characters have powers, so I'm assuming that like you pick a player that has the power that you want. I don't know though. Should we get Amanda in here for this? She's gonna be so mad when she watches this. She's like, I got it all wrong.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

You never listen to me.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

I've watched her play it some, and I played I played a little bit with her and a friend of hers, but uh I would say I have less than five hours in the of gameplay in Borderlands.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

So I have less than one minute of gameplay. I think it's funny that you've spent five hours playing it and additional hours watching it, and uh you're like, I have no idea how to do it.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

I mean, it was a long time ago that we played it, and I yeah, I'm not into the the game that much, so I and I certainly miss the movie. Uh but anyway, she finds Tiny Tina on Pandora, and uh she's teamed up with a psycho named Krieg, which is just a giant guy who's on drugs, I guess, and a mercenary played by Kevin Hart named Roland. And there's a tiny robot that is there to help her named Claptrap, who I I do remember from the games, and uh he's voiced by Jack Black.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Do you know how I I'm guessing you don't know the answer to this? How how closely does the storyline in the movie follow the storyline in the game?

SPEAKER_00 16:45

I think not at all.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Uh like the premise is similar?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, so spoiler alerts, Lilith has superpowers. She's uh uh able to teleport, which is really her power in the game. Roland is supposed to have powers, but he doesn't display any in the movie. Yeah, it didn't seem like he had powers. And Tiny Tina is like this maniacal teenage girl that is super into explosives and destroying stuff. She uh Amanda said she's kind of like a Harley Quinn type character, but Amanda felt like none of these characters were close at all to how they are in the in the video games. Yeah. Uh claptrap is like funny and a little annoying in the games, but it it's mostly like comic relief, and I didn't think that the claptrap in the movie was ever funny. Well, that's not true. I laughed at a few things, but mostly annoying.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah. Uh I just I I was just scrolling through Wikipedia, and it sounds like there are four playable characters in the game. I don't know what maybe this is the original game. Brick, a large, powerful man who operates as a berserker. I don't know. Is that the same as the psycho? Uh I don't think so. Lilith, Mordecai, who I don't think we see in the movie. No. And Roland. So it seems seem sounds like Lilith and Roland are the maybe that's just like that's just the first game. I'm guessing the other characters come in. What yeah. So uh we'll we'll start with uh Claptrap. I I read the Jack Black voiced him, but like the voice was so auto-tuned or something.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Did it sound Oh, I could tell instantly it was Jack Black.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I I I could tell knowing it that because he had the same affectation and I don't know, yeah, delivery.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

It's supposed to be a little bit robotic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

The voice was all wrong. I yeah, I I it fell flat for me. I felt like it's uh I mean Jack Black is like the at least one of the uh most successful voice actors of all time. Uh yeah. I mean you could argue if he's best or not, but you know, yeah. I'd for if if you're like Jack Black plays a major character, voices a major character in a movie, you'd be like, Yeah, okay, I'll it's probably good.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

It's probably funny at least.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Yeah, funny, at least sometimes. I mean, I I think I talked about watching Anaconda and it wasn't a good movie, but at least like I laughed a bunch, you know, with Jack Black doing Jack Blackie things. And like this was like, yeah, I don't I don't remember laughing at all. What did you find funny?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

There was a part uh later in the movie where he was like, Oh, I definitely hope nothing terrible happens to each and every one of you. And uh I don't know. That was the that was about the only part I laughed at. Yeah. And there was a part where they found like a little plant that was thriving on this barren planet, and he uh unknowingly jumped on it and started like squishing it. That those were literally the only two parts of the movie that I laughed at. Yeah. And they're they were claptraps, so I guess he served his purpose of being the comedy relief.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

He was certainly the funniest character in the in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I like I don't even think that there were jokes in this movie. Uh there were weren't even parts that I thought were like written and were supposed to be funny, and I just didn't like it. Yeah. Yeah, and I don't remember funny parts being written at all.

SPEAKER_01 20:18

Yeah, I wouldn't call it a comedy for sure. Um yeah, I don't really know.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

But you've got Jack Black and Kevin Hart in a movie together, and there are no laughs.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, it's so clap I I mean, I did feel like Claptrap tried to be funny. Maybe it was a little humorous. It definitely wasn't laugh out loud, but like when he was first introduced and Kate Blanchett like keeps shooting him and he's like that he can't be killed. Yeah, and he just kept saying, like, oh, you accidentally fired your gun, or I don't know, something like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

Like, yeah. Um oops, you accidentally shot me in the face again.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Yeah, yeah, that was it. Um like uh that's a joke. Uh yeah Kevin Hart was trying to play like serious action hero. Yeah. Did he have any jokes?

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Uh I don't think so. He tried, I think he had like a trying to have a heartwarming moment at the end, and I was like, this is weird. What what was that? I must have missed that. I don't know. He was sacrificing himself so everyone else could escape.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

He was staying behind, and I was in the next scene you show he survived. I yeah, I yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

This movie had no stakes. At any point in the movie, did you feel like things weren't gonna be just fine?

SPEAKER_01 21:32

Uh yeah, I was I was so bored with this that I guess I didn't feel any real uh you know emotions being tugged throughout this movie, but I I was also just kind of confused about the basics of the plot. So I didn't I guess I didn't understand the sticks. So uh I mean you mentioned this like K Blanche is a boun bounty hunter to recover the daughter.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Well, okay, backing up a little bit, there's this like evil overlord dad guy. who uh owns a company that he wants her back. I don't know. It was really strange. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I mean, backing up a little bit, there it starts out about how there's this prophecy in this, it's it's this advanced civilization technology, I don't know, technology well beyond our own space travel, blah, blah, blah. And it starts out there's this prophecy that this ancient alien race buried unspeakable treasure on this planet. First of all, I I don't know. I guess it was a little disjointed for me to like see like, are there prophecies anymore? I mean I mean even in our uh backwards scientific, you know, compared to like their worlds, I mean I know there's like religious prophecy about you know the end times and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

But I I mean it it feels very I don't know that there's any modern prophets that I could point to. Nobody's making bold predictions for like 500 years from now uh yeah there's gonna be some ancient treasure on this island or something.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

I don't know. Yeah. I mean there are people on YouTube you know doing the wood woodworking thing like with gun gun handles so maybe they're I'm sure they're prophets on YouTube somewhere who were like yeah in 25 years the uh that's hardly a prediction though.

SPEAKER_00 23:20

If you're only going 25 years out into the future that's not a prophecy.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

How many years does a prophecy make? A hundred?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

It's gotta be outside your lifetime at least. So I like a hundred years.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Well shit I'll start making prophecies because then I'll be dead by the time that they come come true.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Like you can reap all the uh I mean how long ago was Nostradamus? Hundreds I have no idea 500 years ago how but how how it's got to be magnitudes of hundreds. But how far in the future was he predicting yeah I don't know like I feel like as a prophet you've got to you've got to give your audience something right like you've got to be like I that was he a prophet in his time like were people like that's the prophet Nostradamus or was it just like that's the crazy guy who keeps saying shit that isn't true.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

I don't know I have a lot of reading about Nostradamus because I don't know anything about him. But yeah I I guess yeah you don't want to be the crazy person. Like you want to be a successful prophet right and I think part of it is you have to predict some things that come true in the short term and then you say a bunch of like big shit about the long term and the people are like well he was right about what was going to happen in you know six months and so like he's got to know what's going to happen in 60 years.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

That's what gives you the power and the following does success make you a prophet though? Well uh is that is that a philosophical question I think so like do you have to have already established success in short-term prophecies to be considered a prophet or like if somebody 800 years from now finds this podcast and they were like wow Ade was really speaking about our times here well yeah when you tune into my prophecy podcast I guess first of all you probably like you would probably need to acquire some sort of fame and or power or something to last that 800 years that somebody's gonna like dig up that that podcast to listen to it.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

And I guess it depends on what you want. Like you either are going to be a successful prophet meaning everything you say comes true which is just you know the intrinsic value of being a successful prophet or you're really trying to get like an audience with the king and like in the halls of power and you know that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

Yeah. Uh we've said prophet so many times now that the word has lost meaning Yeah. Well oh a prophet has to it's divinely inspired revelations so you're speaking you're of you're like a mouthpiece for a divine well of course I mean you're you're going to prescribe well it could just be a predictor one who foretells future events. All right. I don't know are you saying he didn't know what a prophet meant I mean I wanted to look up up the definition to see uh if this is if if I was just defining it on vibes or if I was close to what what the dictionary says yeah I don't know. I I I think that you there's no like I think it's loosey goosey you can if you're just predicting the future that then you're a prophet so anybody could be a prophet.

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Yeah you'd pretty much just call yourself prophet there's no there's no guild for that you don't have to there's no there's no credentials um anyway so like this whole movie unraveled what'd you say I said well this unraveled yeah this whole movie starts with this prophecy and it's like and then it shows like this Atlas corporation has invested what looks like billions of dollars into finding this treasure that has been prophesized. Yeah and I'm just like why are all these people hunting for this treasure based on I don't know it didn't make any sense. And then so that he hires what I mean Kate Blanchett has introduced as like one of the baddest bounty hunters ever I mean super cliched. By the way one of the her first scenes she's in this bar and he approaches her and she just straight up murders three people in the bar because she's like I don't want to talk to you and the bartender is just unfazed like this is such a a CD bar that like how much of a regular would you have to be to like to get away with three people and and like and the bartender covers for you.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah I'll clean this up for you. Yeah yeah you have a drinking problem if that's the case if that's the case.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

If you're there that seek help yeah uh one of her first lines in this movie is I'm getting too old for this shit. And I'm like we all we all know that line I is this is it just a winking nod to this movie is super cliched and dialogue is terrible or is it said in earnest like I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 28:21

Yeah I don't know it was bad. I mean we got we got voice over exposition within like the first two minutes of this movie so you know it's doomed.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

Yeah I I I wrote down so much narrator exposition like and then it kind of stopped I guess I guess they felt like there was enough about this world that you had to they they had to exposition it for us um because we were too dumb to figure it out but yeah can we talk about the cast a little bit what uh we started talking about Kevin Hart. Do you like Kevin Hart? What's your favorite Kevin Hart?

SPEAKER_00 28:51

I do not you do not like him or do you do not have a favorite I don't really like his movies. I yeah I don't know I don't I don't think he's that funny. I would say that I don't know a ton about him. He might be perfectly fine. I I just don't seek out his movies you're a really nice guy I just think you're terrible at all all your work everything you do yeah it's just not for me I think we've established that uh some things are not for me and I think his movies are one of them. Yeah I don't know I I'm not a big fan I I haven't really watched his stand up either so I don't know I'm I'm kind of in the dark on on his career.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

You you don't seem like a Kevin Hart guy. Oh what is it?

SPEAKER_01 29:39

Are you gonna pretend are you gonna pretend to be no I I he's he's one of those people that I feel like I should know I I mean he's so famous and ubiquitous that I'm like I don't buy it.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

I think he's the media plant he's an industry plant.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Uh I think he probably is really good at hyping himself up and uh he he is in a lot of stuff and like I like a lot of m movies that he's been in where he's like not the main character. But as far as like build as the lead or co-lead I feel like I really haven't seen a lot a lot of like and some of it's just his choice of movies. I I mean he does a lot of broad comedy comedy yeah that is just not or like kid stuff that I don't know. Like I think we mentioned briefly Jumanji when we were talking about the rock and like I watched the first Jumanji and I thought it was kind of funny. I I don't think I'll revisit it but yeah him and the rock are perfect for each other. Yeah yeah I thought I thought they were both good in it. Um I feel like I've seen his stand up and found it funny but I I would bet that I've not seen half his specials. Yeah I think I've not seen any of his specials yeah I mean uh I probably wouldn't put money on any number that that I've seen I don't know are you saying you haven't seen half of one special I was like A day have you seen any of his special I'm I feel you are pretending to be a Kevin Hart guy. I feel pretty confident I've seen at least one special from Kevin Hart. Uh I don't remember any joke from it so uh I feel like very insecure in my statement but yeah that's yeah I guess I don't have yeah I I feel similar to you I I don't have any hard feelings towards Kevin Hart. I just feel like the choice of movies at least that he like leads in never seems to appeal to me. Like I I I can't remember the last movie that I'm like oh yeah I really want to see that like other than I don't know I watched Jumaji with a family and I felt like yeah this this will be we'll we'll all have something to enjoy here.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah I was trying to figure out during this movie like who is this for? It's not for me and I I feel like I'm in the demographic that you think it would be targeted towards is it for like really young kids I'm not even really sure what genre this movie is.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

I mean it's an action movie but yeah it felt like an action heist adventure yeah it felt like it checked all the boxes of movie of blockbuster movie yeah but none of it was executed well oh yeah it was like there were a bunch of like chase and action sequences but it was just kind of like all very highly choreographed.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

Yeah yeah just like yep that happened um but maybe to your stakes thing like I never felt like thrilled or excited or surprised or it was just like yep time for chase chase done yeah move on to the next scene exposition time for a emotional scene that might pull at some heartstrings time for next chase set piece. Right. Yeah it it it felt I told Amanda that it felt so formulaic that it feels like chat GPT wrote the script or something. Yeah. Yeah all of the fight and action scenes were super choreographed and like there was never any real danger yeah uh that just made it feel extremely I was bored to death in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah. Uh before we move off the actors what do you think about Kate Blanchett? What's her connection to her?

SPEAKER_00 33:27

I generally like Kate Blanchett's movies. I mean the two she was good as uh what was her character's name in the Marvel movie I liked her in that movie though I liked her in Aviator uh what was the Marvel movie? You know it was uh was it Avengers I liked her in that Marvel movie so while you look that up I feel like Doomsday Avengers Doomsday no Thor Ragnarok I don't know she's maybe been in a few there are so many I like her as that character she was good but who who was she I don't really remember her in the Marvel movies Hella she was Hella like yeah I think that she was Thor's sister or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

So I feel not as not as not quite the same way as Kevin Hart but I'm like oh yeah Kate Blanchett she's she's a great actress she's been in a lot of stuff and then as I sat down to write my notes for this I was like all right name your favorite Kate Blanchett movie and I was like hmm I know like I I had to look it up uh and I was like yeah she's in a lot of stuff but I wasn't like as you're I mean you have her IMDb open what's your favorite Kate Blanchett movie where she stars in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

If you count this as starring uh the Lord of the Rings movies I I don't know I never I well I saw the first movie my God we've talked about this recently I know it just surprises me every time but she wasn't the star of that was she it was uh she wasn't Frodo or anything played a large a very important character in it though I mean I guess I mean she's the opening she's the opening voiceover in the first movie it depends on what you call starring I guess but like face on the cover I was like man I I like blue jasmine which I've only seen once but as a I remember really enjoying that it's a Woody Allen movie from like 20 years ago 15 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

Uh I really like her in Hannah she plays the villain I don't think you'd call that star I mean she plays a a big big role I really like life aquatic you know she was in that but that's kind of more an ensemble thing in a lot of movies that I like but I wouldn't necessarily say she stars in them. Yeah yeah I don't know I I just thought it was weird that it was like oh they're both of those actors that are so ubiquitous and I'm like you know she's one of the the more well known actresses and I'm like I just haven't seen I I admit there's some like like movies like Tar have been on my list for a long time. Same. And I'm like three hours I just like never uh sit down and pull the trigger on that. I know it's a big important really good critically acclaimed movie but it's about subject matter that I have no interest in and it's long and so I'm just like it feels like homework.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

So yeah I don't know. I I think that I agree that all of the actors in this movie I have no strong feelings for like I know that Kate Blanchett's a good actress. Yeah I like her and things I I wouldn't necess necessarily say I go see a movie because she's in it. Yeah uh but yeah there's no draw to this movie for me. Yeah just actor actors alone.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Switching gears what what character would you be if you could be any of these characters in real life in this world Atlas the evil uh megacorp uh owner that that sounds uh quite unlike you you are a capitalist after all who wouldn't want to be wealthy uh and have a private army I mean uh uh you're speaking to the choir infinite power and wealth I just thought I'd preempt your answer I wasn't even thinking about him as a I was thinking about the per protagonist uh yeah who are you gonna say I I feel like I could be a bounty hunter I mean similar to our assassin conversation last week I feel like bounty hunter could be kind of fun what traits do you think you have that lend themselves to bounty hunting this is like a an interview uh well I feel like I'm very determined and disciplined and uh care about the details and have a capability to be ruthless maybe not but is this are you a good job come with benefits or how would you go about finding a person where would you start I do think that is the uh biggest hole in the bounty hunter plot line especially in a world like this it's like okay I'm gonna find this person in that's across several planets and um potentially billions of people yeah I think the best strategy is is what happens in this movie is stumble across a personal robot who can access some version of the internet that was never explained who can find anybody wherever they are like known spotting yeah exactly I I mean that seems perfect uh like a perfect bounty hunter weapon.

SPEAKER_00 39:06

Yeah you're also told like where in the galaxy specifically this person is like they had the planet uh which definitely helps if you're an intergalactic bounty hunter yeah and then you get you get there and there's a personal aid robot that knows exactly where the person is yeah but otherwise I guess she was just going to walk from country to country she had no she didn't even really have luggage she had like a little satchel. Did we ever see what was in it in it no no he didn't it was branded Atlas so I assume that he gave it to her but I don't know what it was.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Yeah I don't remember I maybe there's a shot somewhere where she pulled some weapons out of it but she wore the same outfit the whole time in the movie. Her hair was perfect the whole movie too. Yeah yeah I I think I'd want to change a clothes and I don't know more of a plan.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

I hated this movie I was I don't know I I don't think I said this yet but I think this might be my least favorite movie that we watched. Wow really yeah it was so boring and it was yeah so big budget and trying so hard yeah it it it was the most boring movie I've watched yet.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Yeah it is certainly the I'd have to go back and look but it feels like the worst movie to budget ratio that we've watched I yeah the one good thing I can say about it is the production and design was pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 40:34

Like I I hated the horrible green screen and CG. I thought that was really poorly done.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

Yeah there was there was definitely some some bad CG but we've seen way worse uh sure in some of these movies and I thought like the you know the some of the like costuming and characters like the I don't on the planet and stuff like that were like stuff was well done in that regard.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

I liked the uh masks that they were wearing that were like light masks. I thought that was kind of a cool uh effect.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah I I don't know it I I felt so my immediate feeling after watching this movie is that's not as bad as I was expecting given how much I heard about it before about it being bad.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

And then I feel like the more I thought about the movie um because I watched it I don't know five days ago or something like that and it was like every time that like I thought back to it I'm like yeah that was bad too and that was like it it gets worse it was all bad the more I think about it. I'm like nothing like the premise didn't make sense that the resolution didn't make sense either. So like I don't know we'll let's skip most of the plot but at the end uh she becomes the phoenix or some I don't know whatever she's the prophesized she's the one yeah daughter of Viridia or whatever. Yeah and they find the treasure vault yeah they find the vault but what what's in the vault? Like a bunch of like CG blocks piles of books. And then and then the end like the closing scenes are basically all the people on this planet cheering and partying it's like the end of uh like it's like uh what is the the ewoks and Star Wars like all all cheering because the uh Death Star has been destroyed and I'm like wait a second why is everybody cheering because she killed the Atlas guy and what was wrong?

SPEAKER_00 42:35

She didn't even kill him she just trapped him there.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah I like what did it did everybody know that or I I don't know uh and then well I'm assuming he's dead because that monster came out and ate him right I don't know if it ate him though it is it caress caressed him and yeah all she said was you'll have like you will have company down here or something and then she left.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

Um but yeah I maybe they were cheering because the vault's been opened so people will stop coming and vault hunting on their planet.

SPEAKER_01 43:07

I mean that doesn't make there's this whole economy of people selling to vault and doing economic tours. Yeah economies destroyed the only thing people come here for it's ruined uh it just didn't make any sense like I I don't know um yeah well chat GPT was like okay everybody cheers here at the end it it's just like it felt like another one of those checkbox things of like okay we had big confrontation with bad guy uh the end should be resolution and every everyone lives happily ever after but it was like it didn't yeah it didn't get explained yeah this movie had nothing of the good parts from the game in it everything that's good about the game was not in this movie. I mean I I haven't I again I haven't played the game but it does feel like you Could just make this a treasure hunting like storyline or bounty hunter storyline in the in like a more of a I don't know Mandalorian-esque maybe that's a bad you know analogy, but like limit it to this world and just explore this world and the different characters in this world because I felt like there's a lot of rich material potentially. I mean, at least that was like hinted at. Um there were some interesting side characters that we didn't really see anything. Like Jamie Lee Curtis was in this for a while, and I don't know, she was given nothing to I didn't really even like her character was there for exposition.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah. Uh Amanda said in the game she's like the zany, like funny create like mad scientist type character, but she wasn't that in this. It was bad.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

Yeah, it just seemed kind of vanilla. Um one of my notes from that though is she has an electro shower, which uh like you get in and it shocks you into making you clean or something like that. Yeah. I felt like that was cool technology.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Seemed like it used lasers or something to clean you. Yeah, there's cool there was cool stuff in this, but uh it there was like they didn't open a single there was no treasure. Like for being a vault hunter themed movie and with bounty hunters and all all this cool stuff built in. They didn't open a single chest or there was no treasure. Yeah. There were no like tombs to be raided in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

There's nothing, yeah, nothing interesting, nothing exciting. Uh I just realized I had had written down a Jamie Lee Curtis quote where she says, I just figured it out. Your mom gave me, gave you to me so that and like she goes through and explains to the audience what we just saw on screen, like in the flashback. And I was like, that's so bad. Uh dialogue was so bad.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

Yeah, it reminds me of like the Netflix prompt where net to have a Netflix movie, you have to explain the plot like three or four times in dialogue to the audience. Because that everyone's distracted. Yeah, they they figure everyone's on their phones, so we need to explain the plot plainly in dialogue at least three times.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, I mean the the dialogue's bad, but not so bad it's good. Sort of it's not, you know, it's not Street Fighter where it's like, haha, listen to what the it's just like, yeah, she literally said, I'm getting too old for this shit.

unknown 46:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Uh this this movie uh was made by people who didn't know anything about the game itself or making good movies.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Or at least were cynical about who they were making it for. They're like, we're watching we're making this from people who like shit movies. So let's just, you know, let's pander to like let's try to shove all the stuff into in there because we don't know what they actually like.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yeah, it's for toddlers who need uh bright screens and flashing lights on the in the room to keep it.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

Yeah. Uh I do have to give a shout out to now our the actor with the third appearance on this podcast. Did you recognize her?

SPEAKER_00 47:16

Who?

SPEAKER_01 47:17

Gina Gershon.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I did, I did.

SPEAKER_01 47:20

She plays the bartender.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Moxie. Yeah. With the terrible accent. And again, a cool character that had nothing to do.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Yeah, nothing to do. Could have been uh yeah, you could have expanded her into something.

SPEAKER_00 47:34

Uh it seemed like she was like a uh madam at a brothel or something. She had a bar.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Yeah. And it seemed like she knew uh Kate Blanchett's character, but was never expanded on. Like it seemed like maybe they were they had had a relationship before. Maybe was that hinted? I don't know. Was I just trying to read into it? I mean, it seems like it could have been. We should do a Gina Gershin month.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

I mean, I think we could maybe do a Gina Gershin podcast. Yeah. Oh, that would be awesome. That's just uh all of her bad movies.

SPEAKER_01 48:10

Well, do you have any other notes on the movie? We haven't talked about the plotting at all, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

There's nothing to talk about. There was a private army that uh Atlas had that was just thrown at us. There was no explanation of who they were or why they were there.

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Yeah, I still don't understand why why hire the bounty hunter and then have the army chase the bounty hunter.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Yeah, it was stupid, but the actress who played like the lead person in the army that was ever giving all the orders was the worst performance I have seen possibly ever. Oh, really? It was so bad. It was so flat and no emotion, and like her face did nothing in the movie. It was like, yeah, I I was like, was she the director's wife or something? That he was like, Yeah, I'll give you a part or something.

SPEAKER_01 49:07

It was horrible. We'll we'll come back to her. Uh she had the worst haircut, um, for sure. Yeah, my favorite part of that is this huge army is chasing them, and they like that whole move where Kevin Hart's driving and he like goes through that monster or whatever, he like blows the monster's head and yeah, like cross the chasm or whatever. Yeah, and then it like that's how they escape from the army, but the army has like planes and they're flying.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Yeah, they're flying. They could easily cross this gap.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

Yeah, it's just like, oh, they stopped chasing us because why he killed the monster? That I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 49:42

It just well, then they went into the piss and poop joke scene for yeah. Yeah, it's just like five minutes.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

They just cut from scene to scene in ways that don't really make sense. Uh yeah, anything else you want to talk about this or say about this movie?

SPEAKER_00 49:58

No. I have nothing else to say about don't watch it. It's so bad. Oh, you didn't like it, you say? Yeah. I hated it. It was my least favorite.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

What's your uh ultimate pick?

SPEAKER_00 50:13

Uh I picked the Dungeons and Dragons movie, Honor of My Fees. Yeah. I liked that movie. It was the same kind of um feeling of this, like the team uh adventure, kind of heisty, but um actually funny and like you cared about the characters, and yeah, I liked it a lot more than I like this movie.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:33

What'd you pick?

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Well, it's funny. So Janina Gavankar is who plays that general or whatever in Borderlands that you hated.

SPEAKER_02 50:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Uh and my alternate pick is she was in a movie called Blind Spotting from 2018. Did you ever see that movie?

SPEAKER_02 50:48

No.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

I was just laughing because I needed like she she plays like a she's not one of the two main characters. She plays an important secondary character and she's in it a lot. I feel like I remember her being really good in it, but now I need to re-watch it. Like I think she is a genuinely good actress. Uh are you sure? I'm pretty sure. And she's been in a lot of other stuff too that I've seen. Like uh more secondary. I mean, I I don't know, I'm not gonna vouch for like hire to lead the next, you know, big big project or whatever, but um yeah, I I mean you have to be fair. That part in Borderlands, there was no part in Borderlands where it's like you're given a lot, but she was given nothing but like cliched, you know, dialogue and behind and stuff like that. And so who knows?

SPEAKER_00 51:37

Yeah, none of the parts were well written or probably directed.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

But anyway, Blind Spotting is probably is uh looking at the cast of this movie, you know, Blind Spotting was one of those like one of my five-star picks that uh didn't I think it only made like five million in the box office or something like that. So nothing like the Borderlands movie. It's about two friends living in Oakland, uh, that uh one of them is on probation and they're basically like it's it's a drama, kind of bit of a buddy comedy aspect to it too. Like there's some a lot of funny stuff, but it's primarily like the two of them trying to stay out of trouble. Really heartwarming, really great movie, really gripping. I watched it for the first time on a plane, and the plane started to descend with 15 minutes left in the movie, and not to like spoil anything, but there is this big like climactic scene towards the end of the movie, and I had to shut it off, and I'm like, and I and I like raced home and rented the movie to like watch the last 15 minutes. Uh it was so so annoying. That's the gamble.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

That's the gamble with the movie plane. Yeah, well, I thought I had enough time. Plane movie. Yeah, highly, highly recommend you should you should watch this. Uh it'll be hard. Probably won't. Oh my gosh. Come on. You I'm being honest. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

I know. I wish you'd say I keep I keep picking alternate picks that uh I think you should watch, and you never listen to me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:13

Well, gonna start now. Yeah. I'm just kidding. I I might I might look it up. I was actually looking at the IMD of it, just IMDB, and it looks pretty interesting.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

Uh they actually made a uh TV show. I never watched the TV show. Um, so yeah, I forgot all about the TV show until I w was um noting this for my alternate pick. So yeah, that's on my list now. Well, this concludes our video game month. Two comments about video game month. We picked this because and the number one movie that we wanted to cover this month was the Super Mario Brothers movie from the 90s. And lo and behold, we can't find it anywhere, can't rent it, can't stream. Unavailable. Uh really annoying. Um, we can buy the physical DVD. Uh, but what did I say? Like took like three weeks to get here or something. I don't know. Yeah. I guess we did we didn't plan ahead well enough, so I just want to yell at Nintendo or who produced the movie? Was it a Sony? No, not definitely not Sony.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

I would assume that Nintendo is the one that's making it so hard to find, though.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Yeah, but what uh what studio made the um Super Mario Brothers movie? Like the newest one. No idea.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Anyway, all the animated one with Chris Pratt?

SPEAKER_01 54:31

Yeah, yeah. The new one. I'm guessing like once that came out, they took they like basically removed uh all the the like streamer rights and like rental rights or whatever for the old stuff because they just wanted to direct people to the new, you know, the new production. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

That's the rumor that that's what why Disney made the movie Frozen. That's the conspiracy theory, because if you would go Google Disney Frozen, you'd get all those cryogenic results about Walt Disney being frozen. So they made a movie called Frozen, so that's what would show up instead.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

Uh that's quite the conspiracy theory and quite the uh payoff for the uh the psyops person in Disney that was like, here's how we're gonna um here's how we're gonna keep people from finding out about our cryogenics. You know Disney has a PsyOps department. Well, yeah, of course. Uh I was just reading something that how they have a color called, is it like hideaway green or something like they Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:40

They're theme parks.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Yeah. Um like they have a whole color palette that's like designed to hide things within the park, so you can't find like yeah, your brain just like washes it out.

SPEAKER_00 55:52

Right. You don't see it.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

So they have a lab somewhere where they've been testing this and like of course they have psyops to I mean I'm not saying the cryogenic thing, but I'm not going that far, but uh we are being socially engineered. Yes, I mean that's clear. Anyway, screw you, Universal, for taking out the the John Leguizamo Super Mario Brothers uh you know movie.

SPEAKER_00 56:15

Tune in next week for my thoughts on aliens. Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 56:20

I mean this would this would have been the there are tons of aliens in this uh episode. This would have been the episode. Also, shout out to my friend Andrew, who was like, you have to do video game month. And he had just watched Super Mario Brothers, the old one. How did he watch it? He said it was like on I think he saw it on like TV, like on cable or something like that. Oh. Um, and then I may be butchering this, but I think he then went back and looked for it and couldn't find it. So maybe if we would have just been like a month earlier, we could have found it or something. Yeah. I don't know. I might I might buy the DVD and we'll kind of shoehorn it into another theme. Yeah, we don't have to do themes. Yeah, I like the themes. Um but yeah, maybe we'll have a theme month and then like a bonus Super Mario Bros. catch-up episode or something.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Yeah, we could have a month where we just do all the movies we wanted but don't fit neatly in other grab bag theme.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

If you have theme ideas for us, send us an email at the worstmoviepodcast at gmail.com. I think we're uh we've got a few ideas. We'll probably so we're we'll probably have an idea by the time this airs at the end of the month, and we'll have started recording for April, but uh give us ideas for May, June, July, so on and so forth. I think we're uh looking for more ideas on that. Follow us on the socials, thumbs up, subscribe, all that stuff. I'm a day.

SPEAKER_00 57:39

I'm Aaron. Thanks for listening to the worst movie podcast.