pavlin-velichkov

TL;DR -> Skip this movie. The only thing that kept me awake were CL4P-TR4P's lines delivered by Jack Black, and even that was not enough, as his involvement has been almost completely cut out. Kevin Hart is trying to act his soul out, but never gets to a point where he is funny (as himself) or heroic/serious (as Roland). He plays the goof of a movie duo, with no one in the other role to be the strong protagonist, contrary to the games where Roland is driving forward and everyone adores him. Dare I say Dwayne Johnson would have been better in his stead? Lilith and Tiny Tina are totally inadequate, they have no idea what their characters are, and not to nitpick, but both are at least twice the age of their characters, and it shows, both visually and in terms of agility. Bobby Lee makes an appearance just for crude comedic purposes. Too bad as he's a funny guy. The cameos of Ellie, Marcus and Moxxi are a disgrace. Just more actors that were either not acquainted at all with their characters or were directed to act very differently.

You have to be kidding. You cannot be serious. This is not the movie anyone expected.

So, we have a whole world that is infinitely more detailed than a movie needs it to be in order to get going. Multiple games have explored this world, its specifics, its rules, its history and dozens of characters, in detail that could have made equally (to the games) entertaining movies, even a series. But no, Eli's a big boy, he has to make up his own freaking plot. New characters? Nope. There are already existing ones that he likes. They have set roles? Nope. Eli will play with his dolls any way he wants, and you can't tell him "no". There is history between those characters, and in the world as a whole? Nope. Eli no likey. He no reader, he be writer.

Sarcasm aside, the total idiocy of this movie is mindboggling. It takes a special type of person to imagine such a travesty, and even greater to approve and go through with it.

I know this movie has been the battleground of multiple in-studio interests, but that doesn't explain the blatant disregard for the established canons of the world of Borderlands. And while in other such trainwrecks (looking at the Wheel of Time series) we at least know the reasons for the changes are extremist propaganda that is trendy at the moment and socially destructive in the long run, here it makes no sense whatsoever to alienate both the fans of the games and the uninitiated viewer. The latter would be appalled to see a grandma playing a 20-year-old action character, while the whole cast is overacting their scene lines (which can compete with a telenovella for being most corny and/or cringy) on the same level as first-year acting students. This fact is noted in IMDB as a goof, but it is much more than that - it is purely insane. Again, the games do establish the whole world of Borderlands, including the way characters act, and it is very specific. I would bet none of the actors have even seen the games, let alone studied their characters through them. Probably got a napkin's worth of text for each, otherwise I cannot imagine why they would act so out of character.

Rewriting history, characters, hell, even the ending, is not always bad. But do it for a good reason. Fitting into the movie slot is not one. Hopefully we get a proper adaptation some day. In the meantime, there are far too many good movies and series for people to be wasting their time with this junk.

There are plenty of reasons this show is getting very negative feedback from the public. And no, it has nothing to do with the intellect of the demographics that normally follow the two distinct art styles.

Let's start with pacing. The original is quite strict about this, though it may not be so obvious. There the pace is set and never drops, even in scenes where the characters are feeling depressed, they have almost given up, etc. In contrast, here we see a never-ending frantic jumping between "nothing is happening" and "not even the animators know what is happening, or why". Well, that's no fun. The action is dull, badly animated (not a ding on the art style, as it is portrayed so foolishly I am wondering why it even made it off the animator's scrap pile), and all in all not entertaining.

Then we get to the dialogues and humour. It is dry, has no actual content, the characters are purposely dragging their feet and not evolving. The plot keeps pushing for singular expression of everything, whether it is prolonged silent wandering shots, prolonged conversations needlessly repeating what has happened / what is happening / how the characters feel (as both the characters and the viewer already know), or aimless confrontations between characters that are on the same fricking side and already have been for multiple seasons around each other so they know each other, where the original's style involved concurrent sound, visualisation, stimulated the viewer by letting 2-3 actions happen at once, sometimes even out of frame, or in a moment filling in history that changes the plot and rebalances the past, present and future actions, that would make the viewer feel like an active participant through figuring out what "the plan" is. The anime takes that away and makes everything explicitly declarative, very boring, coupled with the bad pacing that kills any desire to watch the rest of the episode, let alone to finish the series.

To reiterate, this review is not negative towards the art style. There are plenty of animes that are perfect just the way they are. But you can't just push the pig into a prom dress and call it miss Universe... Not without making anyone that likes pigs and anyone that likes miss Universe contests both angry at you. And guess what, if you do that, you deserve the backlash.

In short, this is a very bad season in the Rick and Morty universe. It was bound to happen. Thankfully, it is inconsequential. Skip it at will. In fact, trust the thousands of reviews on all platforms and JUST SKIP IT - period.