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“The Daily Show”s Desi Lydic created a parody version of X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s video explaining X’s decision to sue advertisers.

“The Daily Show”s Desi Lydic created a parody version of X CEO Linda Yaccarino’s video explaining X’s decision to sue advertisers.

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Dive into some of the world’s best documentaries with a year of MagellanTV on sale for $35.99, perfect for curious minds seeking captivating stories.

TL;DR: Pay only $35.99 for a whole year of documentary streaming from MagellanTV.

For those who love to dig into cool facts and stories, MagellanTV is your go-to for a whole year of streaming captivating documentaries. With over 3,000 series and titles, this service is perfect for anyone who can’t get enough of history, science, and more.

Whether you want to explore ancient empires or get lost in the mysteries of space, MagellanTV has you covered with a fresh lineup that regular streaming platforms don’t offer. A year-long subscription is on sale for $35.99 for a limited time.

What makes MagellanTV so awesome is its focus on telling stories that cater to unique interests. Whether you’re into the wonders of nature or the twists and turns of human history, there’s always something here that’ll grab your attention. With such a diverse library, there’s never a dull moment, making it the perfect pick if you’re tired of the same old TV shows.

On top of that, MagellanTV gives you an ad-free experience, so you can dive into stories without any interruptions. Plus, it’s accessible on a variety of devices (iOS devices, Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, or smart TV), so you can catch a great documentary wherever you are.

Dive into a world of discovery and let these epic documentaries spark your imagination. Whether you’re just curious or a full-on documentary addict, MagellanTV is your ticket to the best stories around.

Normally $59, you can get a one-year subscription to the MagellanTV Documentary Streaming Service on sale for $35.99.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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India Donaldson’s feature debut, “Good One,” is a thrilling, low-key drama about a queer teenager and two divorced dads. Review.

A backpacking trip becomes imbued with simmering tensions in Good One, India Donaldson’s subtly gripping feature debut about a father and daughter at odds. Told through the eyes of a queer teenager on the verge of adulthood, the film centers the kind of gruff, occasionally uncomfortable heterosexual machismo around which camping can thrive, but it grounds its notions of clashing genders and generations in a precisely wound family story.

It is, in essence, an adventurous thriller in which the adventure is a breezy trek at a slight elevation, and the thrills comprise mere glances. But rarely has a film conferred such monumental weight and importance upon the perspective of a teenage girl. Whether  anything happens through most of Good One depends on the point of view, though by the end of the movie’s brisk 90 minutes, Donaldson’s arch direction places Murphy’s Law in its crosshairs. Practically anything can happen, and beneath the surface, everything does.

What is Good One about?

After opening with calming shots of a burbling stream in the woods — a promise of sorts, towards which the movie’s city-dwelling characters are drawn — Good One introduces New York high schooler Sam (Lily Collias) and her uptight father Chris (James Le Gros). As they pack for their trip to the Catskill Mountains, Sam spends time with a female friend of hers on whom she clearly has a crush, while Chris meticulously fits rectangular snacks and supplies into a cylindrical jar until there’s no more room left.

Chris, who’s divorced from Sam’s mother, is remarried and has a wailing newborn; he sees this trip as an escape from frustrating domestic mundanities, and tries to exert a sense of control over every aspect. Sam, meanwhile, goes with the flow. What she wants out of this hike isn’t certain, but she isn’t opposed to the idea of it in general — or, it would appear, to new opportunities. Both characters exist at vastly different stages of transformation in middle age and teenhood; for Sam, college applications loom.They’re soon joined en route to the Catskills by Chris’ old friend Matt (Danny McCarthy), a more frustrated and far less-prepared accomplice in a transition of his own. Divorced as well, Matt was meant to bring his teenage son along — a close friend of Sam’s — but a fight between them makes Matt the awkward third wheel to Chris and Sam’s father-daughter bonding, or so it would seem.

Before long, this dynamic shifts as well. Chris and Matt have a brotherly dynamic, and their similarities cause them to fall into a familiar rhythm, though one that’s alienating to Sam. The two men’s dynamic is endearing at times, if occasionally tinged with language that Sam’s generation might’ve long soured on — like calling women “females.” But they are, for the most part, harmless lunks at opposite ends of a comedic spectrum: a man who’s meticulously over-prepared, and a man who wears jeans on a hike and forgets his sleeping bag.

However, what sets Good One apart from the usual crop of men-in-arrested-development American comedies is that Sam is caught in the middle of their straight-man/funny-man shtick, not just as a casual observer but an unwitting participant in their lives, their arguments, and their disagreements. She isn’t just a casual mediator who has fun intervening, but someone whose life is (and has been, for as long as she’s been alive) tied up in theirs. This places her in the awkward position of wanting to help and joke around, but without ruffling any feathers.

As jovial as this dynamic may be, it soon grows fragile. Cracks first begin to appear when a trio of young men set up their own camp nearby, and Sam’s objection to her father in private goes unheard, or at best misunderstood. They grow more pronounced when Matt’s drunken self-loathing veers into territory so discomforting that you might momentarily stop breathing. All the while, the story of Good One lives and breathes through its stellar lead performance.

Good One features some of the best acting this year.

The complexities of Donaldson’s screenplay are owed, in large part, to the fact that Matt and Chris are deeply sympathetic characters. Spending time with them is largely a joy, even if the occasional verbiage of theirs feels retrograde at times.

Chris, for instance, embodies an eager, clownish dad, a protector who builds emotional shields through low-hanging humor and fun factoids. He takes pride in the simplest of things, like the way Sam pours soup (“Isn’t that a steady pour?” he repeats more than once), and while cooking rustic meals, talks about how you “need the bean to meet its potential.” Le Gros leans fully into the goofy persona of a man desperately trying to be one with nature, forcing himself into the groove of camping to the point that anyone stepping a foot out of line or not following his rule book receives a scolding.

However, where Le Gros really taps into Chris is in his refusal to fully see his daughter, despite practically never taking his eye off her. This applies to both men, but where Matt can afford to be disengaged, Chris is never concerned (or even really aware) that Sam is changing her tampons in the open forest when strange men could be nearby. And where a more traditional drama might weave ongoing verbal conflicts into this father-daughter story, Good One paves the path for them through reaction shots from both Le Gros and Collias, building Chris and Sam’s relationship not through communication but through a lack thereof.

Collias, meanwhile, puts on a clinic of concern and self-doubt, as Sam intuits ever-so-slightly weird vibes at several turns. Of course, to break such an intricate story down to a matter of gender binaries would do it a disservice, but it truly does embody the varying ways men and women learn to navigate the world, given their experiences and how they’re socialized.

Right in the middle of this dynamic is the streetwise Matt, who McCarthy fills to the brim with emotions simply waiting to burst forth. The character (a former actor on a mid-2000s procedural, echoing McCarthy’s recurring role on Prison Break) conceals the real ways his failures at fatherhood continue to bother him. Matt casually brushes off these paternal inadequacies, though he always seems to search for answers about what to do, even if those answers come from a high schooler. McCarthy is the movie’s secret weapon, its beating heart and soul — which makes it all the more viscerally impactful when Matt’s comments towards Sam begin skirting the line of appropriateness.

Good One is an unexpected gut punch.

For Sam, who’s nearing the end of high school, navigating the world in the long run means being exposed to it first, then living outside of the comforts and confines of home. This risky adventure is given literal form by Donaldson’s setting: the great outdoors, where practically any scenario could arise when strangers are nearby.

Sam may exist in close proximity to Chris’ protective shadow, but a tragic part of the story is her discovery that this, too, has its limits. No character in the film, not Matt nor any of the young men they come across, has any particularly sinister aura, but the film’s sense of looming unease is born from brief moments and stray dialogue that makes Sam (and the audience) question the intent of other characters, without ever providing answers.

This functions as a kind of filmic plausible deniability, and allows any and every character to simply resume their regular, friendly status quo as though nothing out of the ordinary has happened. And to them, this is indeed the case, whereas to Sam, something definitely has happened. Meanwhile, the plot and dialogue constantly poke and prod at Sam’s sense of equilibrium. That nothing happens in terms of overt genre or thriller flourishes is precisely the point, because the phantom possibilities are unnerving all on their own. From there on out, it becomes a question of who in the film, including Sam herself, will take those emergent possibilities into consideration, and how this will affect the rest of the trip — an unfortunate question she not only needs to ask, but has answered for her in the process.  

Good One is ultimately a dialogue-heavy film about a culture of silence. It’s akin to Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding in that regard, though it lives at the far opposite end of the cinematic spectrum, unfolding quietly and unassumingly, and sans overt confrontation, until things finally boil over in ways that can’t help but strain even the most pleasant relationships. Its intensity is born not from what happens but the possibility of what could, and the question of whether or not that possibility is enough to change one’s perception of other people, and of the harshness of the world at large. 

Sam is essentially forced to come of age before our eyes when witnessing this harshness firsthand. She’s not only exposed to the failures and insecurities of two father figures, but to their indifference to her lived experience in a way that pierces the veil of childhood safety and comfort. Few experiences are more jarring. Donaldson’s deft direction ensures that by the end of the film, much like Sam, we also feel our sense of trust has been shaken as we emerge into the real world.

Good One opens in theaters Aug. 9.

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Season 3 of “Industry” takes big risks and reaps big rewards, cementing its spot as our next HBO Sunday night obsession.

Industry‘s cocktail of business dealings, sex, and drugs has earned it comparisons to Succession, Billions, Euphoria, and Skins. But in its third season, it’s never been clearer that Industry is doing its own thing.

That’s because Season 3 of Industry is the show in experimentation mode. Flashbacks are on the table now, supporting characters get more of a spotlight, and the scope has never been larger. Co-creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay pull references from everywhere from Uncut Gems and the films of Michael Mann to Barry Lyndon and A Room with a View, creating episodes that vary in tone but never lose the frenetic energy that makes Industry tick. The risks of constantly playing with a show’s formula may not always pay off (looking at you, The Bear Season 3), but for Industry, whose characters live on risky choices and shifting alliances, this approach proves absolutely perfect.

What’s Industry Season 3 about?

Of course, the risks Industry characters take often end them up in hot water. Take Harper Stern (Myha’la, Leave the World Behind), whose forged college transcript in Season 1 led to her firing from fictional investment bank Pierpoint & Co. at the end of Season 2. Hungry to stay in the game by whatever means possible, Harper’s now taken an assistant role at investment fund FutureDawn. And while she finds the job — and FutureDawn’s focus on ethical investment — mind-numbing, she also discovers a potential new ally in cutthroat portfolio manager Petra Koenig (Sarah Goldberg, Barry).

Harper may roll her eyes at ethical investing, but over at Pierpoint, it’s all the rage. Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela, Back to Black), taking over Harper’s old role, is working alongside Eric Tao (Ken Leung, Lost) and Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey, Joker: Folie À Deux) on the IPO of buzzy green energy company Lumi, headed by untested (yet very rich) Lumi CEO Sir Henry Muck (Kit Harington, Game of Thrones). Whether anyone at Pierpoint actually believes in Lumi’s mission or the “ethical” aspect of ethical investing is something Industry takes razor-sharp delight in skewering, just as the show tackled COVID-19 profiteers in Season 2.

This being Industry, it’s not long before the personal and professional clash in spectacular fashion. Lumi’s IPO comes at a fraught time for almost every member of Pierpoint. Yasmin has become tabloid fodder following her father Charles’ (Adam Levy, The Witcher) embezzlement scandal; Robert is reeling following an unexpected loss; and Eric’s recent separation has led him down a road of sex, drugs, and poor managerial decisions. Honestly, Harper should be thanking her lucky stars she’s not at Pierpoint anymore — although that certainly won’t stop her from re-entering the fray in unexpected ways.

Industry embraces the chaos in Season 3, with thrilling results.

Industry‘s new focus on ethical investing and the addition of characters like Petra and Henry prove its commitment to expanding season by season. That commitment is evident on a formal level, too. Yes, you’ll still get juicy personal drama and high-speed trading-floor chatter. But you’ll often be served these Industry staples in new ways. Flashbacks to Yasmin’s time on a boat with her father add an intriguing mystery element to the season, and an episode focused entirely on Rishi Ramdani (Sagar Radia) adds necessary depth to an oft-sidelined character, all while raising the bar on just how stressful Industry can be. (Seriously, you’ve seen nothing yet.)

As Industry kicks itself into higher gear, so too does its ensemble cast. Myha’la, Abela, and Lawtey remain three anchor-solid leads, playing the complicated feelings of friendship and competitiveness between this trio with as much pathos as cutthroat instinct. Goldberg and Harington are fun additions, too: Goldberg’s sharpness as Petra perfectly complements Myha’la’s as Harper, while Harington’s Muck hides layers of sleaze and manipulation under the guise of “being vulnerable.”

But it’s Leung’s Eric who feels the most like Industry‘s rotten core in Season 3. Separated from his wife but newly made partner, Eric’s whole identity is Pierpoint, Pierpoint, Pierpoint — with a side of midlife crisis. As he gets back into drugs — “I haven’t done blow since 9/11,” he reveals in the premiere — and casual sex, it’s almost as if we’re watching him return to his early days at the bank. He would have fit right in with the hard-partying grads in Season 1, with the small caveat that he’s still their boss. It’s fascinating to watch Eric try to recapture that youth and the “relentlessness” he ties to his masculinity, with Leung often playing him like a just barely contained explosion.

Yet even as Eric and every other member of Industry‘s cast throw their entire beings into their work, there’s always the chance that it could chew them up and spit them out at the slightest wrong move. Of course, there’s also the chance that it could reward them and make them richer than rich. That atmosphere of high-risk, high-reward decision-making, complemented by high-risk, high-reward television-making, makes watching Industry a high of its own. It’s brutal, it’s intoxicating, and it’s never been better.

Industry Season 3 premieres Aug. 11 at 9 p.m. ET on HBO and Max, with new episodes weekly.

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Answers to each clue for the August 9, 2024 edition of NYT’s The Mini crossword puzzle.

The Mini is a bite-sized version of The New York Times‘ revered daily crossword. While the crossword is a lengthier experience that requires both knowledge and patience to complete, The Mini is an entirely different vibe.

With only a handful of clues to answer, the daily puzzle doubles as a speed-running test for many who play it.

So, when a tricky clue disrupts a player’s flow, it can be frustrating! If you find yourself stumped playing The Mini — much like with Wordle and Connections — we have you covered.

Here are the clues and answers to NYT’s The Mini for Friday, August 9, 2024:

Across

Move like a kangaroo

The answer is hop.

Purple soda flavor

The answer is grape.

Bird used for sending messages on “House of the Dragon”

The answer is raven.

Oak tree-to-be

The answer is acorn.

What half-life measures, in nuclear physics

The answer is decay.

Down

Pandemonium

The answer is havoc.

Performance for a prima donna

The answer is opera.

Take a ___, leave a ___

The answer is penny.

Mortarboard wearer

The answer is grad.

A dash is a short one

The answer is race.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.

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The NYT Strands hints and answers you need to make the most of your puzzling experience.

If you’re reading this, you’re looking for a little help playing Strands, the New York Times‘ elevated word-search game.

By providing an opaque hint and not providing the word list, Strands creates a brain-teasing game that takes a little longer to play than its other games, like Wordle and Connections.

If you’re feeling stuck or just don’t have 10 or more minutes to figure out today’s puzzle, we’ve got all the NYT Strands hints for today’s puzzle you need to progress at your preferred pace.

NYT Strands hint for today’s theme: Back to nature

The hint for the theme is that scouts are great at each of these things.

Today’s NYT Strands theme plainly explained

The answers are related to outdoor activities.

NYT Strands spangram hint: Is it vertical or horizontal?

Today’s NYT Strands spangram is horizontal.

NYT Strands spangram answer today

Today’s spangram is Outdoorsy.

NYT Strands word list for August 9

Fish

Swim

Camp

Outdoorsy

Birdwatch

Forage

Stargaze

Hike

Looking for other daily online games? Find one you might like – or hints for another game you’re already playing – on Mashable’s Games page.

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Enjoy global streaming with a lifetime BitMar subscription, on sale for £15.69 (reg. £117.73).

TL;DR: Discover BitMar, the all-in-one streaming platform that offers access to movies, TV shows, live channels, music, and more entertainment from around the world. Get a lifetime subscription on sale for £15.69 (reg. £117.73).

If you’re tired of paying insane prices for all your subscriptions, there’s a better option to streamline your streaming experience with just one platform.

BitMar is your one-stop destination for everything entertainment, and a lifetime subscription is on sale for £15.69 (reg. £117.73). You’ll have endless access to movies, TV shows, live channels, and music from around the world — all from a single platform.

BitMar has more than 200,000 on-demand channels, letting you explore thousands of titles from different genres and languages, so there’s something for everyone. Whether you’re a movie buff, a TV series binge-watcher, or a music enthusiast, BitMar has got you covered. Plus, with live channels, you can stay updated with news, sports, and events in real time.

Not only does BitMar give you access to movies and TV shows from around the world in one convenient platform, but it also offers a user-friendly experience that can be used by kids and adults alike. No more switching apps or searching endlessly for what you want to watch.

The best part? It’s a lifetime deal, so you won’t have to worry about recurring monthly fees. Enjoy seamless access to a vast library of entertainment without the hassle of multiple subscriptions. 

Regularly £117.73, get a lifetime subscription to the BitMar all-in-one streaming platform on sale for £15.69.

StackSocial prices subject to change.

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Here’s the answer for “Wordle” #1147 on August 9, as well as a few hints, tips, and clues to help you solve it yourself.

Oh hey there! If you’re here, it must be time for Wordle. As always, we’re serving up our daily hints and tips to help you figure out today’s answer.

If you just want to be told today’s word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for August 9’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

Where did Wordle come from?

Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once. 

Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.

Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Wordle.

What’s the best Wordle starting word?

The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.

What happened to the Wordle archive?

The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles used to be available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it. Unfortunately, it has since been taken down, with the website’s creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times.

Is Wordle getting harder?

It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn’t any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle‘s Hard Mode if you’re after more of a challenge, though.

Here’s a subtle hint for today’s Wordle answer:

A unit of measurement.

Does today’s Wordle answer have a double letter?

There are no reoccurring letters.

Today’s Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…

Today’s Wordle starts with the letter O.

The Wordle answer today is…

Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.

Drumroll please!

The solution to today’s Wordle is…

OUNCE.

Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.

Reporting by Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.

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Connections is a New York Times word game that’s all about finding the “common threads between words.” How to solve the puzzle.

Connections is the latest New York Times word game that’s captured the public’s attention. The game is all about finding the “common threads between words.” And just like Wordle, Connections resets after midnight and each new set of words gets trickier and trickier—so we’ve served up some hints and tips to get you over the hurdle.

If you just want to be told today’s puzzle, you can jump to the end of this article for August 9’s Connections solution. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.

What is Connections?

The NYT‘s latest daily word game has become a social media hit. The Times credits associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu with helping to create the new word game and bringing it to the publications’ Games section. Connections can be played on both web browsers and mobile devices and require players to group four words that share something in common.

Tweet may have been deleted

Each puzzle features 16 words and each grouping of words is split into four categories. These sets could comprise of anything from book titles, software, country names, etc. Even though multiple words will seem like they fit together, there’s only one correct answer. If a player gets all four words in a set correct, those words are removed from the board. Guess wrong and it counts as a mistake—players get up to four mistakes until the game ends.

Tweet may have been deleted

Players can also rearrange and shuffle the board to make spotting connections easier. Additionally, each group is color-coded with yellow being the easiest, followed by green, blue, and purple. Like Wordle, you can share the results with your friends on social media.

Here’s a hint for today’s Connections categories

Want a hit about the categories without being told the categories? Then give these a try:

Yellow: Missing

Green: #1 fan

Blue: Rock music

Purple: Ways to shock someone

Here are today’s Connections categories

Need a little extra help? Today’s connections fall into the following categories:

Yellow: Not Present

Green: Supporter

Blue: Rock Genres

Purple: Shock___

Looking for Wordle today? Here’s the answer to today’s Wordle.

Ready for the answers? This is your last chance to turn back and solve today’s puzzle before we reveal the solutions.

Drumroll, please!

The solution to today’s Connections #425 is…

What is the answer to Connections today

Not Present: ABSENT, ELSEWHERE, GONE, MIA

Supporter: ADVOCATE, CHAMPION, CHEERLEADER, EXPONENT

Rock Genres: GLAM, GOTH, METAL, PUNK

Shock___: HORROR, JOCK, VALUE, WAVE

Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be new Connections for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints.

Is this not the Connections game you were looking for? Here are the hints and answers to yesterday’s Connections.

Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.

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Reviewed by a gamer: Eli Roth’s take on the popular “Borderlands” video game series is woefully out of touch with things such as “comedy” and “action.”

Everything about Eli Roth’s Borderlands feels at least a decade out of time. From a sense of humor plucked straight out of Reddit circa 2011 to a cast made up of actors who are inexplicably decades older than the characters they portray, every second left me — a fan of the first two games in this franchise — wondering how and why the hell it exists in 2024.

With an ensemble cast featuring Academy Award–winners Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis, along with comedy stars Kevin Hart and Jack Black, plus a director whose name is recognizable (if nothing else), Borderlands theoretically brings a level of prestige that many other video game adaptations haven’t had. But theory and practice are two different things, and when it comes to the latter, Borderlands is an adaptation that’s equal parts miserable and unnecessary.

Put a different way: Sometimes a video game should stay a video game.

What is Borderlands about?

Our journey begins with the generic, straight-man soldier Roland (Hart) joining forces with the unstable juggernaut Krieg (Florian Munteanu, a German boxer who I just learned also goes by “Big Nasty”) to rescue a very special young woman named Tina (Barbie‘s Ariana Greenblatt) from a prison cell on an exploding space station. The trio makes their way down to the rough desert planet of Pandora, known for its lawless wastes full of would-be treasure hunters searching for a rumored ancient alien vault that has a special connection to Tina.

It turns out that Tina is the daughter of the villainous corporate overlord Atlas (Édgar Ramírez), whose elite Crimson Lance paramilitary squad previously employed Roland. Atlas employs the merciless bounty hunter Lilith (Blanchett) to track down Tina and bring her back into his clutches. But maybe 15 minutes of screen time later, Lilith teams up with Roland, Krieg, and Tina to find the vault, hoping to use what is inside to stop Atlas’ plan for dominance.

Oh, and Jack Black is here lending his voice as Claptrap, the “lovable” robot who more or less acts as the franchise’s mascot. He is very annoying, which is accurate to the games, I suppose.

Please just shut up for two minutes.

Narratively speaking, Borderlands is a bit of an odd amalgamation of the first two games. Roland and Lilith hail from the first game, while Krieg and Tina debuted in its sequel. Atlas is an original character for the film who sort of fills the same “evil murder CEO” role as Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2, but with all the charisma of a guy hosting an airline safety video. I’d estimate that he’s on screen for a total of 10 minutes, at most.

The measly bits of plot and character development that do exist in Borderlands are only in service of justifying aggravating, banter-filled exchanges in between action sequences. In this respect, Borderlands is accurate to the source material; the big joke among every gamer I know is that you should play the games with the dialogue muted. 

Its mercifully short 102-minute runtime somehow puts Borderlands at a disadvantage, because absolutely nothing is given time to breathe. Nearly every joke consists of hastily farted-out one-liners that are shockingly easy to miss at times, though I would argue you’re not really missing anything. One of the only gags that’s given any time to shine is an uncomfortably long shot of Claptrap pooping bullets.

This is a movie that thinks “badonkadonk,” a term that has been in the pop culture lexicon for at least 22 years, is a really funny thing to say in 2024. According to Borderlands, the most hilarious and twisted thing in the world is a teenage girl who uses curse words and shoots people with guns. That was kind of funny when I was 14 and Kick-Ass was in theaters, but not anymore.

I can tell you that I chuckled precisely once during the entire film, when the nearly mute Krieg belts out a spirited “THANK YOU!” after being called handsome. It’s one of the only lines delivered with sincere enthusiasm, and I appreciated that.

Borderlands suffers, above all else, from an extreme lack of silence. Every moment of it is jacked up to 11 without so much as a brief pause, almost as if Roth knew that letting audiences think for a second or two about what they just heard might prompt them to get up and do anything else with their lives. By the end, I badly wished everyone would just shut the hell up.

I didn’t know Cate Blanchett could be bad.

It’s not easy for any actor to save a script that might qualify as a war crime, but nobody in Borderlands is trying that hard to do so. Hart is strangely cast as a comedy straight man, only rarely doing the exuberant, exasperated fast-talking that has long been his signature. Curtis, to her credit, brings enjoyable quirky aunt vibes as the crew’s archaeologist Tannis, but her character is such an afterthought that it doesn’t really matter.

Black’s high-pitched wailing as Claptrap is at least faithful to the games, if not very fun to listen to. Munteanu doesn’t have to do much other than be burly and occasionally grunt out monosyllabic words as Krieg, who is honestly my favorite character because he barely talks.

Blanchett’s turn as Lilith deserves special mention here, though, because it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her phone in such a terrible performance. She probably has the most dialogue in the movie, and almost none of it is delivered in a convincing manner. Acting is more than just line delivery, of course, but all of her reads are so wooden and stilted that it’s genuinely distracting from the start.

I get it. If I were an accomplished thespian, I wouldn’t feel excited about this material either. It doesn’t make for a great viewing experience though. While this doesn’t necessarily impact their performances, I’ll also point out that Blanchett, Hart, and especially Curtis are all substantially older than the characters they’re playing are in the games. Everyone feels out of place.

The moment when I realized what I was in for was when Borderlands made it clear that Greenblatt’s Tiny Tina is the most important character in the story. If you don’t know, Tiny Tina is famously one of the most obnoxious characters in video game history. Her whole schtick in the games is “little girl who loves explosives and speaks in AAVE,” and that’s kept largely intact here.

To be fair, it isn’t really Greenblatt’s fault that Tiny Tina is as exasperating as she is. The material demands that she be really brash and abrasive, while also delivering lines that would make Shakespeare regret his contributions to this English language. I don’t hold Tiny Tina’s presence in this movie against Greenblatt, but rather against the people who created the character in 2012 in the first place.

Furio-sucks

The Borderlands games are primarily about shooting guns, so naturally, the Borderlands movie has a bunch of action sequences in it. None of them are the slightest bit novel or interesting. Not one.

Maddeningly, the film is rated PG-13 despite the games very much warranting an R rating. This means any opportunities for the kinds of fun, nonsensical violence you see in the games are neutered before they can even begin. Every gunfight consists of shots of our heroes trying to look cool while shooting guns, interspersed with shots of literally faceless and nameless bandits just sorta bloodlessly falling over.

There’s no physicality or kineticism to these scenes, as you might see in a competent action movie like John Wick. The movie’s few pathetic attempts at interesting fight choreography are obscured by poor lighting or frantic cuts. There is one single moment where it seems like Lilith might kill a bad guy in the way that would get people to jump out of their seats in a better movie, but you can’t actually see it because it’s in the middle of a flashing strobe light sequence, for no apparent reason.

Possibly the most confusing decision Roth made was completely leaving out the weird guns that permeate the Borderlands games. One of the big selling points from the first game onward was that you can find guns that turn into throwable grenades when they run out of ammo, or release a human scream when you fire, or coat enemies in acid, or a million other fun variables. Some of the guns in the film look unusual, but they all just fire regular bullets. Come on!

Borderlands‘ greatest sin as an action movie might be the fact that its setting is extremely reminiscent of Mad Max, and its late-summer release is just a couple of months after the tremendous Furiosa‘s Cannes premiere. Tossing aside the fact that Furiosa is a prodigious and elegiac meditation on actual themes, it’s also a highly accomplished car chase movie that was directed with a deft hand by genre master George Miller.

Eli Roth is not George Miller, and Borderlands is not Furiosa. There’s one major car chase scene in the first half of the film that is so embarrassing in comparison to Furiosa (or Fury Road, or any other Mad Max movie) that I would not have let it see the light of day were I Eli Roth. It’s a mess of genuinely awful-looking CGI vomit, with green-screen shots so obviously fake that you could almost convince me they were a bit, if only they appeared in a more clever movie. 

There’s no sense of danger in these sequences. Plus, it’s impossible to tell where any vehicles are in relation to other vehicles, and the whole thing ends with the heroes being covered in worm piss. In that moment, the audience can relate.

The lesson here is that if George Miller is about to release another masterpiece, maybe get your own crappy desert action movie well out of the way so nobody thinks to compare the two.

A Borderlands movie came 10 years too late.

While developer Gearbox has continued making Borderlands games over the last decade (with great financial success), I and many of my gaming cohorts have long felt that its time to shine ended somewhere around 2014. 

In 2009, the first game stood out because it melded role-playing mechanics with first-person shooting that felt good — something that hadn’t really been done before at that scale. It also had a unique art style and a sense of humor, both of which went a long way in an era dominated by bland Call of Duty knock-offs. The 2012 sequel was more of the same, but the formula was still worthwhile, and I had a fun time with it. However, my sense of humor evolved well past the dated pop culture and internet meme references that plagued those games. And plenty of other RPG/shooter hybrids came out in the last decade that negated the uniqueness of Borderlands. 

It’s unbelievably vexing, then, that anyone decided to make Borderlands into a movie in the 2020s. Game adaptations always, by necessity, lose the kinds of player-driven interactivity that make video games, well, video games. Sometimes the game in question has enough going for it to cover for that, but Borderlands does not. It is a series that made sense at a specific point in time entirely due to the circumstances surrounding it. 

When you remove the fun co-op gunplay and build the whole thing out of irritating jokes, you get one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years. Congratulations to all involved for somehow making a movie that feels way too much like Borderlands without being very much like Borderlands in any of the ways that matter at all.

Borderlands is now in theaters.

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