Rollerball Review
by Eugene Novikov (lordeugene_98 AT yahoo DOT com)April 1st, 2002
Rollerball (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Starring Chris Klein, LL Cool J, Jean Reno, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. Directed by John McTiernan. Rated PG-13.
Near the top of the list of Questions I'd Like Answered is why John McTiernan has forsaken us. The guy did Predator, the Die Hard Trilogy -- three wonderful films of which he directed two -- and The Hunt for Red October. He then followed up with two stunning mediocrities -- The Thirteenth Warrior -- and now Rollerball which, if there is still hope, will be the nadir of a career that has seemed to be steadily declining. It's a remake of a movie that no one much liked in the first place (though I personally thought that the Norman Jewison flick of the same name was a neat little futuristic satire), and it has turned the slightly banal into the nearly unwatchable. Everyone's heard the stories of the arguments and conflicts Rollerball faced during production, but how could an established, respected director have let his project get this far out of hand?
It is the year 2005, and down-on-his-luck hockey player Jonathan Cross can't get a contract with a professional franchise. His best buddy (LL Cool J) suggests that Cross go to Europe and join in the latest sports craze on the continent, a newfangled, ultraviolent stunt sport called "Rollerball," where wildly disguised team members attempt to knock the crap out of each other while skating around a maze-like rink and attempting to get a heavy metal ball into a goal located above the track. Do not hold me to this explanation, as the film's mish-mash editing made it difficult, if not impossible, to tell exactly what the hell is going on at any given moment.
Cross becomes a star, makes plenty of money and gets his choice of women. But he gradually learns that -- gasp! -- there is an underside to Rollerball that is considerably darker than the great time he is having would suggest. It seems that the honcho behind the game, the man who rakes in the cash, is rigging the events, setting his players up to fall violently to boost the television ratings. We know that violence boosts ratings, you see, because the producers have a convenient Instant Rating-O-Meter (or something like that) that gives them the worldwide viewership at any given moment, and the second someone's head is taken off, the number skyrockets. Funny how that works.
The plot is simplicity itself, and yet Rollerball doesn't make any sense. Entire scenes seem incongruous. Plot points are introduced only to be immediately thrown out the window. The simplest action sequences are inexplicably rendered incomprehensible because McTiernan could neither keep the camera in one place or move it around with any rhyme or reason. I suspect that most of the "Rollerball" footage that was shot wasn't even scene-specific, and was then spliced together in the editing room however it would fit.
McTiernan fares better with the more straightforward stuff; I admit I liked the bizarre run-to-the-border sequence filmed entirely in NightVision. We sense that had the entire movie been as coherent as that one scene, we may have had something worthwhile. I tend to like both Chris Klein and LL Cool J, but they don't hide the fact that they are embarrassed to be here, and if they aren't, they should be. Jean Reno, meanwhile, is becoming the new Christopher Lloyd; a talented actor never given a real role.
I'm probably putting too much blame on the director. This plays like one of those projects in which the studio snatched away creative control in a desperate attempt to capitalize on an earlier success -- in this case, the culprit is the vastly superior The Fast and the Furious, which ran away with the box-office more than a year ago. It doesn't much matter who is responsible. They say that even bad movies are made by people who love movies. Rollerball is possibly the most purely commercial effort I have ever seen. It may have begun with good intentions, but no actual filmmaking made it to the screen.
Grade: D+
Up Next: Big Fat Liar
©2002 Eugene Novikov
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
