ROLLERBALL
  
STARRING: Chris
Klein, Jean Reno, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Naveen Andrews
2002, 98 Minutes, Directed by: John McTiernan
 This
is a remake of a 1975 movie of the same name that starred James Caan. In this
2002 remake, a scaly entrepreneur named Petrovich, who is of vague East European
extraction, hosts the dangerous future sport of the same name. Jean Reno of
Godzilla and The Professional fame plays Petrovich. Reno is actually French of
course. Oh well. In the original Rollerball, huge
faceless corporations to keep the masses docile hosted the sport. All Petrovich
wants is a contract with a major American television station . . .
Not to worry. Ratings for the TV broadcasts are tallied in real-time. Ratings
shoot up dramatically when people tune in to watch anything dramatic that is
happening – a bit like people who like watching car races for the crashes, I
suppose. How this happens is never explained. Don’t people settle on what they
are going to watch beforehand – and if there is something more exciting on
another TV channel, then how do they know when to switch over to that channel?
People don’t actually phone one another when they watch something good on TV.
“Hey, check out the violent rollerball game on seven.” Or do they?
A
lot things are never explained. Like (most irksome) why the lead hero never
bothers strapping his helmet to his head during a game. At one point he knows
that members of an opposing team is out to get him, so he wears a spine
protector (whatever that is), but he doesn’t bother tying the straps on his
helmet!
Naturally, these rollerball games aren’t legal, so they are held in various
former Soviet bloc countries instead of the States or Europe. Note the sarcasm
in my voice: I don’t think cheaper shooting costs had anything to do with this.
At the end of the movie, the American all-star hero of the game incites the
masses watching to revolution! I kid you not! “Thanks to the good-looking
American sports hero we have seen the light!” I can imagine them saying.
“Capitalism has failed us! So, it’s back to communism for us!”
Speaking of which, Chris Klein plays said idol of the sport-watching masses
dumped into poverty because of World Bank policy failures after the fall of the
Berlin Wall. Talk about miscasting! Klein’s character is supposed to be one bad
ass mother, but one look into those cuddly wuddly eyes of his and you know he’s
better suited for modeling Calvin Klein underwear. A better choice would have
been, um, a younger and swaggering James Caan I suppose.
The real problem with Rollerball isn’t all this ridiculousness however. Instead,
it is that its action sequences make no damned sense at all! I remember the
sport sequences in the original to be rather thrilling to watch. Here quick
editing destroys any semblance of flow and tension: in other words, we can’t
follow what the hell is going on! Instead, we have scenes of people flying
through the air on rollerblades accompanied by an annoyingly loud metal
soundtrack.
The original movie wasn’t all that great. It had some dull moments, but at least
one could see why anyone would want to watch the game of rollerball. In
addition, it made some points about how sport is the real opium of the masses.
As Umberto Eco said, you will never have a revolution during the Sunday
afternoon match. This remake exists for no clear reason at all. It doesn’t even
make sense and the action is dull and repetitive.
(See? I wrote the entire review without once complaining about how vacuous
today’s movies are compared to those made in the 1970s. Oops!)
|
