Rollerball

2002 "Get in the game."
3.1| 1h38m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 08 February 2002 Released
Producted By: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

In this fast action-packed thriller, Jonathan, Marcus, and Aurora compete in a dangerous, fierce sport called Rollerball. Although, Johnathan and Marcus try to quit, cruel and vindictive promoter Alexi Petrovich encourages them to still participate.

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Director

John McTiernan

Production Companies

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

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Rollerball Audience Reviews

Diagonaldi Very well executed
Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.
Konterr Brilliant and touching
Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!
jan-van-ruyskensvelde One point for Romijn's boobs. The rest is awfull. The end.
puzleboy1214 Yet another pointless hack job of a "remake". What they did to the "plot" is simple inexcusable. The original is a classic that successfully incorporates adrenaline pumping violence and competition, social and political commentary, and ultimately the indomitable will of one man (and by proxy, mankind).The remake is "Oh, look! LL Cool J on a bike! WHEEEEEEE! VROOM VROOM!".
Neil Welch There was me thinking John McTiernan knew what he was up to.This film is a mess.The story is familiar and clichéd but, even so, the telling of it is muddled.Rollerball itself, potentially exciting, is hopelessly confusing and pointless.The script is slightly less useful than waste paper.Rebecca Romijn-Stamos looks good.Chris Klein, looking very like Keanu Reeves, proves to be a good deal less expressive. The lad has shown himself to be tolerable in an ensemble piece, but he can't carry an action movie on his own due to a complete absence of charisma.Poor.
BA_Harrison A good friend of mine, and fellow rabid film fan, said he would give me a tenner (£10) if I honestly felt that Rollerball was worth a score higher than 1/10; as much as I need the cash, I just can't bring myself to lie. Rollerball is absolutely dire and truly deserves the lowest rating possible.A muddled, unexciting piece of drivel from the word go, John McTiernan's lousy remake of Norman Jewison's 70s cult favourite is every inch as bad as you have probably heard. Perpetually-perplexed-looking Chris Klein is unwisely cast as Jonathan (portrayed by James Caan in the original), a thrill junkie who is convinced by good friend Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J) to try his hand at Rollerball, a dangerous team sport played in Russia and its neighbouring countries.The evil men controlling the sport, led by Alexis Petrovich (Jean Reno), are corrupt gangsters who will trade players lives in order to boost their ratings. But a brave American citizen like Jonathan isn't about to kowtow to the demands of nasty foreigners, and sets about upsetting the applecart.To be honest, there are so many reasons to despise this movie, I really do not know where to start. I guess as good a place as any would be with director McTiernan, who seems to have lost all ability to make a decent film. This is the man who redefined the action movie in the 80s with Die Hard. He also proved he could do a decent remake with The Thomas Crown Affair. So what the hell happened here?His Rollerball is unexciting, glossy toss that makes the mistake of pandering to the teen crowd. As a result, we get a pretty boy lead 'actor' (Klein makes Keanu Reeves look like Olivier), a rapper playing support, an ex-model (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) as the love interest, and even an inexplicable appearance by noise-merchants Slipknot. The script treats the viewer with contempt, making no attempt to explain the titular game, rendering the action scenes meaningless. If we have no idea of the rules of the sport, how the hell can we get excited about it?Visually the film is even worse: the 'roller dome'—the arena in which Jonathan is king (despite constantly looking as if he is about to wet himself)—resembles a kids activity area rather than a tough battlefield; the players, dressed in shiny PVC, look like they're off to an S&M party; and for some reason an entire chase scene is shot viewed though some kind of night-vision goggles.The acting ranges from poor (Reno, Romijn-Stamos) to very poor (Klein, rapidly becoming my most hated actor, and LL Cool J).Gone is the bone-crunching realistic violence of the original film; in McTiernan's version of the sport, it seems that no-one is supposed to get hurt—if they do get injured, it's because of their unscrupulous bosses and their money-grabbing ways. Gone is the futuristic setting—this one is supposed to be in the here and now! And gone is any respect I had for JohnMcTiernan.