“Why?” is the one question that will repeat in your head if you decide to endure the painful experience of “Rollerball,” the new sci-fi-action movie that stars Chris Klein, LL Cool J and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in an update of the 1975 James Caan movie of the same name. Never saw or heard of the original? There’s a reason for that. Based on a short story and screenplay by William Harrison, the newer Rollerball is set in a contemporary world where people across the globe tune in to their TV sets to watch different teams battle each other in a game that looks something like a cross between hockey, the X-Games and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Starlight Express. The players all enjoy the celebrity the game brings them until people start accidentally dying in the arena when the owners realize more violence equals higher ratings. Now, the trailer made all this look allegedly entertaining: bad acting, terrible dialogue, tacky costumes, and unrealistic action sequences. And while the movie comes through on all points, it makes the fatal mistake of taking itself seriously. All the actors play their parts without the smallest hint of irony. The costume designers really seem to think that wearing roller blades with leather and tutus is incredibly hip. The writer actually thought his campy sport and lack of plot could translate into serious social commentary.
Confused? So was everyone leaving the theatre. This review could continue on forever about what a waste of time this movie is, but instead here are some quick highlights of Rollerball’s most intense moments of truly bad movie making:
•The Announcer. An unattractive guy with a pony tail yells out the details of each game. It’s bad enough having to hear his dialogue, but the director decides you have to look at him too.
•The Music. Instead of using the usual loud, catchy, bubble-gum soundtrack to drown out the bad dialogue, Rollerball uses an in-stadium band that looks like it should be accompanying Cirque du Soleil and sounds like a bad glam rock album. Like the announcer, you have to actually see the band and, again, long hair dominates.
•The Makeup. Chris Klein’s lips are so pink and his eyes are so thickly lined, it looks like he just walked away from a MAC makeup counter.
•Night Vision. An entire nighttime escape sequence is filmed in that green tinted night vision. It looks kind of cool for a second. Then it goes on. And on. And on. For about twenty minutes. The movie is already boring enough, but staring at a screen that is essentially one color for no reason makes it hard to stay awake.
•Violence. The director most likely knew this movie would be a little thin on the content end of things. Usually this is where a lot of flashy style and editing come into play. However, the director probably also realized halfway though that this movie looks about as cool as a Vanilla Ice music video. This is right about where things start to get incredibly violent. Not fake, funny, stunt double violence. Really explicit, angry beating, cutting, throwing, punching, bloody violence.
The only time anyone in the audience even laughed at the movie was when Aurora (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) tells Jonathan (Chris Klein), “Stop, before you say anything more stupid.” The dramatic irony is so unintentional it’s embarrassing. Overall decision: wait a couple years and maybe watch Rollerball when you accidentally come across it at 3 a.m. on a bad cable channel. D- (A D+ if your sexual orientation gets a kick out of all the topless shots of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.)
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
