Rollerball
1/2
Cinema Releases - June 28, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
98 minutes. Directed by John McTiernan. Written by Larry Ferguson, John Pogue;
based on the short story and 1975 screenplay by William Harrison. Starring
Chris Klein, Jean Reno, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, Naveen
Andrews.
There is a ringside announcer in
"Rollerball" who begins to explain things for us, only to give
up and declare, "Well, the rest of the rules are in Russian and complicated,
so there you go." Uh, huh.
This is a movie that announces its laziness. It
is such an incomprehensible mess that it feels less like bad cinema than
like being stuck in a dark pit having a nightmare about bad cinema. Here's
another great line: "We got a box in the box! They put their box in the box!"
I feel like my notes are staring up at me with puppy-dog eyes, yearning to
be deciphered.
The funny thing is that the original "Rollerball"
(1975) is a film that begs to be remade. Its scenes of a violent fictional
sport came from clever planning and contained splashes of memorable imagery.
Its story was intended as a warning about civilian ignorance helping the
tide of corporate feudalism, and such cautionary tales are always plenty
welcome in my book. The problem was in the handling: Norman Jewison, normally
a good director, didn't exploit the visceral promise of the imagery he was
filming, and ended up with an overlong parable of boring
smugness.
Perhaps I should have been grateful for good
intentions, because the new film is junk. Junk, junk, junk, junk, junk. Boring
junk. Noisy junk. Ugly and formless junk. Junk. John McTiernan is another
director who has given us good pictures -- he made "Die Hard" and "Hunt for
Red October" -- but his version of "Rollerball" is the equivalent of a promising
employee taking a dive from the 27th floor. There is no way to get involved
in this thing, which doesn't take a stab at characterisation, structure,
clarity or tone.
The film takes place in near-future Eastern Europe,
where hordes of fans gather to watch teams skate around a metal track and
throw small, fast-moving metal balls into magnetised little holes. Some of
the players have scooters, most of them have bad tempers, and the real reason
crowds flock to Rollerball is to see its eruptions of violence. Early in
the film, a player gets attacked because his helmet falls off and a rival
athlete takes advantage of the opportunity to whack him upside the head with
a hockey stick. Cue about ten instant replays.
The star player of Rollerball is Jonathan (a role
filled by James Caan in the original film, by baby-faced Chris Klein here),
who senses that something is amiss with the injuries that are occurring and
decides he's going to do some investigating. This involves running around
whatever city this movie is set in and shouting, "Something's up! I dunno!"
Thankfully there's a video player in the locker room, and a sexpot teammate
played by Rebecca Romjin-Stamos has a tape answering all Jonathan's questions.
Seems there's been some sneaky manipulation from the men upstairs -- evil
suits including Jean Reno, who have been maiming and killing their players
to boost ratings and secure a North American cable deal.
Much of "Rollerball" is taken up by the game itself,
of which no sense is made. The camera clumsily swishes leftish, rightish
and aroundish from far overhead, in between slamming into fleeting extreme
close-ups and cutting to stages and screens featuring cameo appearances by
rock stars like Pink and Slipknot. This is interspersed with a box full of
silently gloating executives and meaningless shots of guys counting money
real fast in a backroom.
The climax involves a half-hour shot of Klein
and LL Cool J riding through snow on a moped, their voices muffled by engine
sounds, their faces obscured by a weird green filter that looks like the
nightshot facility on my camcorder. I am not kidding.
At the very end, there are a few functional images
involving toppling whitey -- specifically, Klein stopping a Rollerball match,
the crowd cheering him on and toppling a few garbage cans, and Romjin-Stamos
telling him, "You've started a revolution!" But this film is meaningless
corporate crap itself. What does it have to teach us, except that it's a
good idea to take aspirin to the cinema?
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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