Rating of
1/4
"Rollerball" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 09/13/15
A young up and coming sports star is tempted by money and fame to compete in an extreme sport called Rollerball that is becoming popular in Asia. Although never considered a true classic, the original Rollerball is a well respected part of the 1970s sci fi canon featuring a thoughtful story of the triumph of individual action in the face of fascist corporate oppression. John McTiernan's woeful remake is nothing more than a ESPN clip show with absolutely no attempt at intelligence or insight, instead preferring to show a collection of underwear models hitting each other while roller skating to a horribly dated MTV sound track. The script makes some feeble attempt to make a point about the corruption of sport by big money, but transposing the story from a dystopian future to modern day Russia was a truly terrible idea, as was including a no name and uniformly awful cast, making the sport itself nothing but a fancy dress version of a level of Tony Hawk's on the PS1 and filming an entire extended chase sequence through faux night vision goggles. Preferring macho violence and female nudity to any semblance of a plot, it's badly written, badly directed, badly edited and badly acted. Basically, Rollerball single handedly ended John (Die Hard/Predator/The Hunt For Red October) McTiernan's career; it's really that bad.
