John McTiernan 2002: Rollerball

Go Ballistic

How can the man who directed  Die Hard, Predator  and The Hunt for Red October be responsible for this? If you thought The 13th Warrior was bad wait until you get a load of Rollerball. In 1999 John McTiernan directed a remake of the Norman Jewison film The Thomas Crown Affair with fairly positive results. In 2002 he once again remade a Norman Jewison film, this time the utterly terrible Rollerball.

I like John McTiernan. I do! After all he is responsible for three gerat modern classics of action cinema. He has a great style, a great sense of timing and is great with actors. But man oh man did he fail with this piece of drek. I'm gonna have to say that McTiernan must of been sick for the entire production of this movie for everything that he is good at is missing from this utter useless pile of garbage.

Big budget action films don't get much worse than Rollerball. Instead of a typical review I'm going to list the things that made this movie suck. But before I do I have to mention the only good thing about this movie, that being the cinematography. For the most part, Rollerball is phenomenally shot with crisp clean images and beautiful and bountiful images. In my breakdown I gave the cinematography seven out of ten. It would of got nine, if not ten, if it wasn't for one ridiculous scene shot in night vision (more on that later).

Ok, time for the list:

1. You know a movie is bad when the best performance is by LL Cool J.
2. The ever likeable Jean Reno, who is usually the best part of a good or bad movie, is awful here (he plays a Russian but sounds French).
3. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos also plays a Russian? Why?
4. Chris Klein is awful and bland.
5. The story is muddled and confusing. Wait, scratch that. There is no story, at least one that I could follow. I guess I could piece together a story but why bother.
6. The editing is terrible and doesn't flow well, making it even harder to follow.
7. A random shot of Klein driving? Wtf?
8. A shot of a guy on a cell phone for no reason? Wtf?
9. Jump cuts which seem like missing frames and are jarring.
10. I'm a big fan of nudity in a movie, but why so much in this one?
11. What's with the stupendously stupid costumes?
12. How do ratings go up when someone gets hurt if the show is live? By this I mean how do people know that someone is hurt if they aren't watching?
13. Why is the escape scene shot in night vision? It's green and amateurish and ruins the only good thing about this movie: the cinematography.
14. The score to the film seems pretty good but is drowned out by overly loud heavy metal music.
15. Why are there motorcycles in a rollerball competition?
16. I couldn't tell what was happening after the first scene, story wise and action wise.
17. What's with the riot and upheaval in the city streets? Where did that come from?
18. Why did John McTiernan keep his name on this piece of crap?
19. Why was this released in theaters?
20. I heard this movie was bad, but bad is an understatement. STAY AWAY!!!!

Okay. I'm done. I can't say anymore. I just want to close my eyes and forget that I ever saw this. I'm outta here...

Film Rating: 23%

Breakdown (How Rollerball scored 23%):

Production Design: 6 out of 10
Cinematography: 7 out of 10
Re-playability: 1 out of 10
Originality: 1 out of 10
Costumes: 2 out of 10
Directing: 1 out of 10
Editing: 0 out of 10
Acting: 2 out of 10
Music: 3 out of 10
Script: 0 out of 10