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Movies / On DVD / Rollerball
Rollerball

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Rollerball (2002)

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Reviews Counted:28

Fresh:2

Rotten:26

Average Rating:2.8/10

Consensus: Removing the social critique of the original, this updated version of Rollerball is violent, confusing, and choppy. Klein makes for a bland hero.

Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for violence, extreme sports action, sensuality, language and some drug references

Runtime: 3 hrs 14 mins

Genre: Action/Adventure

Theatrical Release:Feb 8, 2002 Wide

Box Office: $18,894,427

Synopsis: It's the year 2005; the new sport of Rollerball is hugely popular in the unstable, ex-Soviet republics of South Asia. Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J) invites NHL-hopeful Jonathan Cross (Chris Klein) to... It's the year 2005; the new sport of Rollerball is hugely popular in the unstable, ex-Soviet republics of South Asia. Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J) invites NHL-hopeful Jonathan Cross (Chris Klein) to join him playing for the Zhambel Horsemen, in Kazahkstan. The highly paid Marcus and Jonathon are teamed with low-paid locals, who are routinely severely injured in the game, which is an extraordinarily violent extension of roller derby involving motorcycles, a metal ball, and many trappings of the World Wrestling Federation. Soon the team's star and the darling of promoter Alexi Petrovich (Jean Reno), Jonathan, is thrilled by the high-octane sport, the hype, the sports cars, and female team mate Aurora (a glowering, scar-faced Rebecca Romijm-Stamos). But gradually Jonathan discovers that the cynical Alexi and his opportunistic assistant Sanjay (Naveen Andrews) will go to any lengths to manipulate the game in order to provide an evermore gory spectacle and improve the game's television ratings. Director John McTiernan's movie is grungy and even more violent than the original 1975 ROLLERBALL. He conveys the visceral nature of the game with sharply edited action sequences and a goosed-up soundtrack, and then he shows the volatile game convulsively spinning out of control and causing social upheaval. [More]

Starring: Chris Klein, LL Cool J, Jean Reno, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos

Starring: Chris Klein, LL Cool J, Jean Reno, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Naveen, Andrew Bryniarski

Director: John McTiernan

Director: John McTiernan
Screenwriter: John Pogue, Larry Ferguson
Producer: Charles Roven, Beau St. Clair, John McTiernan
Composer: Eric Serra
Studio: MGM/UA

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Release:

Jun 18, 2002

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Reviews for Rollerball

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1 - 20 (sorted by date)
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Although Norman Jewison's stolidly grim and ultimately ludicrous 1975 original was hardly a landmark of nightmarish sci-fi, it towers over this.

Full Review Source: Variety | comment Comment
06/11/08
Robert Koehler
Robert Koehler
Variety
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Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Detroit News | comment Comment
03/10/07
Susan Stark
Susan Stark
Detroit News
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The new version just makes you feel like you've been watching a lame late-night rerun while stuck in a thunderdome.

Full Review Source: Entertainment Weekly | comment Comment
02/15/02
Entertainment Weekly
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John McTiernan's botched remake may be subtler than Norman Jewison's 1975 ultraviolent futuristic corporate-sports saga. It's also stupider.

Full Review Source: Salon.com | comment Comment
02/13/02
Jeff Stark
Jeff Stark
Salon.com
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It's almost enough to make Burton's Apes retread seem like a work of artistic ingenuity.

Full Review Source: Village Voice | comment Comment
02/12/02
Mark Holcomb
Mark Holcomb
Village Voice
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...really horrible drek.

Full Review Source: Ebert & Roeper | comment Comment
02/11/02
Richard Roeper
Richard Roeper
Ebert & Roeper
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Like a gerbil exercising in a wheel, this movie spins and spins, generating a lot of action and noise, but getting absolutely nowhere.

Full Review Source: ReelViews | comment Comment
02/10/02
James Berardinelli
James Berardinelli
ReelViews
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For those with the stomach and stamina for its heartbeat-quickening intensity and body-slamming action, Rollerball delivers exactly what it promises: A people's hero you can really get behind.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment 1 Comment
02/08/02
Michael O'Sullivan
Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post
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Jewison's rich and provocative 1975 original has been de-metaphorized, made narrow and pointless, while remaining just as loud and violent.

Full Review Source: Washington Post | comment Comment
02/08/02
Stephen Hunter
Stephen Hunter
Washington Post
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A remarkable film: Remarkably empty, remarkably noisy, remarkably pleasureless.

Full Review Source: San Francisco Chronicle | comment Comment
02/08/02
Mick LaSalle
Mick LaSalle
San Francisco Chronicle
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With this new Rollerball, sense and sensibility have been overrun by what can only be characterized as robotic sentiment.

Full Review Source: Newsday | comment Comment
02/08/02
Gene Seymour
Gene Seymour
Newsday
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Successfully creates for the viewer the feeling of being trapped inside a video arcade going at full tilt, a thrilling prospect for 14-year-old boys, no doubt, though it's hard to imagine anyone else enjoying it.

Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | comment Comment
02/08/02
Eric Harrison
Eric Harrison
Houston Chronicle
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Despite the technical advances of the past quarter century, the game sequences are as goofy as the first go-round.

Full Review Source: Globe and Mail | comment Comment
02/08/02
Rick Groen
Rick Groen
Globe and Mail
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Not so much a redo of the 1975 sci-fi allegory of the same title as a denial of everything that made that film timely and interesting.

Full Review Source: San Jose Mercury News | comment Comment
02/08/02
Glenn Lovell
Glenn Lovell
San Jose Mercury News
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It had a chance to improve upon the crude and stupid 1975 original, set in a future America. Instead, it's only cruder and stupider.

comment Comment
02/08/02
Jay Carr
Jay Carr
Boston Globe
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This oddly scrambled new version eventually falls apart so badly you feel embarrassed for the people who made it.

Full Review Source: New York Post | comment Comment
02/08/02
Jonathan Foreman
Jonathan Foreman
New York Post
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Missing a few key elements: a script, a reason for being and maybe a few Britney Spears ads strategically placed throughout to break up 98 minutes of solid tedium.

Full Review Source: USA Today | comment Comment
02/08/02
Mike Clark
Mike Clark
USA Today
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An incoherent mess, a jumble of footage in search of plot, meaning, rhythm and sense.

Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | comment Comment
02/08/02
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Chicago Sun-Times
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Little more than the skin and bones and ear-flaying soundtrack of a dubiously fleshed-out premise that seemed dated 27 years ago.

Full Review Source: Hollywood Reporter | comment Comment
02/08/02
David Hunter
David Hunter
Hollywood Reporter
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McTiernan's remake may be lighter on its feet -- the sober-minded original was as graceful as a tap-dancing rhino -- but it is just as boring and as obvious.

Full Review Source: New York Times | comment Comment
02/07/02
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
New York Times
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