Rollerball

Rating:
Summary: Utter Garbage
Review: I'm gonna throw off the average a bit and say that this is one of the worst films i've ever seen. The supposed "future" looks so much like the 70s I would have never guessed it was set in 2018. The corporate rule idea was extremely poorly executed, the corporations had no depth to them, nothing remotely interesting about them. The personalities portrayed by the characters seem extremely out of place in the society the movie takes place in. The acting was ok considering the terrible scripts they had to work with. The action sequences were extremely lackluster(I found trying to capture an annoying housefly much more interesting).

The areas of suspense had absolutely nothing suspensful about them, the only attempt at compensation for this was to add some really cheesy dark music which didn't fit with the environment in the slightest.
The ending was entirely unclimactic and just made me further regret sitting through this entire film.
This is without a doubt one of the worst films I had ever seen. Looking back, I can't find a single thing in the entire movie I actually enjoyed.

Rating:
Summary: A frigtening but probably accurate vision of the future
Review: I remember when Rollerball was first released. The reviews were less than enthusiastic. They mentioned that after a initial private viewing of the movie which Mr. Jewison held, most people were silent not because of being awestroke but because they found the movie confusing. I was disappointed by other people's failure to appreciate the profundity of this movie. It asks the question - is freedom from poverty our ultimate concern - even when to achieve that freedom we must sacrifice our feelings, our individuality. The people in this futuristic society seem to view all others as little more than their material possesions. Jonathan the individual is also the one who feels a deep love, the love for the wife who casually abandoned him.
On the negative side, I did not think Caan did a particularly good job of acting. Although his athletic build fits the part, he just does not know the motions of a highly introspective personality.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent movie, hope the remake is as good as the original
Review: This movie was low-budget, and yet it made a mark on popular culture when it first came out. Proof in that is in the fact that MAD magazine did a hugely popular spoof right after it was released.

Set in the mid 21st century, in a time where governments no longer exist, and corporate culture rules the earth. Team sports are no longer played, with the exception of "Rollerball", a kind of combination of rollerderby and professional wrestling.

James Caan playes Johnathan E., the reigning superstar of the game. But the Energy Corporation is becomming scared of his popularity and potential influence.

Even though Johnathan is at the height of his popularity and ability, he is being forced to retire. But this does not sit well with him, so he starts to seek out answers to WHY things are the way they are.

His professional trainer is a former professional boxer, who gives him some answers. But every time he tries to get more, he is blocked by The Corporation. In an effort to stop him, they even return his former wife to him.

In this future, personality is unimportant. Relationships and friendships are at the mercy of the wants and needs of The Corporation. And any individual that gains attention is determined to be a threat.

When Johnathan shows his resentment to being forceably retired from the only thing he loves in his life, The Corporation strikes back. Changing the rules every week, the game which one was violent, turns more and more deadly.

At the end of the movie, it has migrated from a sport with a violence level of Professional Hockey or Boxing, to something more resembling the ancient Roman gladiatorial bouts. Where the last man standing is the winner. And life means nothing, only the image of The Corporation.

The forcasts of life in the future are stunning, considering how many of them have happened. The ability to keep people alive on life support forever, disks that you can re-show home movies on your TV, computers that control all parts of your home and life, and a culture where the individual can be seen as a threat.

I only hope that the remake due out in 2002 is half as good as the original. This movie has weathered the time very well, and if anything was to cautious in forcasting future technology. And the use of classical music was a perfect touch. After watching this movie, Tecata And Fugue in D Minor will be known to the viewer as more then the music from Dracula or Fantasia.

Rating:
Summary: A poignant performance by James Caan
Review: I first saw this movie as a child and it has beguiled me ever since. It is an evocative film based on James Caan's performance and the well planned game of the title. To begin, this film has not fared well visually. It looks like a very seventies Pan Am commercial. It is saved by the use of classical music for it's score. James Caan is Jonathan E, a very talented sports player used by a future corporation to promote it's violent Rollerball game. Supposedly the corporation is aghast by Jonathan's talent and worried over his influence over the public. Hence, Jonathan will have to step aside and retire. This is a very shaky premise because it seems very unlikely that a corporation would get rid of it's cash cow. I was under the impression that Jonathan E was being destroyed by a personal vendetta rather than being a revolutionary. James Caan is already a broken man at the beginning of the film. We, the audience, are left to watch the last death blow. As a young man, his character was an up and coming sportsman but his true passion was his wife, Ella. However his career disturbed her and she left him for a rich executive. He is in denial over her betrayal and chooses to believe that the company he works for, stole his wife. When he isn't playing the rollerball game, he is constantly pestering his employers about his wife. This is where the film begins. Jonathan E is shell of a man who lives life in a daze from too much drugs, fame and company prostitutes. He constantly obsesses over home movies of his wife. His impending enforced retirement forces him out of this funk. He begins to question the company he works for and even wonders how they gained power. In between games he tries to discover the true nature of the corporations. He even goes to the LIBRARY! Only to discover that books exist only in company computers not in print. The books he needs are banned. The company repeatedly tries to force him from the game. They set him up for a retirement announcement. They use his girlfriends to coerce him. They change the rules of the game to hurt him. But only succeed in destroying Jonathan E's best friend Moonpie (a new young talented player). This leaves Jonathan E even more rebellious and isolated. As a last resort, they send his prodigal wife Ella to convince him to step down. Ultimately, Jonathan discovers that his ex-wife does not love him. He destroys her home movies and with them the last of his spirit. He plays the last game as a suicidal shell of a man. The game of the title offers the most exciting parts of the movie. Norman Jewison offers the most complete picture of this future world thru the game. Everything from the rules, costumes, and the corporate anthems are very well done. His commentary suggests that this movie is a statement against violent gaming. However this is not successful because the game sequences are very seductive and futuristic. Jewison's premise of corporate controlled sports and sports celebrity have ultimately become very ingrained in our culture. See this movie for James Caan's performance and the exciting game sequences.

Rating:
Summary: Grows and grows
Review: This film keeps growing and growing on me. The pacing is very seventies, with some of the artiness that plagues other "messaged" SciFi pieces of the time (notably "Logan's Run"), but in Rollerball that art really works.

One scene that keeps growing and growing on me is a party scene where all the beautiful people are shooting a high powered energy gun at some trees and making them explode into flame. Some of the juxtapositions of their happy, pretty faces with the concern of one of the main characters, with the trees exploding like swords of fire. It's very unsettling and just the right effect at just the right time.

Certainly the same cliched ending that you might see in any Karate Kid or Rocky movie, but done first, and done best.

Rating:
Summary: TAKES ME WAY BACK!
Review: I saw this movie when it was first released way back in 74/75. Which goes to show how old i'm getting! anyway,i might have a little different take on this one compared to those who've just recently seen it.The thing you have to remember is the movie is from another era so yes some parts are dated,i mean were talking pre-star-wars sci-fi special effects here so watching this thing today you don't have an blockbuster explosions or whatnot.I'ts more a guys movie in particular a young boys movie is which how i first saw it.The really surprising thing is how prophetic this movie really was,that all the things that this movie predicted and some of the gadgets like the multi-vision t.v.pre-picture in picture,the disk that johnathon uses to play-back happier times on his t.v. The way the computers are tied into everything in the society itself,the globalization of corporations and the trend towards a one-world government,all encapsulated in this movie is quite fascinating,not to mention pre-reality t.v. which is essentially what the game is.The story had a few holes in it and was even considered weak at the time.The main thing that alot of people missed is the reason why james caan (johnathon-e)is such a threat to this future world.I mean if people are more interested in games(and they are!) there not going to check or really care what the government is doing and how your tax-dollars are being spent and your privacy is being all but taken away,somthing this movie only touches on.The action though still holds up today and the game is very-exciting and fun to watch,although heralded as quite violent at the time i think compared to some of todays violence in movies it's rather tame.I still love this movie today because it takes me back to when i was a young boy in another era,but ultimately i think the game or rather the movie still holds up today.I look foward to the remake.

Rating:
Summary: A Movie With Much To Say, But A Not-So-Great Disc
Review: "Rollerball" is one of those classics of sci-fi that I somehow managed to miss for all of my 30 years. Whilst browsing the local store, I found the DVD for ten dollars and figured I had nothing to lose -- to rent it, if I could even find it on DVD, wouldn't cost THAT much less.

I had some vague notion of the storyline, but I tried not to read the case or liner notes and take in the movie on a first impression. Released in the summer of 1975, there are definite and readily apparent influences of earlier films, not the least of which being Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange." The colors, the film stock, the editing style are all remiscent of that earlier, similarly-themed master work, yet I don't believe it detracted from this film at all.

Supposedly set in the year 2018 (though this is never established in the movie, that I could tell), corporations have replaced governments and managed to eliminate war, poverty, disease and bad hair days. People don't have too much of a say in what goes on around them, but they're all very physically comfortable. Of course, the violent nature of the human beast must be satisfied, and it is -- in the gladitorial ring of the world's most popular sport, Rollerball. The game consists of two teams (from cities all over the world) skating and motorbiking around a 1/8-mile track, trying to get a steel ball into a goal. As the course of the season progresses, more and more limitations as to what constitutes fair play are removed, and by the final, the melee is total.

James Caan plays the Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Joe Montana of Rollerball, Jonathan E.. He's the biggest star in the world, but he's also a thinking man, and when the corporation which owns his team wants him to retire, he refuses, wanting to know first why they'd want him to retire when he's playing at his best.

The rest I leave to the viewer to find out. I can only say it is a very well-crafted script with plenty to say about violence, the spirit of the individual man, and the bloodlusts that a happy and idle populace can muster. Very well-filmed with touches of brilliance in editing and framing.

A detraction which really couldn't be helped involves the portrayal of the future. Director Norman Jewison couldn't know what the world of forty years in his future would be like, so he took the wise route of not making it all that different from 1975, but with subtle changes (such as the interesting but impractical "multivision" concept in which all TV sets have a large screen and three smaller screens above it, each showing different but related pictures). The result, though infinitely preferable to lots of neon and superfluous antennae, is that the place looks like 1975 with slightly cooler gadgets. I can't tell you what 2018 will look like, but it won't look like that.

Interestingly, the "corporate inevitability" concept of the future, which I believe Jewison meant earnestly, plays out much more as a satire of the opposite, a communist world. Much of what the coroprate culture says, as personified by John Houseman's Mr. Bartholomew, sounds much like the rhetoric of communism -- people are fed and comfortable and happy, but the individual is beholden to the group at all costs. Indeed, some of the words of description of the culture seem lifted straight from Marx and Engels.

The DVD leaves something to be desired, though. The picture is a lot dirtier than I'd like, especially in still-shot scenes. The color is muted, though this may be part style, and some shots seem positively muddy.

The remastered 5.1 sountrack is a disappointment. The rear speakers get very little play. One particular effect of note, I must concede, is one moment when you can hear the ball roll all the way around the arena, and it's as though you're standing in the center.

In all, it's an excellent movie, which I can't recommend enough, but if the disc had been any pricier than it was, I would have felt as though I was somewhat taken.

Perhaps after the release of the upcoming remake, there will be a better special edition.

Rating:
Summary: Icy, sterile, fascist Nadaland
Review: The TIME of ROLLERBALL is the very near future. Like Ray Bradbury's FAHRENHEIT 451, the film describes a society whose citizens have traded individuality...and possibilities freedom provides...for challengeless safety in ignorance and material comfort. Because ignorance is not quite bliss...or strength...the corporate oligarchs of 2018 have provided a singular outlet for passion: Rollerball. This brutal game pits teams of warrior athletes in gladiatorial combat sport comprising lacrosse, basketball and good, old-fashioned gang fights. James Cann plays Johnathan E. the world's number 1 Rollerball champion. John Houseman plays Barholomew, the superficially benevolent fascist FATHER. Director Jewison paces the film well from its action-packed opening to rather predictable conclusion in Johnathan's "messianic" triumph in THE BIG GAME. Where the film engages, however, is in its icy style. The film's climactic expositions and denouments are crafted like the Rollerball game. Only Cann's "violence" seems real and genuinely defiant. Even John Houseman fails to ultimately generate menace because...unlike a military dictatorship thriving on POWER...the corporate fascists thrive on ORDER. And there is no such thing as the PASSION of...or Nietzschean WILL to...ORDER. The OLIGARCHS are bureacrats not soldiers. As Houseman himself admits the Societal Managers envy the Rollerballers their human though "dehumanizing" arena of controlled danger and death masked as entertainment. Whether Jewison intended or not, the CLIMAX of the film is NOT the Rollerball Final, but the night when Johnathan E. refuses to retire and his TRIBUTE NIGHT becomes a testimony to the bankruptcy of the society and leadership that lauds, despises and fears THIS MAN. After a pathetically passionless night of drug- induced stupor and futile efforts to "orgy-out", the lackies of the Corporate Dictatorship stagger into forests TO SHOOT TREES(!) with Jack-in-the-Box rocket pistols. As trees burn...because they cannot "duck"...frustrated pseudo-Rollerballers stumble back to "sleepless" beds because like mini-Macbeths they have burned Burnham woods whose real "plant" life threatens their utterly fruitless sterility. Is this an "exciting" movie? Not in the sense that our own WWA seems to generate excitement boardering on fanaticism. Intellectually, however, the film succeeds. Recall Robert Frost's poem FIRE & ICE. ROLLERBALL depicts a world where a concept like "sacredness of life" is meaningless. ROLLERBALL is choosing to be "distracted into distraction by distraction": a way of life... a culture of death...embracing Entropy...order of Disorder...lacking knowledge (BOOKS are virtually banned)and self-preserving passion to FEAR DEATH rather than worship it and killers who incarnate it...

Rating:
Summary: Good Action Lousy Copy
Review: I appreciate classic SciFi and Fantasy films being restored and put on DVD, but I don't appreciate it when they are not restored and quickly slapped on DVD. This looked like somebody set up a projector and copied it off a screen. They wonder why people buy pirated copies. The movie itself makes some interesting points and shows video teleconferencing long before it became fact. The actual rollerball sequences make the movie since it gets a bit slow when they are not at the track. Unless you are an avid fan you may want to hold off on purchasing it until someone makes a better copy.

Rating:
Summary: LET THE GAMES BEGIN! JONATHAN! JONATHAN!
Review: Rollerball is one of those overlooked gems from 70's sci-fi. With a quasi-remake on the near horizon, I recommend that everyone load this into their DVD players and enjoy two-hours of intense action.

The story is set in the (not too distant) future and revolves around a world where there is no war, no nations, no middle class...just ROLLERBALL. This game is used to appease the masses and their need and desire for violence (crime seems to be at a low as well). The game is basically rollerderby (with the addition of plenty of speed thanks to motorcycles) played with a large metal ball and opposing magnetic-nets. The crowd violence reminds me greatly of today's WWF TV events. And the film's message is a strong one especially in todays sports-crazed society. What happens when an athlete becomes more important than the actual sport?

The movie is ahead of it's time, even if some of the fashion isn't. You'll need to avoid some of the polyester and heavy eye make-up. However, one hour into the movie when Houston plays Tokyo it will all be worth the wait! The three intense rollerball segments were filmed with no f/x and little trick photography. In other words the actors played the game. Incredible! This is also explained in greater detail throughout the 5-star commentary track by director Norman Jewison.

All in all it's easy to appreciate Rollerball on a number of levels. It's the type of sci-fi film that needs to be viewed several times to appreciate the cleverness with which it understates aspects. We see little of the future world and how people live...simply because this is not important in this world...rollerball is important! My favorite point is the total lack of violence in the film. If you have read the earlier reviews on Amazon.com you'll see many of them comment on violence. However, blood is seen in the film only one time and the remainder of the violence is never actually shown on film...only hinted at through creative camera angles.

I enjoyed Rollerball for it's insight into our world by showing us a world that may well become our world. Much like Soylent Green this movie will keep you thinking long after the DVD player has turned off.