Rating: 
Summary: This movie [stunk]
Review: Tom Hanks plays Michael Sullivan, an enforcer for the Irish Mob in the 40s. Sullivan's boss is John Rooney, Paul Newman, and the two have almost a father/son relationship. Unfortunately this relationship eclipses the relationship between Rooney and his real son which leads to Sullivan's downfall.
After Sullivan's wife and youngest child are murdered by Rooney's son, he finds himself on the run with the child that he has not developed the closest relationship with. The two begin to bond while on their journey and find that they have more in common than they thought. Ultimately Sullivan is gunning for revenge and this leads him well on the road to judgment.
For lack of a better description I would call this an "adult" action movie. There are many things going on, yet that doesn't downplay the fact that this is a violent movie filled with primarily bad characters. Unfortunately, while I say there are many things going on, there are also a lot of times where things are just static and the movie drags. I also found the ending more than a little anti-climactic and can't fully recommend the movie for that reason.
Rating:
Summary: So bad - its bad
Review: One has to ask why anyone would want to remake Rollerball in the first place. Aside from the rather interesting James Caan in the starring role, the flat direction by Norman Jewison and the almost laughable story guaranteed this film a place among the greatest cult films ever. Perhaps the makers of this version mistook its cult status for popularity when they imagined that this remake would appeal to today's audience. As if it was an indication of how the film would do, it was pulled from its original release date and "retooled" (Hollywood speak for shelved) before new trailers were made and the film was given a high profile launch earlier this year. It was all for naught, it seems, as this film couldn't be any worse. The DVD version is the R rated cut, giving teen audiences the blood and bare breasts that they missed in the PG-13 theatrical version. The slight glimpses of Rebecca Romjin-Stamos' breasts and some slight gore don't make up for what is ultimately a car wreck of a film, that fails to achieve on any level.
Chris Klein stars as Jonathan, the new superstar of Asian supersport Rollerball - the sport of near future kings - a combination of motorcross, Jai A'lai, and roller derby. With a clumsy opening credits sequence wherein an enthusiastic american announcer (played by a guy doing a Rowdy Roddy Piper goes to Pittsburgh accent) explains the rules of the game - we are introduced to our first taste of the sport. That the sport is as chaotic and violent as it is - what with motorcyles and people being hit with metal balls, etc. - it makes one wonder why anyone would bat an eyelash at people being killed during the matches. However, Chris Klein and co. become suspicious when they suspect that fatal accidents are being arranged to help boost ratings (incidentally, in this future a giant scoreboard reports the ratings numbers stock ticker style so the game's owner - played with bored detachment by Jean Reno - can immediately see how these "accidents" help boost the ratings. And, in another odd bit of out there movie reasoning - the second something dangerous happens in the game, these numbers jump by hundreds of millions of viewers (how such a fickle fan base manages to tune in at a moments notice is puzzling - but I digress).
As a fan of McTiernan's other films (Die Hard, Die Hard With a Vengeance, Predator, and even the Thomas Crown Affair) I expected that no matter how bad the story was, the Rollerball scenes would be well executed enough to hold my interest. After all, we never liked Die Hard for Reginald Vel Johnson - did we? Alas, it seems that John McTiernan saw the futility of the project and gave up long before shooting began. The action scenes are flashy and flat - sacrificing a well built scene in favor of the quick flash of less than impressive effects and stunt laden glitz. Its almost as if Mc Tiernan handed over control of the film to a second unit director itching to get his hands on a real film. Of course blame should be shared by cinematographer Steve Mason, whose camerawork shows that he doesn't have the imagination to shoot make believe sport films (add rollerball to the equally treacherous BASEketball of a few years back), his lensing of many scenes feels made up on the fly - and many times it doesn't work. This is espescially true of a long nighttime chase sequence shot through a green tinted lens that gives the scene the look of being filmed through night vision goggles. Equal parts distracting and headache inducing, it is one of the worst cases of a crime against cinema in recent memory.
Not that the actors do much to help the film along. Chris Klein, bless his heart, is so out of place in a film where it is required that he exhibit emotion or act like anyone other than Chris Klein. It's as if the rest of the cast and crew went along with making the film so as not to make him feel bad. I felt like a parent at a 3rd grade school play, watching someone else's kid butcher the production. Suffice it to say that when L.L. Cool J is forced to carry the film - the film is in trouble.
Rollerball is bad. It will never be revered as a piece of bad cinema to be enjoyed on the level of Showgirls or even Ernest goes to Jail. Rather, it will eventually find its way to the [price] reduction bin at [local store] - and even then its probably not a good purchase.
Rating:
Summary: Horrible stupid movie
Review: Nothing more to say, this is one of the worst movies ever. Bad script, stupid story, terrible shooting, boring acting. I highly don't recommend this title.
Rating:
Summary: Appalling
Review: This is a grotesque despoliation of a classic film. Essential elements of the background storyline are not properly established. There are scenes whose purpose within the overall structure simply defies understanding. The nighttime 'escape attempt' sequence is shot in a bizarre green blur and was extremely unpleasant to watch. Hideous music plays frequently but the nail in the coffin of this film is the poverty of the in-game action sequences. These are generally nothing more than a confusing melange of images. The transitions from one camera shot to another seem very poorly done and it is really impossible to follow the internal dynamics of each game.
Rating: 
Summary: Editing problems and lack of cast hurt movie
Review: Well, most of the people here are ripping this movie pretty good. One of the most glaring things that I noticed was the poor editing job; there are several instances where it looks like one of those old silent films where one minute a character is one place and another minute a character is another place. It is amazing to find that kind of thing happen these days in movies. Still, I think this movie had some potential. It was a relatively good action movie that used the corruptability of sports and ratings as its main theme. The basic premise is that in order to get ratings powerful sports organizers are willing to do anything, including sometimes brutal accidents, to achieve this. You may choose to look at this as a stab at what we do in America today (such as reality type television), or you may take it to "glamourize" this type of action (which I do not think the producers were trying to do). The lack of star power and script really hurts this movie, however. Also, it is overdone with a soundtrack that is seemingly never ending. I would venture to guess that half of the movie has music blaring in it during the action scenes. (It is fine to have a soundtrack, but you do not need to make the music the movie.) Overall, although this was not a good movie, I certainly do not think it was "the worst" movie you will ever see. Still, there are glaring problems with this movie that the average moviegoer will detect readily. For this reason, I give this movie 2 stars.
Rating:
Summary: TERRIBLE MOVIE! DO NOT BUY!
Review: This movie was one of the worst films I've seen in years. The script is horrible, the movie had little glitches on it, and a big scene of the movie is shot in night vision (GREEN!) If you are thinking of buying this movie, read this review. I'd give this movie 0 stars, but the minimum is 1 star.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect example of why there is no need to remake ANYTHING..
Review: Rollerball is a remake of a 1975 science fiction film of the same name that only succeeds in showing what the world would be like if the XFL had become the rage. With how many problems this movie had in production, it was a surprise to see it touch theatres.
Chris Klein, LL Cool J, and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos all phone in their roles as rollerbladers in a high stakes game that is televised worldwide. The cookie-cutter nemesis is played by Jean Reno as the owner and general manager of the tournaments. And with John McTiernan (director of Die Hard) at the helm, the whole thing is unexcusable. It looks like he is well past his prime.
In the original, the hard-core sport of Rollerball was a way for the ruling government of the world to show that individual effort was useless and futile, and only ended in death. In this unworthy remake, the ruling corporations are replaced by managers of the game with no other motive than to get higher ratings and greater profits.
This action disaster takes no hints from it's predecessor. The James Caan version was timeless, using classical music to keep the movie from being dated and holding the action with a very well-done sci-fi backstory. This is a movie filled with pop music that doesn't even fit the action and a barely-there plot that is filled with unnecessary car races and entirely unexciting action scenes.
The game consists of rolling around a figure eight track with the help of rollerblades and teammates on motorcycles, trying to beat the other team by throwing a steel ball into a large gong. Unlike the strategy and planning that went into the original's gameplay, this version looks like a circus. The action is filled with slapstick falls and dubbed-in lines with the actors not even openning their mouths. Somehow it manages to be entirely unexciting, with even the announcer looking bored and immersed on and off. Spills look entirely unrealistic and overplayed, while music completely unfitting the action drones loudly. Costumes look like chromed rejects from cirque de solei, with oversized helmets looking downright silly. All in all, for a movie named after a game, no thought was put in and these are the worst parts of the movie.
The plot jumps from here to there constantly with characters changing their standings instantly; leaving the viewer without a clue as to anyone's personality. To bring the movie up to an R rating after it's PG-13 theatrical run, unnecessary bare breasts and dubbed-in language have been placed rampantly. Cinematography during the action sequences is indecipherable, with horrible editing added in.
By the time you get to the car chase filmed in night-vision and textbook face-off at the end, you realize some movies are great on their own and don't need an updating - they are great as they are. Do yourself a favor and pick up the original for a great action-science-ficiton romp that has brains and brawn.
Rating:
Summary: unimaginably bad
Review: `Rollerball' is a god-awful remake of the 1975 Norman Jewison film about a fictional sport in which murdering the players becomes a primary object of the game. The original film acquired what little credibility it had by setting the story sometime in the distant future. This version is set in the present, but it tries to maintain its believability by locating the league in Southwest Asia, under the parochial assumption, I suppose, that that part of the world is every bit as alien, exotic and dehumanized as any hypothetical future society. It doesn't work. It is simply impossible for us to believe even for a split second that the owners and promoters of this sport would think they could get away with such murderous shenanigans broadcast live to millions of viewers the world over. Might not the United Nations, among other international organizations, have a thing or two to say about all this? Also, will someone please explain to me just WHAT purpose is served by having the promoters of this sport killing off their own players? Doesn't that sort of deplete their own resources for future games? I can't imagine too many people willingly signing on to engage in this sort of gladiatorial tomfoolery.Even if we agreed to swallow the whole thing merely for the sake of the entertainment value of the film, we would be forced to admit that `Rollerball' is a chintzy, clunky, uninteresting movie in all respects. The sport itself - sort of a cross between motor cross racing, roller derby, hockey and basketball - is completely unexciting, consisting of little more than blurred figures racing madly around a cramped, claustrophobic track. Without even the context of good action sequences, `Rollerball' is forced to fall back on its dialogue and characters, which proves to be disastrous for all concerned. Chris Klein, in the role of hotshot Jonathon Cross - played by James Caan in the original - comes across as a minor league version of Keanu Reeves. LL Cool J is wasted in the part of Jonathon's American sidekick, and poor Jean Reno gets to play one of the most laughable villains we've run across in a movie in a long long long long time. In fact, this redux turns out to be good for nothing BUT a few hearty laughs. If you are in need of such, check out `Rollerball.' It's a real hoot.
Rating:
Summary: Junk, need I say more JUNK
Review: This movie should have never been made, there is basically no story present and is just a bunch of people going around on rollerblades bashing each other's brains in. I was really looking foreword to this flick, it's previews were misleading, it looked as though it was brilliant and exciting. Guess what, it's really really really NOT!
Trust me don't waste your time unless the only thing better you have to do is give the cat a bath, even then I really don't believe you should waste your time!
Rating: 
Summary: Chris Klein
Review: Okay basically..... this movie was not that good! Sure, the cars and pink guitar were cool, but that was about it! The best thing about it was getting to look at Chris Klein for 100 minutes. He is a HOTTIE. yup.... i don't know if I'd buy this movie, but the only reason would be to look at Chris Kleins gorgeous face all the time. I never liked Chris Klein before.... but this movie made me change my views. He is just gorgeous. :-) And hes a pretty good actor. Katie Holmes is a lucky girl! lol.
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