Rollerbull

>> The remake of the ’70s sci-fi entry is a bust

by MATTHEW HAYS

Funny what nostalgia will do to the mind. There was the latter half of Ebert & Roeper, describing Norman Jewison’s ’75 film Rollerball as a “classic” on their show last week.

That is what might delicately be referred to as one helluva stretch. There are some good set pieces, a cool cast, a funky soundtrack and a few decent fight-roller sequences, but the original Rollerball is hardly a classic.

That the film has been remade (shot here in Montreal last year) seems to be part of a new studio trend. Rather than remake great old movies and risk the wrath of critics and faithful fans (Gus Van Sant must still be smarting after his Psycho misfire), why not just mine the vault labelled “mediocre”? Hot on the heels of Ocean’s Eleven (and some amnesiac critics were referring to the original as classic too) comes Rollerball. And, simply put, this is a turkey on wheels.

The bare bones of the original story remain the same. Jonathan (Chris Klein takes on the role James Caan originated) is a star Rollerball player, in a not-too-distant dystopia wherein violence is played out in a blood sport with utterly no rules. Jonathan is the king with the fans; they chant his name at matches, he never loses and the mysterious corporate forces that now rule covet him as a hot commodity. But—and here’s the surprise—conspiracies abound. The corporate types are evil and plan to rid themselves of Jonathan as he’s getting too big for his britches. Ultra cool French star Jean Reno plays one of the evil corporate manipulateurs.

Though they’ve tried to update things, everything about the new Rollerball feels dated. The original, like its distant ’70s cousin Network, hasn’t aged particularly well. The films’ dire scenarios were prescient then, but given the state of both pro sports and network TV today, the toothy bite they once had has been replaced with gummy, sucky chomps. Reality has surpassed fiction here, so the film effectively loses its wallop. The violent antics in the roller rink have been upped, but they feel absolutely no more extreme than, say, extreme wrestling crossed with an episode of a reality TV show. Really, bigger thrills could come from any average WWF match.

As with the original, Rollerball has a climactic match of the game that is the title’s namesake, a bloody fight that almost redeems the film. The updating here is telling. Caan’s original epic battle ended on a subtle, ominous note, and Jewison seemed to understand that, more often than not, less is more. Not so with remake director John McTiernan, who gives us a spell-it-all-out-for-you, connect-the-dots kind of finale.
Hey, I know the temptation. Got a hankerin’ for some good old-fashioned ’70s-style conspiracy movies? Skip this—and skip the original, for that matter. Rent some other titles from the decade of Watergate. My recommendations would include Three Days of the Condor, The Parallax View and Soylent Green even. :

Rollerball opens Friday, Feb. 8