tt0246894_reviews.json

{
  "movie_id": "tt0246894",
  "reviews": [
    {
      "title": "Rollerball is a pointless remake and a terrible film",
      "review": "Rollerball is a bad movie that pretty much fails on every level. It's the year 2005 and the new sport of Rollerball is very popular. Marcus Ridley {LL Cool J} recruits his friend Jonathan Cross {Chris Klein} into the very dangerous sport which may not be that luxury as it seems. One of the games promoters will do anything to get higher ratings even if that means death. I have seen the original and after watching this I wonder why they took a very good film and just ruined it. Rollerball is a poorly written movie that lacks suspense and good action. The film is just really ridiculous at times that its hard to take serious. The dialog is really lame and the characters aren't very developed . The acting is terrible with the worst probably being Chris Klein who doesn't have enough charisma to be a lead. LL Cool J was alright but he just doesn't seem to be trying. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and Jean Reno both do a decent job but like LL Cool J, they just don't seem to really be trying. I can't blame them though as the writing is horrible and they are not given a lot of material to work with. The film is a lot more violent then the original, however, the action is still not very impressive. It also doesn't help matters that the studio got scared and went for the PG-13 rating and so the editing looks very bad. The film is about 95 minutes long but it drags on forever since its just a really boring film. The film is also confusing as some of the events that occur in the film don't really make a lot of sense. At some point during the film you will most likely stop caring. If you have seen the original then you will hate this movie. If you haven't seen it then you might like this but that's not very likely. Its just better to see the original. Rollerball is a loud and terrible film that's worth skipping and its also one of the worst films of 2002. Rating 2/10 avoid this film at all costs.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Never to be confused with the 1975 classic.",
      "review": "The \"Rollerball\" movie from 1975 was brilliant because although the film was violent, it was much deeper had a lot to say about humanity--our love of violence and how easily we can be led and controlled with sports. The film was brilliant on so many levels. So, some brilliant persons thought it was a great idea to update the film...make a new version which removed all the wonderful social commentary and left us with violence and not much more. Is it any wonder that the film is currently rated #39 on IMDB's infamous Bottom 100 List? After all, folks who loved the original were sure to be angry when offered a slick but neutered version of the classic.Early into the film, I could see why many viewers disliked this remake. The game was totally changed. Instead of the relatively simple roller derby-style game, this one includes ramps, tunnels and explosions. But the part that got me was how confusing the new game was...and the announcer even said that the game was too complicated to explain!! Didn't this make the filmmakers the least bit concerned?! In addition, the film featured all sorts of eccentric players--with court jester hats, dragon masks and more. Now remember...the original film was AGAINST folks in the game standing out and being unique! To top it off, Jean Reno's character then is heard that he's happy that the integrity of the game has been maintained...unlike in other sports! Huh??The bottom line is that if the original film had never been made, \"Rollerball\" (2002) would have still been seen as a poor film. But in light of how many people loved the original and well crafted it was, watching this film is sure to frustrate most viewers....especially since a remake didn't have to be terrible and mindless.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Wimp Of A Movie",
      "review": "The original ROLLERBALL was by no means a classic SF movie but at least the audience knew they were watching a dark futuristic thriller . This completely lame remake misfires on every level . Since it's set a couple of years in the future there's no chance it can be called futuristic . It might be described as \" Dark \" but that's because no one seems to have paid the electricity bill during production . But the main failing in this version is the game of Rollerball itself . In the original the game would see matches where several team members would either die or be maimed for life but in this present day version it doesn't seem anymore dangerous than American football or Rugby or any other type of contact sport . hell even bimbos are allowed to take part . in other words this is a game for wimps in comparison and this ruins the movie far more than the oft quoted aspects like the poor acting , camp sound effects and the night vision sequence",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "One point for Romijn's boobs",
      "review": "One point for Romijn's boobs.\nThe rest is awfull.\nThe end.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball is one of the worst movies ever made.",
      "review": "Johnathan Cross, a lover of extreme sports, is recruited to star in Rollerball. The players are on Rollerblades, trying to bring a heavy metal ball into a high goal. Also, there are motorcyclists around to bring momentum to the players. Oh yes, and there are no rules in the game. During his skyrocketing career, Johnathan has to experience what Alexi has found out: Blood brings more viewing pleasure to the audience. In a final game, Johnathan and his team have to fight for mere survival.Back in 1975, James Caan brought us a brutal movie in which you can literally hear every bone in the players body break. Now, John McTieran has brought that film to us again, for a new generation. With stars like LL Cool J, Rebbeca Romijn and Chris Klein you would expect it to be a pretty bad remake, but this is not the case. Rollerball does the unthinkable and gives Psycho a running for it's money as the worst remake ever created by man.Chris Klein in every film he has been in manages to make it look as if he has no range at all. His soft voice and good looks can only go so far, and in a movie where you need to beat the living hell out of another team member, you want someone that can at least yell and make a sound beyond a bird chirp. LL Cool J is only hear to bring the film a \"cool\" hip look, he's suppose to be the I don't give a damn, James Dean character, but it doesn't fly. Rebbeca Romijn, well, she has a nude scene, but when it's covered in the dark, you wonder why she is even in the movie to begin with.Rollerball is suppose to be a bloody entertaining film, but McTeirnan at no point manages to show us anything entertaining. The entire game sequences seem uninspired and drawn out. When it goes for a shock, it misses and misses completely. I'm still wondering if LL Cool J's character is dead or alive, but apparently it's not important to the story. LL Cool J probably knew that this was going to be garbage and left the movie, leaving the film crew to make his character disappear. I don't blame him.Not even the professional himself, Jean Reno save this film from the ultimate horrible experience that we all will endure from seeing this film. In a film about violence in sports, you would expect to see some, but when you have a PG-13 rating, you know that it was targeted to make money and nothing else.I can't understand why someone would want to see this film, the final action sequence is yet another let-down in this horrible tripe. The only thing that this film has going for it, is it's 97 minute length, so if you do have the unfortunate experience of sitting through it, it will be over soon enough.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Garbageball!",
      "review": "After knocking off 26 positive reviews I felt the need to slaughter a cinematic turkey of mammoth proportions. And this it. This movie will depress anyone who loves movies. I would hate to encounter anyone who likes this piece of sewage. There is nothing of value on screen: from the horrid acting of LL Cool J to the gratuitous street luge scene. If the director had an ounce of humor he would have used The Trashmen's \"Surfin' Bird\" here. But that would be asking too much. Instead, the film makers get together and trash a classic. When this happens someone must step in and play policeman and arrest the Hollywood perpetrators involved in this criminal mischief. You have the right to remain silent. Anything--Well, forget it. I believe the director lost his mind. The night vision scenes were visual poison. Puke green. Fuzzy. Shockingly enough, an entire reel or two of this utterly useless footage of a chase of some kind made it into the movie. I have this feeling the film was unintentionally overexposed. The Rollerball game cannot be followed by anybody sober. Loud. Noisy. What are the rules? There is not a scintilla of drama anywhere in this motion picture. Take this stinker out to the curb before it contaminates the rest of your dvd collection or damages your player. Wretched. Shame on all who were involved. And a pox on their homes, too.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "One of the worst remakes ever.",
      "review": "A good friend of mine, and fellow rabid film fan, said he would give me a tenner (£10) if I honestly felt that Rollerball was worth a score higher than 1/10; as much as I need the cash, I just can't bring myself to lie. Rollerball is absolutely dire and truly deserves the lowest rating possible.A muddled, unexciting piece of drivel from the word go, John McTiernan's lousy remake of Norman Jewison's 70s cult favourite is every inch as bad as you have probably heard. Perpetually-perplexed-looking Chris Klein is unwisely cast as Jonathan (portrayed by James Caan in the original), a thrill junkie who is convinced by good friend Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J) to try his hand at Rollerball, a dangerous team sport played in Russia and its neighbouring countries.The evil men controlling the sport, led by Alexis Petrovich (Jean Reno), are corrupt gangsters who will trade players lives in order to boost their ratings. But a brave American citizen like Jonathan isn't about to kowtow to the demands of nasty foreigners, and sets about upsetting the applecart.To be honest, there are so many reasons to despise this movie, I really do not know where to start. I guess as good a place as any would be with director McTiernan, who seems to have lost all ability to make a decent film. This is the man who redefined the action movie in the 80s with Die Hard. He also proved he could do a decent remake with The Thomas Crown Affair. So what the hell happened here?His Rollerball is unexciting, glossy toss that makes the mistake of pandering to the teen crowd. As a result, we get a pretty boy lead 'actor' (Klein makes Keanu Reeves look like Olivier), a rapper playing support, an ex-model (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) as the love interest, and even an inexplicable appearance by noise-merchants Slipknot. The script treats the viewer with contempt, making no attempt to explain the titular game, rendering the action scenes meaningless. If we have no idea of the rules of the sport, how the hell can we get excited about it?Visually the film is even worse: the 'roller dome'—the arena in which Jonathan is king (despite constantly looking as if he is about to wet himself)—resembles a kids activity area rather than a tough battlefield; the players, dressed in shiny PVC, look like they're off to an S&M party; and for some reason an entire chase scene is shot viewed though some kind of night-vision goggles.The acting ranges from poor (Reno, Romijn-Stamos) to very poor (Klein, rapidly becoming my most hated actor, and LL Cool J).Gone is the bone-crunching realistic violence of the original film; in McTiernan's version of the sport, it seems that no-one is supposed to get hurt—if they do get injured, it's because of their unscrupulous bosses and their money-grabbing ways. Gone is the futuristic setting—this one is supposed to be in the here and now! And gone is any respect I had for JohnMcTiernan.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why!",
      "review": "The original film was a masterpiece. Not only for the (at the time) over-the-top action, but for the marvelously clear look into the future. Only science-fiction would dare suggest the future holds society completely employed by six corporations! What a brilliant prophecy!In the self-centered and hedonistic 70's, isn't it amazing the true gist of the original film is the attempt to keep a famous player from becoming bigger than the game he plays? One need only peruse today's business section to see how our society now strives to eliminate the notion of the individual in favor of an identity-nullifying \"team concept.\"So one can say the original is all about the triumph of the individual.The 2002 version is nothing more than a haphazard mess that shows what happens when a studio changes hands and a cinematic vision is compromised for a PG-13 rating that effectively destroys the film. Rollerball could do with a well-intentioned remake; this wasn't it.................by a long shot.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "John McTiernan's amateur hour.",
      "review": "Original 'Rollerball' was a movie about dystopia future, where huge corporations ruled the world and there was no wars. But the blood lust of people had to be compensated, so there was this game called Rollerball, which was full of action, thrills and kills. But then one of the players was in the verge of becoming too big. He, Jonathe E. was a threat to the rule.We can forget all about that with this remake of that 70's classic. There is no political metaphor, no philosophical questions about humanity, in fact there is no sense at all, if you don't count nonsense, about the movie. John McTiernan, director of such classics as 'The Predator' and 'Die Hard' has managed to make a movie, that is in one word, poor.With some idiotic excuse the main protagonist Jonathan (at least the name is same), gets in the hazardous game of Rollerball with his pal Marcus (LL Cool J). Soon he notices, that there is something fishy about the game.There isn't anything worthwhile to mention about the film. Tiernan directs like a man, who hasn't directed a single piece of film in his life. The plot is idiotic and the main baddies are pretty much camp material. The action is poorly choreographed and the editing tries so badly to be music video like, that it's flat out funny.Can't really figure any reason for anyone to see this film.Rating: 1 out of 10Camp rating: 4 out of 10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "How to get an awful mess remaking a good film",
      "review": "I suspected 2002 \"Rollerball\" was an ugly movie, but not that ugly! Well, let's get rid of the only merit of the movie: the presence of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, beautiful and tremendously sexy. Indeed, a statuesque female warrior is always sexy, all the more with that alluring scar on her face.The tragic fact with \"Rollerball\" is that the story should be good, per se. The authors took the ideas from the original (and true) 1975 \"Rollerball\". They deleted the political and moral messages, which were somewhat a weakness of the 1975 film, and placed the story in some remote countries of a near future, allegedly ruled by violence, greed, abuse. But the way the film is made turns it into a disaster.There is an over-long (and boring) preamble, with a race down-hill of some cretinous youngsters, in San Francisco. This is a great narrative mistake. The audience is anxious to know about the Rollerball game, and you excruciate them with idiots, easily found, alas!, in everyday life. In the next scene Jonathan (a remarkably blunt Chris Klein) has become the undisputed superstar of the Rollerball. We don't understand anything of the rules of the game. As a matter of fact, we don't understand anything of the plot! The guys on the screen keep talking about other guys, seemingly killed by the bad ones, or something like that. Who are who? The audience utterly ignores it. The next scene (say: someone escaping from somewhere) has no logical connection with the previous one. I bet that in the final editing of the movie a good 30 minutes were cut, making the story a complete mess. The only thing we get is that the villains deliberately provoke accidents on the field to raise the TV audience of the game. And then there is the lousy greenish nocturnal scene. Up to my knowledge, the worst visual idea in the history of cinema. Some 15 minutes of sufferings for the innocent viewer. The ending is even more ludicrous than expected.But what is really incredible, even in a terrible movie, is that, in spite of the enormous technological improvements, the scenes of the game, and related special effects, are by far less spectacular, exciting, violent than those of the 1975 \"Rollerball\". The possibly interesting presence of women playing Rollerball is not exploited at all. The uniforms of the teams are worse than horrible, they are stupid.There's nothing to save in \"Rollerball\". Just take Romijn-Stamos and bring her to another movie (keeping the scar on her face, if possible).",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollershite",
      "review": "First of all the original film needs to be rated much higher on this site. Anything below an 8 never mind a 7 is criminal. 6.6 ?Anyway back to this utter **** up remake. McTiernan you ought to be thoroughly ashamed to even call this film 'Rollerball'. Was the editor being fxxxed up the arse sideways while he pressed the buttons?? $70,000,000 budget on what - plastic surgery for the acting line-up and foie gras sandwiches?What in hell's name was the film about? It was disjointed and impossible to follow. Dialogue - forget it. The characters barely developed during the whole film and you couldn't care if they got bludgeoned to death during the game anyway.Save your money or down a few pints instead !!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "The most hilarious recent comedy that's not a comedy.",
      "review": "Many people call this movie horrible, but I see it as a masterpiece of bad cinema. I can't believe anyone would find this entertaining - its hilarious! It made me laugh harder than most comedies out at the time and it also makes you feel good when you realize you had absolutely nothing to do with the making of this movie. Thank you, Rollerball! Bless your heart!",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Taken too seriously",
      "review": "Look, I get the gripe, it's nowhere near as good as the original. But let's face it, it's not like this was some movie with a huge budget, filmed with massive stars like some movie remakes (gone in 60 seconds, the Italian Job). I mean if Paul Heyman is a lead actor what can you really expect. Therefore, stop trying to take this movie seriously. If you put aside your over the top expectations for LL Cool J to Cary the whole movie around, and just enjoy the fun and spectacle. This movie has some Kickass music, violence, gratuitous nudity, and an absurd plot. Just have some fun people, and it it's not for you, that's ok. But let other people enjoy the fun.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Wow... no really... wow...",
      "review": "Never in my life have I seen something held together by cameo appearances... I mean, this has to be the most commercialized, corporate movie I have ever seen.From the god awful Slipknot's appearance to the Ben Affleck of the next generation Chris Klein, the only uplifting experience was Jean Reno, because he is the coolest actor since Samuel L. Jackson.And seriously, for a movie made just four years before its set-time, it went way overboard.Oh and a fun fact: ECW and WWE's Paul Heyman is that annoying commentator you see from scene 1... and generally in each and every scene afterwards.From wrestling (Heyman), fake metal (Slipknot) to horrible acting (Klein) and a poor storyline that can truly only be outdone by Gigli, I find myself wanting to rip out my left kidney if not for the fact I already did so watching Gigli.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Plain dreadful film.",
      "review": "I was really speechless after watching \"Rollerball\". I expected a dull movie, not something so dreadful. \"Rollerball\" has all the elements to make one of those bizarre cult classics from the 70's and 80's. Except the fun element.The movie starts with the worst police chase in years. Believe me, any Lorenzo Lamas movie, even one featuring appearances from Dolph Lundgren, can be capable of a car chase better than this: we see Chris Klein running from police in a mix of skateboard and racing-car, in San Francisco. Then, helped by his friend LL Cool J., he goes to an Asiatic country. There, the most popular game is the Rollerball, a mix of basketball and roller-skating that seems to be deadly and a great money-maker. Rollerball is controlled by Jean Reno's character, the average \"mad-business-man\" stereotype. Then, we learn that Chris Klein is having an affair with his Rollerball partner, Rebbeca Romjin-Stamos.What comes next is not worth telling. Of course, Chris, LL and Rebbeca will make a rebellion against Jean Reno. But there isn't anything new in this idea. It's wasted by a script that, once tries to make a cheap social critic, then tries to shove action sequences in the screen at all coasts, and both are really bad.The acting is at the last level. It's incredible to see Jean Reno, an actor that is mostly great (watch \"Red Rivers\") making such a mess with his role. It's so stereotyped and has so less to do (despite it's importance in the plot) that you can completely forget about it. LL Cool J. is a special case: he keep going well for a while, and then completely disappears, showing that, maybe, good acting wasn't allowed in Rollerball rules.Oh, the main couple. Chris Klein and Rebbeca Romjin-Stamos. Well, Rebbeca is incredibly sexy in this role, and it's nice to see her in topless scenes, so we can forget she's so bad here. And Klein. Let's just say Chris Klein will NEVER work in an action movie anymore. At least we hope so.In the end, the movie is a complete mess. Is not only a waste of money, but also waste of time, celluloid and Jean Reno. That is a complete sin. It feels like director John McTiernan wanted so badly to make a stylish movie that he forgot to make a good movie.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Xmas is a comin', I smell TURKEY.",
      "review": "With all the starving in the World, some coke abusing studio Exec gave the OK to spend 70 million US on THIS travesty ! I assume this person lost their job.It is just like watching an episode of the TV show Gladiators, all the combatants have stupid names and costumes, and the grand oval Rollerball tracks of the original have been replaced with a tiny, cheap looking hamster run figure eight, littered with jumps, that is barely 25 yards in length !But what really kills the film is the God awful \"Directing\".What was John Mac doing ? The Rollerball games themselves are impossible to follow because he is constantly cutting from close up to close up at a frenetic pace (possibly because none of the actors can actually skate ?) The result is you cannot follow what on earth is going on.The only good performance in this film is from LL Cool J, and what with him being a black actor, then inevitably, he gets killed, and we are forced to suffer \"Keanu-lite\"; Chris Klein from there after.This film really is the pits. I hear that the \"Special Edition DVD\" is just an empty box.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Nowhere near close to being worth getting into the game for",
      "review": "Norman Jewison's 1975 film 'Rollerball' is not a perfect film, it did have pacing issues, had heavy-handed moments and James Caan and John Houseman's characters were the only interestingly developed ones. The rollerball sequences however are truly exciting and harrowing, it's thought-provoking and relevant, it's well made and acted it has a powerful ending and it has some of the best use of classical music in film.Whatever faults the original had, it's a masterpiece compared to this dreadful mess, which makes all the few faults of the original, magnifies them by a thousand and makes a plethora's worth of flaws on top. The remake of 'Rollerball' not only fails spectacularly as a remake, down there as the worst and most pointless ones out there along with 'Psycho', 'The Wicker Man' and 'Stepford Wives', but is catastrophically bad film in its own right. It is truly hard to believe that it was directed by the same man responsible for great films like 'The Hunt for Red October', 'Predator' and especially 'Die Hard'. One of the biggest falls in film quality ever and John McTiernan's worst film by a significant degree.Not even the usually game and more Jean Reno is enough to save it, but actually comes off the least badly. The acting is very poor, and this is at best, especially from a chronically wooden and personality deprived Chris Klein, in a role that even the best of actors working today would struggle to do anything with, and Rebecca Romijin-Stamos who doesn't even try to act. Character development may not have been a strong suit in the 1975 film, but at least the two lead characters were interesting. Here there were no interesting characters at all, all of them severely underwritten ciphers.McTiernan's direction has no style, personality, tension or energy of any kind, it's uncharacteristically incompetent career-worst and career-killing worthy direction and 'Rollerball' is a strong contender for the worst-directed film of that year. Don't expect good visuals either, 'Rollerball' is cheap, chaotic, too darkly lit and is to me has some of the worst editing for any film not to have SyFy or The Asylum's involvement. Eric Serra's, regular composer for Luc Besson's films, music score is never dynamic, in fact it's discordant and intrusive, and has nothing memorable about it.School sports days are more exciting and suspenseful than the action here, and considering they and bullying were the lowest points of my school life that is not a compliment. No sense of danger, no tension, too darkly lit, chaotically edited and sometimes incoherent as well as too clean and glossy for something actually intended to be very dangerous (when it did try to be more violent it was gratuitously so), a huge problem for a film where it features heavily at the expense of everything else. The ending is as wet as a drip and floppy as badly out of date cabbage.Dialogue is truly risible and should never have approved beyond first draft, and even earlier than that, the pace is so pedestrian the slowest snail moves faster in comparison and the story is redundant in all senses with no thrills or fun, lack of coherence is also an issue as is the jumbled structure.Altogether, a catastrophically bad mess with no redeeming values (not even Reno). In the top 10 of the worst and most pointless remakes ever and on its own terms as a film it's not much better, even worse actually. 1/10 Bethany Cox",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "What channel did you say you gave us in your territory?",
      "review": "In the original film, the game attempted to stand as an outlet of Corporation superiority; constantly demonstrating to the consumers (the people) that individuality is futile. Apparently, one does not have to either read the screenplay or physically watch the original film for there to be a remake. Decent director John McTiernan, who \"wow-ed\" me with such films as the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair as well as his early cult hits like Die Hard and Predator has obviously lost his ability to either A) do remakes or B) handle a camera with any sense of decency. If I was allowed one question to have answered through the course of my life, my question would be, \"What was the point of Rollerball the remake?\", and I do believe there would be answer from any higher authority. This film single handedly goes down in the record books as not just the worst remake to come out of Hollywood, but it is also a double threat, with it being in the top 100 of worst films ever conceived. It is embarrassing to say, but it has to be said, that Rollerball is one of a few select films that demonstrated no ability in the fields of direction, acting, cinematography, or writing. Nothing, I repeat, nothing of value can be found with this film, and I even tried hard, but one must easily look at this film and simply state, \"It failed\".There was absolutely nothing science fiction about this film outside of the possibility of the actual Rollerball game being a rather sci-fi-esquire type game, but when you look at it, there is nothing special about the sport. The 1975 film version was extremely science fiction with its views on the future of our world, the surrounding environment, as well as subtly placed usage of the laser gun. Yet somehow, this 2002 version is able to call itself a \"science fiction\" merely on the premise that it takes place three years in the future. Three. Whole. Years. That to me is the staple of why this film corrupted from the inside out. The writing was atrocious to say the least. It felt as if the writers of this film, one Larry Ferguson or one John Pogue (odd, this horrid smelling filth of a film took two of Hollywood's scribes … ouchers!), took random ideas, threw them together and attempted to create continuity in the course of 97 minutes. No doubtably procrastination was an issue, and to cut corners to meet a deadline these avid writers chose to cut characters, huge plot points, and any sort of solid stream of consciousness to create possibly the worst that Hollywood could ever offer. Nothing, in the form of script, plot, or action/adventure is worth mentioning in this film. Words came out of the actor's mouths, but they meant nothing, they stood for nothing, and half the time it just had me laughing due to the staged words that they were dealt. Again, there was no value in this film.Chris Klein has ridden the shirt tales of American Pie for a very long time (I always saw him as the Weakest Link of those films), so he decided to take a leading man's role in Rollerball in hopes that he could transform his career into a leading man, but you can't make cardboard stand on his own. Could Chris have attempted to grow a backbone for this film … is that possible? The words that came out of his mouth had no emotion; he was together with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos for purely the physical admiration, and someone needs to tell him that by squinting his eyes harder doesn't indicate that he is upset or angry. I cannot seem to shake the image of him riding with L.L. Cool J in the Russian night on a motorcycle using \"night vision\" for dramatic purposes, and Klein speaking unattached words out of my mind. It was hilarity on a grand scale. I remember the pair talking about something, but the laughter coming from my mouth was far more overpowering. Nothing (which seems to be the common theme of this film) is of value in this film. That isn't to say that those like LL, Jean Reno, Stamos, or even my favorite Naveen Andrews were any better. Klein led the pact with kindergarten acting skills, but Reno was completely over the top, which caused confusion as to who he was and why he was involved financially, Andrews was nothing more than filler, Stamos was used for the nudity … that was all, and LL kept the \"hip-ness\" factor on a grander scale. Nobody demonstrated anything close to talent in this film and it ultimately boils down to the failure of decent director John McTiernan.Rollerball is one of those films that gives remakes a horrid name. Even if the original wasn't worth writing home to mother about, films of this stature only place a black scar on the future of remakes. I have to be worried about McTiernan because of my enjoyment of some of his past films and how anyone could see the final cut of this film and say, \"This is my best work yet!\" If you cannot say those words as you hand the final reel to the distribution company, I would reconsider the release. Writing was far worse that imaginable, the acting was nowhere to be seen, and the cinematography (something I didn't feel like going into too deeply with this review) felt as if it was done by those who are afraid of camera. Honestly, I have seen better amateur work than what Rollerball had to offer. Why is this film still being distributed? My only wish is that future directors and actors actually take pride in their work instead of just allowing the paycheck to do the talking. Ignore this film or it will haunt you the rest of your life!Grade: * out of *****",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Strictly children's entertainment, no visible plot or message",
      "review": "This rat turd has nothing to do with Harrison's story or Jewison's 1975 SF classic, and using their title this way should be criminally prosecutable.The director, fearing (perhaps rightly) that today's relatively illiterate and dense younger audiences couldn't follow the subtle plot and story arcs of the original, settled for a limp cartoon featuring a grinning plastic hero (Keanu Reeves without the dramatic flair) and a fast whiz-bang pace to make sure no one notices that this emperor has no clothes. I noticed, thank you.Don't waste your time; rent the original and see why it's been a cult classic for 30 years, whereas this one was forgotten in 30 days.The original Jonathan E's search for how the status quo came to be, and why man had lost control of his destiny, was central to the theme -- completely ignored in the 2002 cheap Chinese knockoff. HIs quote, \"It is as though at some time in the past we were given a choice to trade our freedom for comfort....\" wouldn't even make sense in the remake, and the original ending -- affirming the ascendancy of the individual and (my interpretation) sounding the death knell for the Corporations -- had to be scrapped.Comparing the two versions: Compare the magnificent organ intro of the original (Bach's Toccata und Fugue in D-Minor) with the trashy barking of the 2002 sound track -- that says it all. It's like picking up two tools, one by Snap-On and the other by Chinese-made \"Buffalo tools: the difference is instantly apparent.For those who have seen both and prefer the newer version, I have naught but contempt, or perhaps pity. It's those feeble souls that in Jewison's future world would willingly trade the gold of freedom for the dross of comfort.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerballs !",
      "review": "I wasn't expecting much. In fact the poorest of poor reviews that this film received had made me curious enough to watch this it (for free on cable I might add). Firstly I should say that I am not a huge fan of the original movie, it is a reasonable action film, so my dislike does not stem from a loyalty to the first incarnation of this story. My dislike for the 2002 Rollerball comes from a feeling of being patronized by everyone involved in the making of this movie. How did the producers ever think that this was acceptable on any level?The acting is second rate but what is to be expected from one of the worst casts ever assembled? Klein is worthless unless he is making a joke of his own persona (Election), LLcoolJ is one of a string of rappers that should never be given a 'tough guy' role simply because of his real profession and Reno, the one talented actor among them, seems to slip into pantomime dame territory. I will give Paul Heyman praise for his character as the English announcer, he seems to come across as a decent and fairly charasmatic actor but he does little that he doesn't do brilliantly in his day job.The attempted satire relating to the commercialisation of sport and its reliance on violence is pathetically toothless. The direction is simply a mess. The attempt to make this non-sensical sport look breathtaking through rapid editing and instant replay is awful. It does nothing but make you realize that restrained directing and editing are a wonderful thing.Rollerball represents everything that is wrong with mainstream Hollywood movies. It shows a lack the of originality, does this version add anything to the original version?, that has dogged film for years. I cannot believe that there are so few new ideas that we have to see cult action movies, cult British crime movies and television shows remade over and over again.  This movie should be avoided at all costs.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "One of the top 5 overall worst movies I've ever seen.",
      "review": "Dreadful. At least three times during the movie, I contemplated turning the TV off but resisted, feeling I should at least finish what I'd started.There is NO character development--not that any of the characters (less two) were ever formally introduced. I barely knew who was who in this movie. There was also very little plot development, for that matter. To make it worse, this has probably got to be one of the most incoherent movies I've ever seen! I gave up trying to figure out what was going on and why. The story went here, there, and everywhere, without really explaining what was happening, and with very little dialogue. Much of what was done and said made very little sense. Did I mention the camera work was poor? Is it any wonder that I kept staring at the clock, keeping track of how much longer I had to endure?But don't take my word for it. If you've got a couple hours to kill, watch it and wonder for yourselves why this movie ever made it to theatres.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "THE Worst",
      "review": "I'm the sort of person who loves watching bad movies, and I've been trying to see this movie for years because of its reputation. Now that I've seen it, I can say that it is THE WORST movie I have ever seen. Forget Manos the Hands of Fate, Plan 9 from Outer Space, From Justin to Kelly, Battlefield Earth or whatever - this movie takes it. It is HORRIBLE. I think it features some of the worst cinematography and poorest editing I have ever seen, and I don't really understand why because the individuals involved in this movie (Director, Editors, Cinematography) are not really bad at what they do (at least if their other movies are any proof) . There are sequences included in this movie where you'll be looking at an unfocused close-up of a character you've never seen, followed by a cut to a totally unrelated scene, then another cut to an unfocused close-up of another random character that you'll never see again, with half of their face in frame for about 1 second before they move out of frame and there's another cut to an unrelated situation.I have never even written a review before on IMDb but I just *had* to write one about this movie. The only thing moderately enjoyable about this movie is the DVD commentary, which features LL Cool J rambling on about random topics and complaining when he gets blown up before the end of the movie. Unlike most bad movies that are at least fun to watch because of how horrible they are, this movie is beyond laughably bad, it's simply UNWATCHABLE. See it only if you want to be assured that you've seen THE WORST MOVIE to ever hit theaters.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Updated and truer to the original story",
      "review": "Cannot believe the low rating for this movie unless the majority of viewers are hardened lovers of the original. Must be taken at it's own value and not a remake. Visually it has more in common with Triple X which can't be a bad thing. The original has a tedious pace between games - this movie just keeps going without a breath.The music is awesome as well.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Pretty Bad, but not THAT bad...",
      "review": "Once again it can be said that this movie is not as bad as they make it out to be. Sure it was not exactly Oscar winning material, but to put it in the bottom 100 is just crazy. It's so easy for people to jump on the bandwagon and collectively dump on a movie (eg. Gigli), saying it's the 'Worst movie ever made' etc etc, clearly these people have never seen drek like \"Rollerball Seven' or 'Space Mutiny' or even 'Leprechaun 4', those movies were BAD. Yes this was a remake, and the plot stays pretty much the same as the original, futuristic game played with motorbikes and roller blades, but it does not come close to the James Caan original. It's worth a watch if it's showing late one night on TV, might even be worth a rental on DVD. Watch it and judge for yourself.",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "Whatever you do... don't ever as much as consider watching this poor excuse for a film",
      "review": "After watching this(well, watching... occasionally glancing at it, which, unsurprisingly, was more than enough to pick up the plot), I have to wonder about its placing as #50 on the bottom 100 list... personally, I'd have rated it much higher. It's one of the worst films ever made, without a doubt. The plot is some muddled mess about the future in which some insane sport is run, and someone finds out about there being some cheating going on in it... I don't know, I think the biggest problem was that I really didn't give a damn. Some new sport is started, and it's worse than the rest... so? Don't participate in the bloody thing. Some people start cheating in order to win or make it more interesting or whatever... so? Isn't that what all sports are about? To the best of my knowledge, there hasn't been a completely honest type of sports that was completely devoid of cheaters since... well, ever. That's what we do, us humans. We challenge each other to find someone who's better at one particular thing and cheat if we don't think we can win. What else is new? In case you haven't figured it out by yourself yet, no, I don't care for sports. The pacing is awful and tries the viewers patience, whilst the editing does its best to supply him/her with a sturdy migraine, usually successful. The editing, score and dialog clearly does what it can to seem 'hip', cool and fresh, mostly just resulting in more bodily pain(now it's not just your brain that hurts due to it trying hard to understand the pure crap the plot and the film in general is, now your ears will be bleeding from the noise and your eyes will be flinching from the quick, pointless cuts that try far too hard to be stylish). McTiernan, one question. What the hell is wrong with you? OK, maybe you were never *that* talented... but Last Action Hero was at the very least solid and Die Hard was good. How did you slide so low down the talent ladder? One of the steps broke and you didn't grab a hold of it, is that it? The acting is dire. Not that it's any surprise, really... come on, admit it, LL Cool J can't act, we all know it; and apparently, neither can Chris Klein, if his performance in this mess is anything to go by(guess he just got lucky in the American Pie films). The characters are poorly written clichés that we don't care even the slightest bit about. The whole film is an unforgivable mess of a somewhat decent idea with absolutely no redeeming qualities. See the first version or just skip this one altogether. I recommend this to mindless sports fans or teenagers who like loud noises and break-neck speed editing. 1/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "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": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Yikes......",
      "review": "There are bad films...... and then there are films like Rollerball. I'm still trying to figure out why someone thought that this would be a good idea.The acting is \"meh\" at the best of times, the script is bizarre and who in their right mind thought Rebecca Romijn would pull off a fake Dutch accent?... and a ten minute sequence filmed with a NightVision filter? It could have worked if it had been filmed in first-person, but the angles make it illogical at best. It's like The Fast and the Furious had a kid with Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome... and it had a severe mental disability. The only reason this gets a 1-star rating is because it is impossible to give it a 0-star rating.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "A dopey remake that really misses the mark",
      "review": "The reputation of this film really goes before it. It was of course a remake of the 1975 original and it almost goes without saying that it is also vastly inferior. Most remakes are worse of course but this one really misses the mark quite spectacularly. What is so surprising is that it's the action scenes themselves that are possibly the most poorly executed. Director John McTiernan had been most famous for making classics of the action genre in Predator (1987) and Die Hard (1988), which makes it so doubly surprising that his action scenes in Rollerball are so poor. The game of Rollerball itself should be pretty simple but in this movie it can barely be followed nor understood. For the remake the arena has pointlessly being changed into a figure of eight shaped track that looks less like a place of futuristic violent sports combat and more like the set from the 90's game-show Gladiators. The action is fast, furious, yet incomprehensible, edited together in ways that do not help us know what the hell is going on.The story-line underpinning events is broadly similar to the original but with poor performances and a weak script. You never get very involved with the plight of the characters and it's quite difficult believing that this is the number one sport in the world of the future. Unlike the original, the events only occur two or three years in the future, meaning that the dystopian sci-fi of the original is lost and we have a drearier contemporary world in which events unfold. Although it was quite an unusual idea setting the action in Kazakhstan of all places! To be fair to the film, it does move at a decent pace and is entertaining enough if you lower your expectations accordingly. If it wasn't a remake of a cult classic I daresay it would have passed under the radar as a ropey action movie but seeing as it is a new version of an old film and one with quite a considerable budget its flaws become all too apparent.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Stupid remake , BUT last 15 minutes are GREAT",
      "review": "First 5 minutes are great, last 15 minutes are great. Some gratuitous hot nudity, and the star of The Professional was awesome.Bizarre night vision segment in the middle...The actual sport was never explained.Fun fact: original Rollerball was counter-clockwise motion, this one was Clockwise. But the gameplay is irrelevant to the bizarre story.The ending was great, tho.",
      "rating": "5"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball",
      "review": "I had heard of this film long before the original 1975 Norman Jewison/James Caan version it is based on, mainly because of the leading actor and the fact that it's not rated well, I am relieved I watched the original before this remake, directed by John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October). Basically in 2005, Rollerball is a sport that has become hugely popular in Central Asia, Russia, China, Mongolia and Turkey, it is an extraordinarily violent extension of roller derby involving motorcycles, a metal ball, and many trappings similar to professional wrestling. Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J) invites NHL (National Hockey League) hopeful Jonathan Cross (American Pie's Chris Klein) to become part of a team of rollerball, Jonathan soon becomes the star player, and the poster child of promoter Alexi Petrovich (Jean Reno). Jonathan at first enamoured by the high- octane sport, the fame and popularity, and with female teammate Aurora (Razzie nominated Rebecca Romijn), but he and Ridley discover cynical Alexi and his opportunistic assistant Sanjay (Lost's Naveen Andrews) want to keep the game popular, through planned gory \"accidents\", and ensuring Jonathan and Ridley will not quit and remain high-profile stars. Aurora is almost killed in an accident, so to save themselves Jonathan and Ridley flee the country, but they are followed by Alexi and several body guards, before they can reach the Russian border, the two are attacked, and Ridley is killed. Alexi tries to stage a public execution for Jonathan, following the escape attempt, by removing all the regular rules of Rollerball for the upcoming match, however Jonathan, with the help of his teammates, start a revolution, and cause the fans to see the sport for what it really is, a violent game where blood brings in the audience figures, and Alexi is killed as a result. Also starring Oleg Taktarov as Denekin, David Hemblen as Serokin, Janet Wright as Coach Olga, Mike Dopud as Michael 'The Assassin' and Kata Dobó as Katya, with cameo appearances by P!nk, Slipknot and Paul Heyman. I assumed Klein missed being in American Pie: The Wedding to be in this, this turned out to be untrue, he lacks charisma to be the lead, Romijn just looks gorgeous and doesn't do much, and the rest of the well known stars like Cool J, Reno and Andrews are silly. Cool J admitted the movie \"sucked\", but did his \"duty\" to promote it, he really should not have bothered, the performances are wooden, the story is full of clichés, and the pacy rollerball sequences and action set pieces are worthless, there are no thrills to be had here, it is one of the most boring films I've seen in years, a highly dull and pointless science-fiction sports drama. Poor!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "truly and utterly stupid",
      "review": "When I went to see this movie, I had little expectations on it, and remarkable the movie was worse than my expectations. The movie is about a weird game that doesn't seem to make any sense. A young man (chriss's character) is asked to play the game for some money and he agrees. for some reason, he's actually one of the best players of the game. Even stupider is that the owners of the game are having some secret Mischief (don't want to ruin what it is) and now some of the players are trying to be killed. Just watching the movie was hard enough and the acting was no better. This is a movie i don't recommend unless your about 10 years old. All in all, I give this movie a 2/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "How to spoil an SF classic",
      "review": "Well, it's not as easy as it seems. First you need a good story. To spoil. Then you need a miscast. Forgettable, in every way, the guy in the main role, who's supposed to be a tough roller-ball player.Director misses the point all the time. Here, an accent should be on a metaphor for totalitarian society, benumbed with all the luxuries of the world, convinced that each individualistic attempt is doomed from the start. Here we have a different case - a metaphor, a pure object, a motive became a story itself. With none of 1960's, 1970's, politically awake attitudes, everything became cheap fun or even cheaper boredom.An interesting datum: a character nicknamed ,,The Assassin''(a Russian) speaks somewhat fluent serbocroatian ,,Ostavi to, ti budalo'' /Live that, you fool/ (in Russian a fool is said ,,durak''), so as the central Asian, Caucasian miner (at least he understands it)at the end of movie. The same miner works at the same time in Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Also, if you never knew - central and east Asia are inhabited with loads of African Americans. And America's everywhere.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "It is an eternal mystery that this movie could be this bad...",
      "review": "If you value the time you have on this earth, do not ever waste even a second on this movie, let alone two hours. Don't even waste your time thinking about the existence of this film. In fact, if you aren't reading this review for the pleasure of laughing at one of the great film feces of our time, then quit wasting your time. There were about seven trailers attached to this film. When the last trailer ended, I should have left. What I can't believe is how this movie got past the Surgeon General. Something this harmful to your mental health should definitely come with a warning. Die Hard, the Hunt for Red October, the Thirteenth Warrior: what went wrong? John McTiernan used to make good films. It is a sad day. Truly we have all suffered a great loss through the making and, even worse, the distribution of this picture. My condolences are sincerely extended to anyone who has been subjected in any way to this excrement.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "So BAD that it's GOOD",
      "review": "Rollerball's so bad that it's good IMO. In this movie you have:-A game that makes absolutely no sense-A disfigured Rebecca Romijin Stamos(she has two little scars on her face)-A Whole Action sequence shot in Blurry Night Vision-A \"BOINGGGGGGG!!\" sound effect when LL Cool Jay runs over a motorcyle-Stuff clearly removed in the movie resulting in really odd cuts-Jean Reno wearing Big CoatsIt's Great! Watch it with the family",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Better then I expected",
      "review": "I had heard a lot about this movie sucking so I rented it not expecting much.  I have seen the original although it has been awhile.  I think this was a fun movie with some cool action.  The story was not the greatest and I thought the main carracter was to much of a pretty boy to pull of the bad ass.  I also did not like how it goes from him riding skateboards in san fransico to him being the most popular rollerball player in 4 months?  They should have shown when he comes in as a rookie and played a little of that.",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worst Film of the Year?",
      "review": "It's only February and it looks like we may already have our Worst Film of the year. Seriously, this film make Battlefield Earth look Good. If you say the original, you will want to leave the theater after the first 10 minutes. The new Rollerball doesn't have the social commentary which the original was ALL ABOUT! It attempted to made us look critically at the amount of violence that we want to \"entertain\" us. But in the new Rollerball, they glorify the violence! It is edited horribly, and we can't care less about about Klien's character. Re-release the original and lock up the new version in a vault somewhere forever.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Achingly, horrifyingly, stunningly bad",
      "review": "A certain film critic -- I believe it was the NY Times reviewer -- labeled \"Battlefield Earth\" as, to paraphrase, \"what will become known in infamy as the worst film of the 21st century.\"  He was wrong.  \"Rollerball\" wins hands down.  The acting, dialogue and direction are incomparably bad -- and I defy anyone to sit down after watching the movie once and effectively explain the plots, character motivations, or any of the rules of the Rollerball game.  This is the most poorly-edited major studio film I've seen since \"Superman IV,\" which is still my least favorite movie of all time.  There are at least five or six very, very obvious dubs over the f-word, clearly done late in the game to obtain a PG-13 rating.  This is fine for an airing on network television, but for an R-rated DVD?  Um, no.  Others here have already eviscerated the ridiculous night-vision sentence effectively, so I won't go there.  The only thing remotely worth watching in this film is the opening luge sequence.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Abomination",
      "review": "Yet another pointless hack job of a \"remake\". What they did to the \"plot\" is simple inexcusable. The original is a classic that successfully incorporates adrenaline pumping violence and competition, social and political commentary, and ultimately the indomitable will of one man (and by proxy, mankind).The remake is \"Oh, look! LL Cool J on a bike! WHEEEEEEE! VROOM VROOM!\".",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worse Than One Could Possibly Imagine",
      "review": "Rollerball began life as a short story. It later became a semi-classic film with James Caan. Next it became this smoking pile of dog poop.The point of the movies ultimately are the game sequences.In the original they were well thought out nasty brawls of escalating violence that served as commentary on the individual versus the corporation. It is in its way the ultimate anti communist propaganda. While the original was weak  but watchable off the track, we knew there was always the game to bring us back into the movie.Here the game is total confusion. It is impossible to know what is going on or why. Its all quick cuts that don't even remotely go together. I was forced to quickly turn the movie off because I simply could not follow what was going on.Worse I didn't want to.The game is a suped up mish-mash of various sports old and new and follows no logic other than \"it looks cool\".  The plotting of the game as a banned game illegal in the civilized world is retarded.The cast is mostly good but they are given nothing to do.This is simply just bad film making.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Random noise",
      "review": "OK IMDb junkies, if you've read any of my reviews at this point you should notice that I enjoy \"bad\" or b-movies. Rarely, and I mean Catwoman rarely do I turn off the DVD player. But when I saw this film, well lets just say I began to contemplate the afterlife. It all comes down to one scene, a battery of nonsense imagery set to noises that clearly lack any true direction. I seem to remember an alarm clock, a rooster crow, a ninja \"heeee-yaa\" and bowling pins being hit, followed by a reporter asking LL Cool J if his mother was a crack head. I immediately began slapping myself in the face, asking if what I had seen was real, or whether I had eaten the wrong pill and found myself in the 'real' world where God-awful films like this actually get the go ahead and budget to be produced, shot, and released to the public.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "A complete mess, even if you don't compare it to the original",
      "review": "Ignoring how much better the first film is, and judging this on it's own merits, it is still atrocious. I'll get the few good aspects out of the way: the direction and cinematography are decent. John McTiernan makes good use of the camera, camera movement, overhead shots, etc. The infamous \"night vision scene\" is so strange and awful that it comes back around to being awesome - truly bizarre stuff. There's one good song in the movie and some decent stuntwork... that's about it.There's too much bad to mention: The actors are all awful. Whoever cast Chris Klein in the lead should be shot by a firing squad. He is particularly horrendous here, acting like he's a badass for no good reason. LL Kool J deserves a mention here, too - he stinks. What little social commentary there is, is hamfisted and given only maybe 5 minutes of screentime. The story serves very little impact and is only there to justify the action scenes. During the action scenes is also where the direction falls apart, you have no idea where characters are in relation to one another, and often it is just a flurry of bodies flying thru the air one after another, like some sort of bizarre kung-fu flick. Except this is technically a sports movie, so there desperately needs to be some coherence to the action so you can know the stakes and who is winning. But instead each rollerball scene is just a mess. There's a bad 90s metal soundtrack that probably sounded dated upon release. Paul Heyman of ECW fame makes a pointless cameo. It's 90 minutes, but feels like 190.I spent extra time doing the dishes in order to avoid this movie, that's how bad it is. This is hard to watch for all the wrong reasons. Utterly irredeemable.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Oh dear.  Oh dear oh dear oh dear.",
      "review": "There was me thinking John McTiernan knew what he was up to.This film is a mess.The story is familiar and clichéd but, even so, the telling of it is muddled.Rollerball itself, potentially exciting, is hopelessly confusing and pointless.The script is slightly less useful than waste paper.Rebecca Romijn-Stamos looks good.Chris Klein, looking very like Keanu Reeves, proves to be a good deal less expressive. The lad has shown himself to be tolerable in an ensemble piece, but he can't carry an action movie on his own due to a complete absence of charisma.Poor.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Horrendous Sequel Unworthy Of The Budget Expenditure:",
      "review": "Oh dear where can you start? This was a real mess,a plaster board' makeover of the original. An awful attempt to cash in on one of the greatest movies of the 70s. With LL Cool J, Rebecca Romjin, Jean Reno..and the guiding hand of John McTiernan, this should have been fairly good. However it fails miserably on all counts. The Rollerball course was more like a cheap Go Kart/Scateboard Park, for under 5s at a funfair...A far cry from the former Olympic basketball stadium converted in the original movie...The acting, well I've seen better in a cheap bin, in a £1 shop in the UK...Obviously, there was no attempt at method here! I am glad those involved must have been quick to bank their cheques...We will see them on \"Cribs\" next, showing off their new homes and paraphernalia, probably sporting a Rollerball 2002 poster in a glass frame on some staircase landing...I nearly bought the DVD video, after all the advertising hype...Im glad I did not, I would rather buy £10 of white stewed cabbage and make myself more sick, than I currently am feeling after watching this again...Worst film and my worst IMDb mark Sorry!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "why did they bother......",
      "review": "The original had a humanity to it absolutely totally missing from this piece of utter crap. I have seen bad movies - and comments on them - but good grief. I tried to find something useful or fun to say, and almost failed. The initial scenes in San Fransciso were pretty well executed, but other than that - don't bother.Pathos? nope - how about Suspense? nope - maybe some Cinematography? nope - OK I give up how about it being a Soparific? yep.I really, really mean don't bother!! The original was fantastic, this is just a movie with the same name and nothing else.crap",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "A good re-make rated cheaply",
      "review": "No matter what others say but i managed to view both the versions of the movie, no wonder old one is a good one but other version is a great one. I am an action junkie so what i believe that this movie has more action than the older one and has a correct story line than the old one since the character of Jonathan never wanted to retire in the first one but in this one he becomes a part of a gambling ring from which he wants to be free. I believe that this movie has a great action sequences than older ones especially black widow which the first movie lacks a lot. I recommend watching this movie first and go for the other before making any judgment.Thanks",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "MUCH Better than expected.",
      "review": "First off: the original film, starring James Caan and John Houseman, 1975, was not BORING. It is, rather, a sci-fi classic- a tale of  man against the system, fighting to be who he is in the midst of corporate greed, etc. This new version, while not nearly as \"deep\" as the original film, is still quite entertaining. I liked some of the changes to the original story (i.e the setting: an up and coming extreme sport played in contemporary Cosack nations vs. aglobal, barbaric, futuristic, corporate warfare.) I also really appreciated the witty lines- especially at the end (no spoilers.) Contrary to what you'll read elsewhere here, the editing is NOT bad. IT IS very stylistic, and I can understand how someone could mistake it for bad editing if they weren't paying attention. (If you didn't like this  film's editing, then by all means, avoid Stallone's \"Get Carter,\" another very stylish and masterful editing job.)******POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOLLOW********* All in all, the only really unfortunate thing about this film is that it is reduced to a tale of revenge. In the original, Jonathan was Rollerball. It defined him and he was the icon of the sport. Outside forces tried to change that and defeat who he was- to separate him from the game. In the end, he overcame and his victorywas symbolized by his scoring. In defiance of all that was set in motion against him, he played the game. He scored.This newer version has our character willing to bail out of the game at the drop of a hat- he's only in it for the money. Rollerball will go on without him. So his motivation becomes revenge. The end is a bloodbath (that only furtherrepresents where we now are as a culture). Too hollow for me.I give it a 6/10 - much better than I expected.",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "worst movie ever made? nah, that belongs to Swept Away",
      "review": "I actually feared for my life while watching this movie(?), afraid that people walking out would return later and throw Molotov cocktails at the screen. All the reviews (except one's that say this film had any redeeming qualities) are hilarious and I wish I could make a movie just with the people commenting on this abomination of a movie. I hate to beat a dead horse but the green night vision scene was the worst ever put to film. I swear the sound effects came straight from the Three Stooges catalog(thring, thring as the were breaking through fence after fence) Classic. Poor Jean Reno-I hope at least he got payed well. Actually, anyone who had their name attached to this farce should have been sent to Eastern Europe permanently.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Tripe",
      "review": "I am now dedicating my life to creating a time machine so I can go back and prevent this movie ever being made.Of all the re-makes that have ever been, this is by far the worst. When will Hollywood learn, a classic is only ever classic once?Someone said to me that the girl from X-men appeared topless in this film and that \"made it worth watching\". If 10 seconds of topless C-lister \"makes a movie\" for you then you deserve only to ever see films like Rollerball (2002) for the rest of your life.ah Leon.... how the mighty fall from grace.Tripe, utter utter tripe",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "...eh....",
      "review": "Ummm, I'm not sure why I watched this movie when I saw that it was on TV. I wish I could say that I was on something, but the only thing that I can think of is that maybe I was being tested...tested by the devil. I say this, because this movie has the eerie power of causing epileptic fits. For instance, during one of the crazy action sequences, where the camera dances around pretending to follow something and just when you think it might settle down, it cuts to some completely different random scene; well, I became extremely nauseous and passed out. The next thing I know, I'm in some hellish-looking rollerball ring surrounded by fire and rollerblading-demons. I can hear the intro to LL Cool J's, \"I'm Gonna Knock You Out\" blasting away on some endless loop and then WHAM!, out of nowhere I get whacked in the back of the head with a rollerball. As I look up dazed, I can make out two of the roller-demons standing over me. The odd thing is that they are spitting images of Chris Klein and LL Cool J....if they were in demon-form. They were laughing maniacally and saying, \"Cha-ching!\", and thats when I noticed that my wallet was missing. I think I only had like 3 bucks in there, but you couldn't tell that by seeing how Chris Klein-demon and LL Cool J-demon were carrying on. At any rate I awoke a few seconds later on my living room floor. The movie had gone off and I seemed to be no worse for wear. So anyway, to make a long story short, I lost 3 bucks and I think that I might be pregnant with Chris Klein's demon-baby? However, I only had to actually watch a few minutes of Rollerball. So technically, I won.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "What was McTiernan thinking?",
      "review": "(Contains spoiler for the original Rollerball)There are two themes running through the original Rollerball - the futility of man against the corporation, and the mesmerizing action of the game itself. Somehow John McTiernan takes both of these themes and totally butchers them into something that does not remotely do justice to the original, or to anything else for that matter.The premise of 'accidents' being staged to pump up international ratings (on what medium?), and concurrent gambling on games, instantaneously, is stretching credibility. Having co-ed teams is almost believable but those stupid masks that the players all wear? And placing it all in Central Asia is bizarre.The game itself has been changed from the original circular 1/8 mile track into a nightmare collection of props that only an X-Games inline skater could love. A demolition derby-style course, with jumping ramps where the paths cross, would already make for a hazardous game IMO. Motorcycles dragging players off the steeply banked turns and up onto the clear viewing panels? Guess it had to be Central Asia since this would never fly in the US with OSHA around. Staging accidents in this version simply wouldn't be necessary.The parallels to the original with the rules changes to the game (not that there was much in the rules brought out in the plot) is the product of a premise by the director without the slightest idea of how to advance a story. There just isn't any there there, to paraphrase Gertrude Stein.Watch the original, and especially the final scenes, with the silent crowd, the dead players on the track, the game reduced to Jonathon E stumbling around the track to score the only, meaningless goal, that is film-making. The amateurish ending of this namesake says 'so what?'It is a sad waste of a tremendous idea.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "vaguely amusing",
      "review": "Paul Heyman was amusing. Naveen Andrews was eye candy. The rest of it was incomprehensible, at least to me. I probably have seen the 1975 original but don't recall it, but I get the general idea. And I *do* like dystopias, very much. Still, errr, I really didn't get this film.The opening sequence, with the photographers complaining about being paid $250 instead of $400 - this confused me. I thought it was somehow significant (the inclusion of the photographers, or else their poor rate of pay). I continued to be confused while Thingy and Whatsit were risking life and limb rolling down the hill. I definitely didn't understand that bit. And hey, what did that bit have to do with the rest of the film, anyway? Nothing other than to explain why the American, Jonathan, disappears into a rather dodgy and Iron-Curtain-ish world of violent \"sport\".I like the idea of players fighting the corruption of their greedy owners/sponsors, but if that's the only premise of this film, did it have to besmirch the concept of the original? I might have enjoyed it more if I was drunk.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Truly painful viewing - The worst movie and the biggest insult to quality movie making I've ever seen",
      "review": "This movie is so bad it is not even funny. Positive Numerical ratings do not cut it –Negative numbers are required to rate this revolting pile of manure.The 1970's original starring James Caan was a masterpiece reminiscent of Michael Chrichton classics like \"The Andromeda Strain.\"Absurd casting becomes obvious early on, for example – the lovely Ms Rebecca Romijn has a sexual relationship with Chris \"I'm going to look like I'm 16 til I'm 65\" Klein! It is a truly disturbing and distasteful looking mismatch. Today it makes one think of the infamous Florida teacher \"Debra Lefave\" and her sexual relationship with one of her 14-year-old students.The entire first half of this modern \"Rollerball\" I felt nothing but pity for LL Cool J – a man working hard to broaden his entertainment career - saddled with a script that could have been concocted in a bar between drunken cocaine-fuelled movie exec's with a collective IQ of a single Madagascan Cockroach.One sequence is a chase through the desert, filmed entirely in green-tinted night-vision. The sequence contains sparse dialogue, which, like the rest of the movie, is utter nonsense and without any sense of a plot. When this long sequence finally ends, one is genuinely left with the feeling that someone cut the whole Night-Vision sequence in accidentally – perhaps during a drug binge, or while sleepwalking.In the 1970's \"original,\" the fictional game of \"Rollerball\" is understandably a clearly explained core element of the story telling. Many of the originals exciting sequences involve watching the game in progress. The sport of \"Rollerball\" is a violent game involving people on roller-skates and motorbikes and many violent tactics and incidents. There is an elliptical course for the players to follow and the aim involves the battle between teams of 8-12 men struggling to gain control of a sphere that must reach a receptacle high up on one of the banked walls around the course.In the remake, the game makes no sense at all. Instead, this 21st century version uses a tiny set (perhaps because of budget constraints) which makes the game itself a self-parody reminiscent of a hilarious performance of a song named \"Stonehenge\" in the movie \"Spinal Tap.\"We are supposed to leave the theatre thoughtful of the subject matter about real-life unfortunate young athletes who suffer crippling injuries early on in their career and about how moral it is to put such pressure on their performances when they are so young and have the hopes and dreams of so many on their shoulders.We are supposed to be left with a profound morality tale that is supposed to provoke thoughts about the morality of big business in sports. The James Caan original left me personally thinking about professional sporting competitions, and how they have such a powerful attraction to young people – especially ones who have grown up in poverty. Surely the aim of the subject matter is to provoke thought and discussion on the absurdity of the unimaginable wages being offered for such young talents before they have established a maturity which might give them the much needed discipline and know-how. At 18 or 21 almost no-one thinks about providing for their future and the real sports we play are dangerous enough that some can be crippled for life or injured in such a way to end a career.In the remake, the players revolt and turn their violence upon their employers. The morality tale is entirely lost and the thought-provoking nature of the story disappears behind a fog of abysmal direction, camera-work, acting, script, and dialogue.Don't even watch this as a joke – go watch \"Gigli\" or something truly amusingly bad. This mess is disturbingly sad for a story which has so much potential, it is consistently nonsensical and lacking in any kind of coherent plot or even a signal of intent from the director beyond making a trendy little slice of sci-fi-lite.Despite the fact that this movie is cut together like a trendy music video it is not in the least bit exciting, well-paced, entertaining or even basically satisfying being played on a TV in the background.Watch only as a lesson in how not to make movies.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "2023. A Gen-X Review of a Decades Old Film That I've Never, Ever Seen Before",
      "review": "I'll start off by saying that I like Chris Klein. I really do. He's always been decent in everything I've ever seen him in: American Pies, Election, Just Friends.I don't know what happened here.He can't act.He looks shocked.He looks surprised to be here.Every scene he looks scared or out of place. Wide-eyed.It looks like everytime he got in front of the camera for this particular movie, he had just been given his lines five minutes before that.Every single time.Him and Rebecca Romijn (then-Stamos) We're supposed to believe that? Those two? Together?I don't think so.The guy who directed Predator, two Die Hards-including the first, The Hunt For Red October, etc, etc. He made this garbage? He made this?I don't believe that either.But sadly, tragically somehow that last part is true.Pink and Slipknot actually appear in this movie as well..\nLL Cool J tries to save this disaster but cool and great as he always is, even he can do very little here.Jean Reno. Why?This movie is just not good.It's boring.It's doing what countless other films have done and better so at that.The future where bloodlust equals big ratings.Death equals dollars.The people can't get enough.Yaaaawn.Bug-eyed Chris Klein.Always respect Andrew Bryniarski. Even in this. Dude's a beast.Soundtrack not bad. Rebecca looks phenomenal as always. It's short, a little over an hour and a half.There's a hilariously long and unexpected night vision sequence.So, it's not all bad. But it is pretty close to horrible without those things.It's a movie about the violence in the sport of competitive rollerblading.You were expecting maybe Shakespeare or Academy Awards?I guess I was expecting both.Instead I got Chris Klein looking like he just finished watching The Ring.Hey, it's a 2002 reference.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "What's This?",
      "review": "The only good part in this movie that made me say 1-Star is the one with Slipknot. Having WWE's Paul Heyman as announcer was also reason for this movie to have some rating. Remaking a good classic for this was just awful. Man this movie made no sense, the whole scene where everything was shot in green, the acting very awful, Jean Reno should have turned this down, and in my opinion LL Cool J probably had nothing else better to do than to come out in a lame movie. Even in the unrated version released on video/DVD everything with the deleted scenes was pretty lame. Slipknot you guys rule, but please, no more awful movies like this ever again.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME SEEING THIS UTTER DRIVEL",
      "review": "I saw this film at an exclusive showing for competition winners courtesy of a local radio station. I really went because it was at the cool Sony cinema in Golden Square and it only seats about 60 people. The cinema was great but the movie sucked big time.The original Rollerball was not too much a good film in the first place so the idea to re-make it had to be questioned. What on earth was John McTiernan on when he made this film? It was like a pop-video made up of the out-takes from Starlight Express. It was so bad. The acting was non-existent (Chris Klein is Keanu Reeves doppelganger), the script - someone is still looking for it! The first 40 minutes of the film were completely without narrative. I was utterly confused by what was going on. The remaining 50 minutes were part escape part revenge plot wise - I think?  Oh! and it was so really loud that you could not think (I think that is what the movie-makers wanted). You'd have to be mentally deficient to even try and gleam any redeeming features from this film (Even if Rebecca Romijn does run around with her breasts hanging out)!I saw this film for free and thought it was a waste of my time (at least I got some free drinks before the film).Don't waste your money and time to pay and go and see this tripe. It will be appearing on Channel 5 (A low brow TV channel in the UK) as one of their Tuesday night movies.AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Nothing for the plot loving crowd",
      "review": "This is actually one of the best five Hollywood movies from 2002. The film Verhoeven always dreamed of making. Only superfluous thing about it: remnants of plot and morality. The rest is speed and noise, sex and violence. Great stuff, really.",
      "rating": "9"
    },
    {
      "title": "its not that bad..",
      "review": "if you want a flick that will give you something to kill a few hours, check this out.Its not all that bad, and is worth a rental, don't listen to everyone here, take my word for it :)apparently i need a full 10 lines of text, so here goes.There is a nude scene with miss stamos, so that alone should make it worthwhile to the guys out there.there is some pretty brutal action, with plenty of blood.the movie tries to do something different than the cookie cutter crap we see nowadays.go see it!",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "This movie is the first disaster of 2002.",
      "review": "Rollerball is one long smorgasbord of smash-ups, crashes and body blows. It's a big mess of a movie that fails to establish strong characters or to set up a logical design of the dangerous sport the characters participate in. The guilty party for this disaster is director John McTiernan, who previously has been reliable with such strong and intelligent action-adventure movies like Die Hard, The Hunt for Red October and The Thomas Crown Affair. What was he thinking?For those unfamiliar with the 1975 version of Rollerball with James Caan, this film will be especially difficult to follow. Watching the original film before seeing this remake is essential because the old version plays like Cliff Notes in order to follow the action. The original movie wasn't a great film but at least it established interesting ideas about corporation rule in a futuristic society which operated in totalitarian rule under CEO's. This film attempts to satirize the extent producers will go for television ratings. In the original film, the game of rollerball was a fusion of hockey, football and motocross with gladiator brutality. This time the game is interrupted by constant cutting with complete absence of clarity and the arena is so small that it's claustrophobic mayhem instead of having a big arena with competitive design like in Norman Jewison's original film.What's worse is that the casting is all wrong. Chris Klein is too baby-faced and non-threatening to play Jonathan Cross, the athlete that becomes a hero for the masses while challenging the integrity of the game. LL Cool J is his teammate Marcus Ridley that wants to help Cross get out of the game once it starts getting deadly in the arena. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos plays the love interest to Jonathan and scarred teammate in this unisex sport. Jean Reno plays the evil executive owner of this dangerous sport league, doing little but snicker from his owner's box seat or shouting incomprehensibly at his lackies.The history behind this troubled production is revealing. Director John McTiernan in the spring of 2001 invited online critic Harry Knowles of Ain't It Cool News to take a look at an early screening. Despite being an admirer of the modern action film, he simply stated it sucked and bad buzz leaked everywhere. The film was pushed from an August release so the filmmakers could work on its problems. The studio was concerned with its length of two hours and about the incoherence of the action. McTiernan returned behind the camera in the fall to shoot additional scenes for two weeks. What is evident is that additional photography could not clear anything up, not with the mess of earlier footage that could be assimilated in the editing. The running time was cut, and with a reported $60 million running tag, the film's blood and gore was cut to insure a PG-13 rating. Luring young teenagers into this fiasco was the studio's only chance to make their money back. The final edit remains a muddled, and discreetly tame, work of shame.There is constant noise on the soundtrack, the pacing is as reckless and frenetic as a bad video game and with constant attention to overlong action scenes, this lends to little character development. The game itself is so burdened by the suffocated design of the arena, so incoherent and undefined in athletic contest that it would more logically crumble faster than the XFL.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "WORST MOVIE EVER!",
      "review": "Ladies and gentleman, Rollerball was one of the worst movies this moviebuff as ever layed eyes upon.  I did walk into the theatre expecting a mediocre sports fantasy movie, what I got was terrible acting, horrendous editing, a plot i could drive a fleet of tanks through and enough nightmares to scare narcoleptics into staying awake.  The movie would have been a fine B movie if it wasn't for the director's attempt at making something artistic.  I left the theatre angry, upset and offended.  This terrible arrangement of utterly horrible scenes should not even have the privlege of being called a movie.  This movie makes Fast and the Furious look like Casablanca.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "What a load of rubbish!",
      "review": "This utter pile of crap has nothing to do with the real \"Rollerball\" starring James Cann. That movie had characters you could feel sympathy for, a coherent plot and some style. This thing has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The only thing I can think of is that director John McTernian must have been very short of money when he made this monstrosity. Avoid at all possible costs. Lets just hope that the same thing does not happen in the upcoming Die Hard 5 movie. Although, judging by the slowly deteriorating level of plots in the Die Hard line I will not be holding my breath on this one either.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "perfect!",
      "review": "MAN THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME. It's the perfect badly-put-together movie that makes little/no sense and is basically a black eye on all other film directors. It insults the intelligence of the average viewer - things like plot, character development, and music are all eschewed in favor of MORE AND MORE ACTION AND SOME BREASTS. Moreover, the action is presented in incomprehensible cutscenes. You could take the entire movie reel, chop it up, throw all the pieces in a hat and then pick them out at random and splice them together and it would make just as much sense. Heck, it might even be better.And the best part is that this movie is about this sport called Rollerball. The movie spends exactly 10 seconds explaining how the game is played and nobody I've talked to really understood it. It involves some bladin', some jumpin' and some punchin' and that's all that McTiernan thought you needed to know. Oh, and there are motorcycles that zoom around for some unexplained reason.This movie is worth owning if you're a lover of bad cinema, but beware if you live in close quarters with other people - it's bad enough that they'll likely become physically violent if you watch it in their presence.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "The worst movie I've ever seen",
      "review": "This movie was really the worst I've ever seen. It doesn't even value the 4$ spent at video club. The screenplay and editing is awful. There's no storyline. You can take each of the 5 seconds scenes put them in a hat, picking them and probably it will be a better movie. It never stop changing scenes and point of view. It made me sick.Surely Reno and Klein were short of money when they did this film because their performance doesn't even earn to be called so.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Evil brainless Hollywood suits produce a trash remake of a great movie",
      "review": "One of the all-time worst most pointless remakes ever made. Everyone involved in this rancid piece of trash should beg James Caan for forgiveness.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Awful",
      "review": "This movie was despicable. Even its current rating does not describe the sheer banality of this film. It was not in the least bit entertaining. The acting was awful, and most of the movie made no sense at all. Rollerball was doomed from its start, and was already associated with a bad remake before it came out. When the movie actually did come out, those who took a chance to go and see it were heavily disappointed. 95% of the characters were either extremely annoying, or were horribly acted. Everything about the Rollerball competitions was ridiculous. The night vision sequence was the icing on the cake. We can only hope that no film will ever attempt a scene like that again. Do not watch this film - ever. Even if you are forced to - shut your eyes.Don't even bother. 0.5 / 10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worst editing of the year is just the first of many flaws in Rollerball",
      "review": "John Wright, who edited this movie, is not entirely responsible for the all too jumbled excuse to call Rollerball (a remake of an already bad movie from 1975).  McTiernan, who made good action movies once (Die Hard and Die Hard 3 come to mind), took too many people's opinions in mind in the process of test screening this, I suppose, and the final product after it's original date being pushed is not pretty.  Even the most strident of action film fans who admire the worst trash will have to admit there is just something wrong with this picture. Wrong casting (why put Klein, who looks like he hasn't shaved his entire life and has that stupid romance novel face that only really worked for him in American Pie, in a film such as this?  Plus, Paul Heyman is pretty much history as far as wrestling TV is concerned and this isn't about to resurrect his career much at all), wrong camera work, and a really wrong script make a wrong movie.  Period.  Only thing not making it a complete failure is a few funny lines (not intentionally) provided by Reno. D-",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Better than the Original",
      "review": "After seeing the original and then watching the remake of Rollerball I can honestly say that this movie seemed to be far superior to the original.This movie flowed a lot better with it's storyline than Jewison's version. I felt his movie focused far too much on character development. In parts to the point of being boring.However, this movie was a refreshing take on a cult classic. It had a stronger plot and the action sequences were great. Sure the acting wasn't Oscar material, but hey it's Rollerball. You're not renting it for the acting!I'm sure back in the day the original was great, but in modern times....skip the original and watch this one.",
      "rating": "5"
    },
    {
      "title": "Makes the round trip from good to bad and back again.",
      "review": "This movie was amazingly horrible...it made me feel a lot smarter. I am not ashamed that i like this movie, granted it was horrible but i still enjoyed it as long as i dont have to sit through it again. But oh well.",
      "rating": "9"
    },
    {
      "title": "Fanboys, enough already! Its a really good action flick",
      "review": "Fanboys, enough already! Its a really good action flick...This is where the fan boys get stuck at, \"oh no! not a remake of my favorite movie of all time!\". Does that mean the \"favorite of all time\" always makes the remake the \"worse of all time\", i say no, not at all. So don't be fooled by all the negative comments by those fan boys, because it doesn't give justice to this very well done, fast pace action pack movie.OK, i have to admit i'm a fan of the original and thats what attracted me to see this movie. Although at first i was a bit shocked by the flagrant differences with the original, i've then decided to let that fact go and just let the movie drive me, and you know what, it did his job, which is to entertain me.Yes, the plot, if we can called it that, is somewhat nonexistent, and the script doesn't deliver any memorable moments, because it was intended that way, its typical with all action flicks. I was happy i give this movie a chance with an open mind(keep in mind its an action flick though). Considering all the facts, my final note: 6.5In conclusion, i hope you'll give this movie a chance, just forget about the original, watch it purely for the action and you won't regret it.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "They should have just called it Roller...",
      "review": "because it's missing something. The biggest flaw is Chris Klein, he is the most bland actor that I have ever seen. How does a pretty boy like him survive in a bloody, winner take all game like Rollerball? More than that, he doesn't have the charisma to lead a movie. Adding to the problem is that there isn't enough going on in this movie aside from distracting night vision scenes. There isn't any of the social commentary that the original had or the tense action scenes, it fails on both fronts. The only solace is some of the cast: Jean Reno, Ice Cube, and Rebecca Romijn. Ice Cube would have made a better lead and a much more believable Rollerballer with his body. But, as is, This is mess that is best forgotten.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "EXTREME(LY BORING) SPORT OF THE FUTURE",
      "review": "ROLLERBALL (2002) *  Chris Klein, LL Cool J, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Jean Reno, Naveen Andrews, Paul Heyman.  Horrendous remake of the James Caan cult classic about extreme blood sports (think ESPN2 version of roller derby) set in the near future with the bland as toast Klein as the lamb led to the slaughter hotshot/innocent realizing the gaudy athleticism on display is all a shady conspiracy with Reno (overacting a storm and practically foaming at the mouth and growing fangs as the villainous magnate) in full control. Truly bad on all levels – what was usually dependable action helmser John McTiernan thinking?",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "\"Watch them, if they take a sh*t I want to know what it smells like.\" Not good...",
      "review": "Rollerball starts with Jonathan Cross (Chris Klein) accepting his friend Marcus Ridley's (LL Cool J) invitation to become a pro rollerball player, a sport played across Central Asia which is some sort of cross between hockey, football & skating. Jonathan joins Marcus's team & initially things go well, he makes plenty of money, gets a hot car & has good looking birds all over him. Nice work if you can get it I suppose, however everything isn't as perfect as Jonathan would like to think as the games promoter Alexis Petrovich (Jean Reno) is corrupt & deliberately fixes the game so players will get hurt & suffer injury in an attempt to boost global cable TV viewing figures. Jonathan finds out & wants to quit but Jonathan is a big hit with the fans & Petrovich won't let him just walk away...This American, German & Japanese co-production was co-produced & directed by John McTiernan & is pretty darn bad even by recent Hollywood big budget remake standards. The script by Larry Ferguson & John Pogue is based on the original Rollerball (1975) which I have not seen so I cannot compare the two although I find it difficult to believe that the '75 version was worse than this limp, lame, boring, repetitive mess of a film. For a start the sport of rollerball itself is never fully explained so we, the audience, lose interest in pretty much everything that happens during one of the games & also everything that surrounds it. I just couldn't relate to the sport of rollerball, it never made any reasonable sense to me & I consider myself a sports fan as I adore the football played in the English Premiership over here. I also seriously doubt that viewing figures would go up because participants are being injured or killed, I'm sorry but that assumption by the filmmakers is an insult to all proper sports fans which I cannot make any connection with. Sure we all like a bit of controversy or a bit of a punch up on the pitch & a few red cards maybe but I can't believe any so-called sport where people are deliberately (or otherwise) hurt on a regular basis would be popular, I just can't & therefore the story in Rollerball went straight over my head. The character's are poor, the dialogue rubbish & I personally never cared for anyone or anything during it's 100 odd minute duration although to give it some credit it moves along at a good pace.Director McTiernan was giving us classic action films such as Predator (1987) & Die Hard (1988) so it is rather sad to see him turn in such an awful film & an awful film on many levels. The action scenes are filmed with quick cuts, shaky cameras & with next to no regard for the audience watching this stuff, to be honest I couldn't make head nor tail of much of what was going on & the action scenes just come off as a complete mess of blink & you'll miss it imagery. Then there's the totally baffling decision to film a chase sequence with a grainy night vision camera, I sat there & thought this could have been one of the better action scenes in the film but why shoot it in green tinted night vision? Bizarre. I almost must mention the truly dire soundtrack, the horrible music was both unnecessarily loud & highly annoying, this was pretty headache inducing. The violence was really tame & disappointing, there's barely a drop of blood, no decent fights or anything to get excited about.I was astounded to see that Rollerball had a supposed budget of about $70,000,000, wow that's a hell of a lot of money to make such a poor film. I have no idea where all the money went. The acting was predictably terrible as well, what on earth is a usually good actor like Jean Reno doing in this?Rollerball is a bad film, a really bad film. It's a 70 million dollar turkey of the highest order & it making the IMDb's 'Bottom 100' is all you need to know. The only thing that appealed to me were the cool looking cars & Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in tight fitting leather outfits, other than that Rollerball is one to be avoided.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball needs to be steamrolled.",
      "review": "So here it is then; the remake of a popular sci-fi film from the seventies that has a powerful, maybe political message of some sort. What the remake has going for it is that John McTiernan is directing it and it stars Jean Reno. It should be good, right? Wrong.What Rollerball is; is an absolute mess of colour, visuals, loud unnecessary rock music and atrocious plot devices. The bulk of these things are on show in the opening half an hour but first, the film hangs around a risky sport involving skateboarding down the sloped roads of San Francisco, risking life and limb for no apparent reason. Jonathan (Klein) likes his kicks and is convinced by a mentor/future team mate to travel to Kazakhstan to take up 'Rollerball'. Then we get to the conventions mentioned earlier. Up until the first Rollerball game starts, I was intrigued but then; any hopes of a film with half a brain cell completely evaporates when the mess that is the actual sport the film revolves around is introduced. Rollerball is, to me, a mix of Wrestling WWE style and Ice Hockey as the point is to score goals but to give the opposition team members a bit of a kick and a punch, pointlessly, along the way. Oh, by the way: for some reason motorbikes are allowed as well. Don't ask.There is a brief 'attempt' at the rules being explained but the American commentator does his best in screaming the point of the whole thing down a microphone in a fashion that is both quick and confusing. The bottom line is that even the writers, I don't think, knew what the rules were. What constitutes as a foul? Why don't the other team members attempt to block the goal attempts? And why the hell are motorbikes involved!? In fact, most things the players shout during the matches are quick and inaudible anyway.This brings me onto the players/actors. Reno's accent goes from Eastern European to French and then back again a few times and the lead shares some kind of relationship with a character named Aurora that has absolutely no build up what-so-ever. It's funny, because you don't see the love interest coming but at the same time: you do, if you know what I mean.Towards the end, the television ratings soar due to controversy and planned violence in the sport. The feeling of greed from the characters whom may as well hold up signs saying: 'we are bad guys' as they sit in their V.I.P. boxes dressed in suits and ties, is forced down our throats through the images in insanely narrow minded fashion. This is bad enough but then the players start having second thoughts and make plans of their own. What follows is, arguably, the most ridiculous idea for film content ever conceived: a ten minute chase sequence shot in night vision(!) Was there any need? Couldn't they be bothered to set up the lights since it was at night? Probably.With other laughable things Rollerball contains such as random cutaways to musical performances from rock bands as well as needless jump cuts and cheesy looking Eastern European TV footage; all of which are utterly pointless and given how long the film is, are probably just in there to bulk up the time. How sad.Rollerball is not worth the time but if you are going to watch it I can only recommend you do so just to see how bad it is.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "One of the worst films to ever receive an international cinematic release",
      "review": "Right then, lets review the 2002 Gen Xtreme remake of 1975's Rollerball staring American Pie's Chris Klein, LL Cool J with cameo appearances by Pink, Slipknot, that Paul Heyman guy as a sports commentator, Shane McMahon as a supporting artist and all this was directed by the guy who directed Die Hard. What the hell is this?Ok, unsurprisingly for a film currently rated 34 in IMDB's bottom 100, there's a lot to unpack here. Straight outta the gate, Rollerball is an abstruse wall of noise featuring quality nu-metal, garish cyberpunk art direction, out of control sound design, several languages and twice the amount of accents. Everyone but Paul Hayman is miscast. There is an entire five minute sequence in this film filtered in green night vision because it was from a dirt cheap done amateur hour re-shoot of a scene that itself was too poorly lit for purpose. The editing is so abysmal throughout, it makes Suicide Squad look like The Wild Bunch.From my research, a picture is painted of 2002's Rollerball having one of the most botch-ladened productions of it's time. Several screenplay rewrites, all time worst test screenings, poorly produced re-shoots and a relationship between above the line crew and studio executives so toxic, the director pulled a Watergate and hired a private investigator to illegally wiretap the producer in an effort to get him fired. Need i say more. Oh, LL Cool J, not so hot as hell in this, i gotta say.Except for the ending which really kicks into gear in the last five minutes and almost achieves something resembling gravitas, the Rollerball remake is every bit as terrible you have been led to believe.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerubbish!",
      "review": "I think the trailers were the best part of this film.  Even the DVD, which includes special features, is subpar.  Too much cliche, not enough plot. Even a topless Rebecca Romijn-Stamos couldn't redeem this movie.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Don't be fooled by the trailer",
      "review": "This is quite possibly one of the lamest movies ever made.The trailer for the movie made it somewhat appealing.  But the movie itself was terrible.The actions scenes on the track were too fast, so much so that it was hard to see what was going on.  It would cut quickly from one person to the next which is what made it hard to watch.  Perhaps if they had pulled back on the camera view it would have helped.All in all, don't bother renting it.  And if you paid money to see it in the theater, I feel for ya.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball (2002)",
      "review": "\"...?!\"This is the remake of the 1975 classic. And just like everybody else is saying, this is a movie that should have never been made.John McTiernan is one of the great directors of modern times. He was behind iconic and groundbreaking movies like \"Die Hard\", \"Predator\" or \"The Hunt for Red October\". A very impressive lineup that showed skill, passion and style. Sure, there were some misses too, like \"Last Action Hero\" and \"The 13th Warrior\", for example, but they were not that bad. Rollerball is without a doubt the worst movie he ever made and I can think of no reason why he would do such a thing.Making this movie should have been easy: all he had to do was take the original, remove the boring parts and improve the spectacular game of Rollerball. Just bring it up to date, so to speak. Unlock the game's full potential with the help of modern technology. Instead, he added a moronic back story, lame characters and almost no game at all. At least the original was half and half: half on the track and half off. This one barely showed any of the game and when it did it was just a bunch of clowns skating around in drag. It wasn't a game. It was a Gay Pride Parade (no offense).The script is horrible, the story is abysmal, the location is stupid, the set and the characters are just wrong and the camera work is crap. The editing is horrendous, the music is bad and the actors are worse. I've seen the movie in Italian, and that was fortunate. At least the Italian voice actors made it bearable.Rollerball. The movie that should have never been made. 1/10.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball 2002, the village idiot of movies",
      "review": "*WARNING: SPOILERS*Well, you have to be thankful to Hollywood. Not only they have finally found a way to cash in without spending an ounce of time on ideas, they also have managed to find a way to destroy past films' reputation in the process.Sure, the practice of remaking older films was hardly avoided by the Studios in the past, but the trend has become so huge in the last few years that it is, quite frankly, embarrassing. Occasionally, a remake can still be a worthwhile experience, making up with professionalism and competence where lacking on the originality side. But for every good movie like Insomnia, how many hideous things like The Haunting, The Time Machine, Gus Van Sant's Psycho, or Roland Emmerich's Godzilla are we supposed to take?Whatever the level of badness of those last movies I mentioned, it still can't hold a candle to the astounding incompetence that is the 2002 version of Rollerball. While I do not have the absolute certainty, I'd say... well, screw it: this insipid, senseless, and insulting movie is definitely the worst remake I have ever seen. And while I am not what you would call a die-hard fan of Norman Jewison's Rollerball (see my take on the film if you want to see what I think about it), there were moments during the vision of the remake where I felt the urge of taking the rental DVD and smashing it into a thousand pieces, so that next generations would be preserved from renting it instead of the old one. Fortunately I had not paid for it, a friend of mine did.Yes ladies and gentlemen, after just a few years since remakes have become common practice in Hollywood, we have already reached the rock bottom: Rollerball 2002, the village idiot of movies.Like any respectable (not) village idiot, Rollerball 2002 has no grasp of philosophical or social matters whatsoever; the 1975 version of Rollerball was full of serious, at times heavy-handed, but overall interesting socio-political commentary. Considering the fact that some of the original film's themes feel much closer to our world now than back then, there was room for updating them and making them feel more alive. But 'alive' is certainly not a word that applies to the 2002 version: lifeless, boring, and moronic are much more fitting. On the sociological level, the film is simply nonexistent: none of the original film's themes made it to the new version, and there is absolutely no trace of anything deep, thought-provoking, or simply stimulating. It is as if the filmmakers watched the original version and could not understand a thing about what existed beyond the simple action. It's all the more discomforting if you consider that the original was hardly all that subtle.Rollerball 2002 exists as a simple action movie but, sadly, it completely fails on that level as well. The action is confused, the editing sloppy, the plot a complete mess; hardly anything is revealed about the chaos we see, and when something is explained, it is simply asinine. The characters are ridiculous two-dimensional (or, like some prefer to say, zero-dimensional) puppies without an ounce of common sense.The film opens up in 2005 in San Francisco, where Jonathan Cross (Chris Klein) is competing in a dangerous contest where two opponents roll downhill laying down on some sort of big skateboard. Why anyone would indulge in such an imbecilic activity is beyond me, but it is enough for you to know that, after almost getting killed in the traffic, Jonathan gets picked up in a Porsche by his friend Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J), who tells him to stop it with such puerile games: there's this new sport Rollerball in Asia, and it pays big big money.So Jonathan goes to Asia and we get our first glimpse of the Rollerball. The rules are unclear, but don't worry: we are introduced the most annoying commentator alive, who proceeds to tell us only that \"the rules are too complicated to explain\". Then, in an arena with a tiny playground where both male and female players dress up like rejects from Slipknot (also briefly featured in the film), we are shown the game: not much can be seen between the record-breaking fast cuts, but it suffices to say that the previous rolling-down-the-hill farce looks good by comparison.In a few weeks Jonathan becomes the biggest star of the sport, but something nasty is going on: the man behind the league, Alexis Petrovich (Jean Reno, in his worst performance to date), notices that the TV ratings immediately go up when something violent happens, and when I say 'immediately' I mean magically the same second. So he begins orchestrating accidents, and while the ratings go higher and higher, Jonathan discovers the truth. Chaos ensues.One of the worst aspects of Rollerball 2002 is the editing: entire scenes seem to have been chopped off, resulting in a story that feels rushed, awkward, or just-plain-nonsensical in many occasions. In one scene, Jonathan and Marcus are in a hospital room under strict surveillance, and in the next scene they are in the desert driving a van. What happened in between is never explained, and it feels as if the filmmakers could not come up with anything that made sense so they just decided to blow it. There is a small amount of gratuitous nudity (including an all-time pathetic sex scene between Jonathan and Rollerball player Aurora, played by Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and a fair amount of nudity hinted at. The sets look unbelievably cheap, making you wonder where the 70 million dollars went. All the actors give terrible performances.While things in Rollerball never fail to maintain a certain level of badness, there are at least two scenes that truly stand out and beg the viewer to ponder \"what were they thinking?\"The first is the infamous 'night-vision' sequence; it takes place in the desert, and the protagonists are driving a van first, then are chased on a motorbike by an airplane. Everything onscreen is green, grainy, headache-inducing, and just plain horrid to look at. Then, in what could be only called a moment of pure, unadulterated cinematic insanity, the motorbike and the airplane crash through a fence and we hear cartoons-like 'BOING!' sounds. It's surreal. This sequence last around 20 minutes, akin to being in hell for 20 minutes.The second is the ending. Oh dear, the ending. The original had a perfect ending. In this one, we have to witness the protagonist chasing down the bad guys and kill them in cold blood with an iron bar. Insulting.Avoid this film like the plague.1.5/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Gladiator on Skates",
      "review": "Despite the title I do NOT want to compare this movie to Ridley Scott's masterpiece but it certainly is not as bad as some reviewers say it is... in fact I found this movie to be higly entertaining. There are no 'great' actors except for Jean Reno (who is not as good as he usually is though) but the typecasting is perfect except for Chris Klein who looks way too 'nice' but who is doing a very good job nevertheless... I don't know why he looks and sounds almost exactly like Keanu Reeves though.At times the movie looks like you're watching a video clip but I guess that's just the sign of the times... The actionscenes in and out of the stadium are very exciting and never dull. There is some background information on how everything came to be but you have to pay attention or you miss it.I also loved the references to the world of professional wrestling.I give this movie a 7.5, it's not a 'great' movie but if you are willing to be entertained you'll be entertained by it...",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Critique",
      "review": "I understand, I really do. Whether you just hold the original film in high regards (Chris Klein cannot hold a candle against James Caan) or you just find the way this was made quite lunatic. I understand that it just isn't something you can or feel entertained by.If you can overlook certain flaws though, there is a movie that can and is fun to watch though. This is a movie best watched with a certain degree of ... not caring for certain things. There is an overlaying theme here, that does critisize the media and the general blood lust. Now it is quite on the nose and there is not real subtext here. But again, the movie does not pretend to be a high quality film. Except when it comes to the \"game\" scenes. I like the update to the stadium they did.Generally speaking, I almost feel sorry for the movie, because there have way worse movies in general, that are not even entertaining. But one final time: I understand",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "The Worst Film of all time",
      "review": "the comments \"what were they thinking?\" and \"WHY!!!\" do spring to mind as it is shocking how bad this film really is.  From a professional standpoint the story was pathetic and poorly displayed and the editing was quite possibly the worst editing i have ever seen in film, and ive seen shakma! what the hell was the die hard and predator director doing!!!! Also id love to have a go at the long sequence that was in NIGHTVISION! WHY!!, it was so bad it was hard to believe!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Misses the point",
      "review": "The original \"Rollerball\" was not a great movie, but it had its strengths. The thing I liked about it most was its surprisingly complex theme: that a sport was being used to create a collectivist mindset among the public (much like, some would argue, Castro uses baseball in Cuba), and that a single man (James Caan) had excelled too much in this context and had to die.My favorite part of the old film was classy villain John Houseman's line: \"It's not a game in which men are supposed to grow strong.  I think you appreciate that, Jonathan.\"This weak remake completely misses this theme--the one thread of actual content in the original.  Instead, it turns into a cheap, predictable \"Running Man\"-type thing about violence as entertainment and how sick we all are and blah blah blah.Of course, one could make the argument that THAT theme is more relevant to our times than the old one, which in turn raises the intriguing question of whether a remake should remake an original film's values along with its story and characters.  Unfortunately, this remake is so laughably bad (and the original was no Oscar-contender, either) that perhaps it's better to have that discussion elsewhere--where it would be credible to believe the filmmaker would consciously make such a decision rather than stumble into it as is undoubtedly the case here.The original \"Rollerball\" is like $10 on DVD now--if you have to see something about rollerskating future sports, go get that.  It wouldn't kill you to never see it, but it at least provokes a little thought.One reason to see the remake--Wrestling fans will get a kick out of ECW/WWE mastermind Paul Heyman's energetic performance as the announcer.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "A big piece of dung",
      "review": "May contain spoilersI think the producers of Rollerball thought, like all producers at one time or another think, that because a previous film with a similar blueprint (The Fast And The Furious) was so successful, that all they would have to do is throw together some wannabe look-alike and they would cash in on the success of that film.  And while FAF was not a great film, it wasn't bad either. True, it was all jacked up on adrenaline and contained little plot, it did have one thing going for it that Rollerball doesn't.Vin Diesel has charisma.  There is just something about him.  Charisma is either something you exude or you don't, there is really very little grey matter in this area.  When Vin stretched out his massive arms and then turned them upside down to signal the commencement of a race, he had you. It was just a simple flick of the wrist but it worked.  This is just one of the elements where Rollerball is lacking.  Chris Klein has as much charisma as patient with a coma draped across the hospital gurney.  He has a chiseled chin, cheeks that look like they were designed by Hoover and abs of steel, yet when he talks he sounds like he is wining.  When he is mad, he looks as though he is auditioning for a spot on The Young and the Restless.  And when he is sad he seems as though he is trying to stifle a laugh.  He just doesn't have what it takes to pull of a film like this.  And although he is one of the problems with the film, he is certainly not the only one nor is he the main culprit.  That has to be the lack of what is called a plot.Black Hawk Down was basically the War Departments glorification of what happens on the battle field.  It had all action and very little effort was given to the humanizing of the men who were in that war.  Rollerball suffers from the same lack of integrity.  This is just all action and nothing else. I am quite an ardent supporter of L.L Cool J as an actor.  I think in many of his films he has come off as the best part of a weak film, but when he opens his mouth in this one he still comes off as insipid and dull.  The script does not allow for anyone to develop into anything that remotely resembles a character, they are more like caricatures of what you might expect the Looney Tunes to produce for Saturday morning cartoons.  I was just waiting for the Road Runner and the Coyote to appear in the Rollerball ring and for the cameras that filmed everything from every conceivable angle to have ACME written across the side of them.John McTiernan is a gifted film maker.  He has given us some of the best action films of the 80's.  Die Hard and Predator are the quintessential action films.  They have loads of action and they are filled with colourful characters that you can love and hate.  What he is doing behind the helm of a silly film like this is a little perplexing.  Maybe there was more of a script than what we have seen here and maybe this is not McTiernan's fault because the action in the ring was quite well done.  It's just that the rest of the film is nowhere to be found.  It's fate rests on the side of a milk carton.1 out of 10....Nothing to really like about this film",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "another 'why' remake",
      "review": "Why? The original had at least cult classic status. This doesn't improve on the plot or the cast. Caan had at least the right aura of subdued possible menace to handle the role, this guy Klein? izzathisname? has the same contact sport star quality as Woody Allen. Rebecca Romijn does OK in her role, don't know if it's talent or just they it's cut to fit her. Wouldn't it be interesting to have refabricated the movie around her character? Oh well. The murky supranational conglomerate politicoeconomic subtext seems even murkier in this version than the original, to the point of boredom. Or maybe it's just not saying anything more than the original said.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Atrocious....",
      "review": "This movie is a shame. The original movie wasn't so bad, although it now shows its age. The 2002 version is some pimplish over-testosteroned x-gamer's fantasy.The acting is hilarious.... Jean Reno is making his mark as Hollywood's token-frenchy. Casting him as a Russian is a complete joke. HE overacts so much, he looks like he's auditioning to replace Captain Kirk... Chris Klein is sadly miscast; the part was made for a James Caan tough looking s.o.b., not for some 19 y.o. teen magazine front page model. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is cute, a real nice woman, but her accent sounds ridiculous and phony. I can hear the casting meeting: \"hey, who do we pick for the babe? Hummm... What's the name of the babe who showed her b***s in X-Men? Yeah, get her! Call her agent!!\"Now the direction... This is a shame. I am no armchair director but the direction sucked. McTiernan can make great movies, he really can, but everything sucks in this flick. I had to rewind 20 times to understand the action scenes. The camera work is jerky, the editing is painfully fast.The script... What script? How can grown-ups come up with such a load of crap? The story looks straight out of a 15 y.o. undersexed mind. Hey, let's give them nice cars! Hey, why not have them street luge? Let's show the girl's boobs! The character's motivations make no sense... The chin strap part is hilarious in itself.Set-design and costumes... Shamefully unrealistic. This movie makes the XFL look intelligent. The track set is so visually confusing that i could not follow the action at all. The costumes are a perfect demonstration of what happens when a designer is set loose. The helmets are accidents waiting to happen. Trust me, if i was playing Rollerball, i'd wear a helmet that actually protects me, not one that increases the risk of injury.This movie is an example of what happens when the producers don't follow a production. Of course the direction sucked, but it seems obvious to me that the whole production got out of control. It's like nobody checked what the various departments were doing...The only reason this movie is not worse than Battlefield Earth is the basis of the story line. This one vaguely makes sense, BE was pure bulls***t. Minus 10 stars out of 10.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "What is this? Some kind of terrible joke?!",
      "review": "This movie is a disgrace. That statement has been used to describe many movies, but in the case of this absurd Rollerball remake, it extends to many planes of meaning. For one, this movie destroys the original's plot, pacing, and anything at all that set it apart and made it a classic. This disgusting remake disgraces its original more than The Avengers, more than Godzilla, and yes, even more than Batman & Robin. Beyond the initial corruption of the classic 1975 Rollerball, this remake is a disgrace to Jean Reno. Seriously, this man needs to do more research before choosing a movie. We know he can act well, we just know he can do it. Look at Leon (The Professional). This is yet another crapball to tarnish his record. The worst disgrace this movie is guilty of, however, is its absolute ineptitude. This film fails in its basic charge as a motion picture. This movie is unforgiving. If it's not hurting your brain with idiotic lesbian jokes, or attempting to titilate you with frontal nude shots, it's forcing you to observe brainless, pointless eXtreme!! sports, like death-luging or an action favorite, driving like an idiot. And don't forget the thirty-minute scene filmed with a green filter lens, to simulate night-vision. I have a camcorder, too, guys, and turning that little green thing on in the dark does not make your movie clever, edgy, interesting, or even watchable. I'd hoped I could forget this terrible film, but I've taking it upon myself to dredge up the awful memories of it once again, to warn others. DO NOT see this movie. It is not so bad it's funny, it's so bad it's painful. And if you've ever see the original Rollerball, just ignore this awful remake. Hopefully now I can sleep at night, hoping this message has saved at least a few poor souls.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Jean Reno Deserves Better Than This",
      "review": "The remake of Rollerball deserved all the bad reviews it received. Jean Reno who has saved worse movies than this, has his work cut out here.Plot In A Paragraph: In 2005 a character played by Chris Klein joins his best friend played by LL Cool J in playing the most popular sport in the world 'Rollerball' ran by a character played by Jean Reno, it can have some pretty dire consequences like horrific injury or death if it is thought it will boost the ratings.Some of it is so ludicrous I wondered if it was originally conceived as a spoof comedy of the original movie. My advice would be don't watch it give it a miss. Avoid it like the plague. Tell your friends to pass it by. The acting is bad, bad, bad (Chis Klein and L.L Cool J included)I would rather go see a firework display on a very rainy night, than watch this again. Jean Reno deserves much better than this.As for Klein I'm not sure his character is meant to be as funny as he seems.A generous and I mean generous 3/10",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "dire beyond belief",
      "review": "presumably the makers of this film were trying to recreate the Running Man but instead ended up with a completely incomprehensible and utterly tedious movie with an insipid lead (Chris Klein) and comedy baddy (Jean Reno) Firstly, Rollerball is a rubbish game. Secondly, media moguls using underhand methods to squeeze money out of poor people is yesterday's plot line. Thirdly, none of this cast can act...even Reno looks like dead wood in this movie. Easily in the top 3 worst movies of 2003",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Try This At Home...",
      "review": "I remember watching this dreck its opening weekend in the theaters.  I was practically writhing in my seat, but about halfway through, I had an epiphany.  It struck me very strongly and very clearly, and I had to test it.  So, when the movie ended, and went and rented INSPECTOR GADGET, that insipid 1998 Disney comedy that was my formerly least favorite movie.  I popped it in my VCR at home, and sure enough, I was right: after watching ROLLERBALL, movies that used to seem bad to me were suddenly tolerable.  To further test myself, I put in my favorite film of all time, PULP FICTION. No cinema-going experience in my life has ever matched that viewing of PULP FICTION.  It was alive and beautiful.  I had tears in my eyes.I used to condemn ROLLERBALL as a pointless movie, but now I see that this film serves a very real purpose.  It's like that poor, fat, ugly guy you pass on the street.  When you see him, you feel bad for him, but better about yourself.  You say, \"I may not be perfect, but I least I don't look like THAT guy.\"  Hence, ROLLERBALL.  So, if you've recently watched a bad movie and are feeling down, I suggest giving ROLLERBALL a rent, then rewatching that first film.  You may be surprised.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Brutally exciting and fun",
      "review": "Having not seen the original ROLLERBALL, there's nothing to compare to. As a stand-alone film, it's very enjoyable. It's been a while since John McTiernan has directed a film. His last ones were the remade THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and 13th WARRIOR. Here, it's thought that John has returned to what he does best, and it was nice to see a film that was surprisingly good. At first glance ROLLERBALL looks like it's going for the \"MATRIX effects\" that so many movies, shows, and commercials have been using too much, but John has stuck to his own methods of film making, and hasn't \"sold out.\" Every action scene was not filmed in any over- outlandish style, and that was a star swinging high point. Chris Klien seems more accustomed to comedy, but here, he's starting to learn the ropes as a man of action. Though his youth is apparent within his role, he makes it through as a hero. LL Cool J has proven himself to be a compotent actor long ago, and he still has his own brand of charisma. Rebecca Romjin-Stamos also commands the screen as a tough Rollerball player who happens to have a romantic relationship with Klien's character. Another nice touch was the international casting and locations through the whole film. It gave a great mix. Especially with the great Jean Reno as the villain who always does good in the movies he's in. The rest of the villains are also great. They're cruel and it's a relief when they get what they deserve. For a PG-13 rated film, it was surprisingly violent. It's hard to believe that the theatrical version was edited from the original which supposedly has more violence.But if the MPAA is getting lax, so what? One less movie getting too much hasslement. The action is brutal and pounding. When one concentrates fully on the film, it's like actually being in the arena with all the fierce action going on all around. When someone gets struck, it's felt by the viewer. But the standout action scene is a chase through darkness where it's totally pitch black and scene through nightvision lenses. This was a great method, because the atmosphere would be ruined by Hollywood lighting effects. This added on to wondering if Chris Klien and LL Cool J are gonna get away from the bas guys. The small roles were also cool. Like seeing WWE's Vince's son, Shane McMahon for one full second. (Blink and he'll be gone.) And surprisingly, former wrestling commentator Paul Heyman had a bigger role that thought, and has some funny lines. All in all, this is John McTiernan's best film in a long time. ROLLERBALL is not something that should be thought too hard about, but should be taken with consideration and excitement.8 out of 10",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Just look at the Rollerball for 1 min.",
      "review": "Now I know most will think I am nuts for rating this movie so high but I will give my reasons why I don't think this movie belongs in the bottom 100 list. First the action of the game is cool and probably harder then anything most people can do. Second it still shows the typical elements you look for in a sports/action movie and wasn't so dreadful like some people make it out to be. My final reason is a personal preference. The American broadcaster was played by Paul Heyman. For you non-wrestling fans he use to run a company that many say is one of the greatest of all time and that is ECW. He used his famous manager character and made me enjoy the movie when I first saw it and hated it like many others. It takes more then one viewing before I got a good feeling about the movie. Thats just my 2 cents.",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ridiculous",
      "review": "I haven't seen the original version of Rollerball, but if it's anything like this crappy movie, it's gonna collect more dust on the shelves than all other movies. Just bad acting, bad accents, bad sound effects (cartoon \"boing\" sound when they crash through a gate), bad action-movie actors...just one bad film.Saving points go to seeing Jean Reno again (he's cool) and to seeing Slipknot's cameo-performance in the film. Also Rebecca Romijn's boobs. That's it. A lot of the actors seemed to be picked at random to play parts in the film. I can't see how this sport would be entertaining for anyone over the globe. They tried once with Roller Derby, and it ended up like the XFL...just crappy planning.John McTiernan had good vision in some quick-cutting shots, but that's what he's known for, not substance. This movie's a joke. Never even rent it.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "This movie is just plain TERRIBLE!",
      "review": "WARNING: This contains spoilers.I've never seen the original 1970's Rollerball, so comparisons with that are out of the picture. But they are not needed, because this movie is just that bad.John Mctiernan (did I spell that right?) is a very good director who has made some of my favorite movies like \"Predator\" and \"The Hunt for Red October\". I really think that he shouldn't be blamed for this movie, as the best director in the world couldn't salvage the script.The basic plot of the movie is this: A kid played by Chris Klein is about to be arrested when he is saved by his friend (LL Cool J) and joins a Rollerball League in Kazhakstan. He then encounters corruption with the evil team owner (Jean Reno) and romance with a teammate (Rebecca Romjin-Stamos).Now the problems with the movie are huge, but the first is the game itself. Rollerball is just too confusing and complicated, and we're never even shown the score to any of the games, eliminating the possibility of any suspense. Also, the players wear outrageous uniforms that show little favor for reality.The problem about the evil team owner trying to engineer violence for ratings is just STUPID!!!! A few problems with this are: The game is plenty violent as is, and millions of TVs don't just turn on when someone gets hurt.Eventually the hero and his friend try to escape. The whole escape sequence is shot in green \"Night Vision\", thus making it very hard on the eyes. And it doesn't help that the characterization is laughable.SO ROLLERBALL SUCKS!!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "The worse movie I have ever seen",
      "review": "This was, without a doubt, the worst movie I have ever seen.  The acting was poor, and the plot was worse.  McTiernan seemed unable to keep the story together.  There was also a strange sequence shot using a night vision lens. Added to this lunacy, were several cheeseball sound effects were also included in the sequence.  The topless scene with Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was the only part of the movie I found redeeming at all!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "This is one of the worst movies ever.",
      "review": "This movie... is HORRIBLY edited and shot. HORRIBLY acted. The script... they must have given 15 monkeys a box of crayons and told them to write it. It's extremely pointless and just horribly done. A very rushed movie they had to get done in their minds. Next time make the movie 2 1/2 hours, get Andrew Kevin Walker to script it, Ridley Scott to direct, and Brad Pitt playing Jonathon. THEN we would have a great movie mos likely. Do not see his though.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Some films do not need to be remade...",
      "review": "...and Rollerball as directed by Norman Jewison with James Caan in the lead role was definitely one of them. But some brain-dead idiot at Fox decided \"hey, let's update the story to appeal to a generation raised on Playstations, it'll make millions!\". Unfortunately, doing this requires the removal of the bloodshed and mayhem that some would argue is necessary to deliver the poignant message contained in the original.LL Cool J and Rebecca Romjin-Stamos do the best they can with what is a lousy script, but they look embarrassed to be in a film with Chris Klein as the lead. And who can blame them? Those of us who are old enough to have seen the original Rollerball will remember its lead - James Caan, the guy who played Sonny Corleone in The Godfather. Not only was he capable of acting to a degree worthy of an Oscar (not that he got it), he is also large enough to make us believe in him as the star player in the most brutal game since the Colliseum was open for business. By comparison, Chris Klein looks like he should be playing tennis. The guy doesn't even look like he shaves regularly. A sport like Rollerball would just chew him up and spit him out.However, the most important thing with a film like Rollerball is the story, and that is where this new version fails in a big way. The original showed us a world where a singular conglomerate of corporations controls the entire world, and people do whatever they are told or risk the most unkind sort of censure. The game of Rollerball was created in an effort to demonstrate to the people that individual effort was futile, and thus enforce their desire to submit to an ant-like existence. Obviously, such subtleties are beyond the writers of this 2002 version, and they instead dissolve into an extreme display of banal, pointless violence. Which would have been fine except a studio executive leaned over the director's shoulder and said \"What the hell are you doing? You'll alienate the 13-18 year olds!\". So blood was digitally cleaned out in post-production and the film itself was hacked apart with a meat cleaver, which is glaringly obvious even in the R-rated cut of the film. Why is America still putting up with the MPAA? Films like Rollerball do not even get a restrictive rating in Australia, which just goes to show how far behind the American system has fallen.However, what I can't get over is how the ending of the film is accompanied by the chanting of Jonathan's name. In the original version, this makes perfect sense because not only is the game designed to demonstrate how futile individual effort is, the corporations that run it are adamant that no one person is allowed to become \"bigger than the game\". The end of Rollerball circa 1975 showed that the people had regained some semblance of their humanity, vicariously through Jonathan E. The ending of Rollerball circa 2002, with the spectators mostly running out into the parking lot, overturning cars, and killing one another, only demonstrates that nothing has changed and no one has been saved, to quote the song.And in the end, that sums up the whole 2002 effort. It is a film with no meaning, no message, and ultimately no point. If it was intended to be a story about the most extreme of extreme sports, it missed the mark by trying to appeal to everyone. If it was intended to be a commentary about people's willingness to trade their humanity for the promise of riches, then it failed miserably by failing to give most of the principal characters anything other than a rudimentary personality. In the end, the project should have simply been shelved and forgotten. The original film will still be talked about long after this rehash is permanently forgotten.Oh, and for those who are wondering, no it wouldn't have made it into the bottom 100 if it didn't have the 1975 film to be compared to. It cannot even stand on its own two feet in terms of suckiness.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Popcorn action movie",
      "review": "I haven't seen the original rollerball, so maybe that helps. This movie definitely isn't great, but after reading these reviews I was expecting something really really terrible. What I ended up getting was almost no story but an overall entertaining spectacle of expensive special effects.The script avoids trying to give the movie any kind of deep plot, so I didn't bother looking for one. I just sat back, watched people get beat up and cars explode and by the end of the movie I don't feel like I wasted my hour.If you have nothing better to watch, really there are worse choices out there.",
      "rating": "5"
    },
    {
      "title": "Mama said knock this movie out",
      "review": "Pretty-boy Chris Klien is supposed to be a bad-ass rollerball champion. LL Cool J, is his mentor, I'm guessing (in yet ANOTHER role, that proves that L.L. just can NOT pick movie roles). Anyway Clein finds out that someone or ones is making the game much more violent to up the ratings. This movie is one that didn't need to exist. Why re-make a film, that was a little above mediocre to begin with? No one should want to see this film. Unless you're a stay at home X-men nerd who wants to gawk at 'Mystique' being nude. Wait, come to think of it those X-men nerds would just wonder where her 'kewl' blue skin is, so this movie is for no one.My Grade: D-MGM DVD Extras: Both Full-screen and widescreen versions; Commentary by Chris Klein and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos; Stunts Featurette; Rob Zombie music video; Teaser and Theatrical TrailersEye Candy: Kata Dobo and Rebbeca Romijin-Stamos get topless and full-frontal respectively; and some extras are topless",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not Even Quarter Baked",
      "review": "I must admit that I have never really liked Norman Jewison's \"Rollerball\" from 1975. The action scenes are fine, but they suffer from being placed in the context of a muddled and half-baked plot about life in a future dystopian society. Having now seen John McTiernan's 2002 remake, however, I can say that it is far worse even than the original. Whereas the first film was set in the future, about forty years after the date when it was made, the remake takes place in the present. The new sport of Rollerball has become hugely popular, especially, for some reason, in Central Asia. The rules of the game are much the same as in the original, with the main exception that it is now played between mixed-sex teams. (In the first film the sport was strictly for men only). Jonathan Cross, an up-and-coming young star of the sport, accepts a highly-paid contract to play for a team based in Kazakhstan.I won't go into great details of the plot, which is often muddled and confusing. The two main strands Jonathan's conflicts with the team's owner Alexei Petrovich and his romance with his female team mate Aurora. Jonathan discovers that Alexei is manipulating the game in order to make it more violent and thus boost its television ratings. It ends with Jonathan leading a revolution to topple Kazakhstan's ruling elite, of which Alexei is a part. Most of this plot, however, is simply a peg on which to hang the gory action scenes which are the main feature of the film. Unlike the original film, the social and political overtones are very much played down.In the original James Caan made a rather weak, inarticulate hero, whom I found difficult to imagine as a charismatic sportsman, but at least he was better than the wooden Chris Klein who plays the equivalent role here. Not that the rest of the cast are any better. Rebecca Romijn is, apparently, fond of telling people that her surname is pronounced \"Romaine, as in the lettuce\", which seems unfortunately inappropriate given that she here shows all the talent and charisma of a wet and soggy lump of that particular vegetable. She seemed a promising newcomer in \"X-Men\", but here she seems to be no more than the latest in a long line of supermodels who try their hand at acting on the assumption that their new profession will be no more intellectually taxing than walking down a catwalk. There is an equally long line of singers who have failed to shine when they have attempted to move into the cinema, and LL Cool J falls into this category. He also seems to have a gift for picking the wrong films; the last two I saw him in before \"Rollerball\" were \"Woo\" and \"Charlie's Angels\", both almost equally bad.McTiernan will never be accounted a great auteur, but his other films which I have seen, such as his contributions to the \"Die Hard\" series and \"The Thomas Crown Affair\" (also a remake of a Jewison film), are competently made and often enjoyable pieces of popular entertainment. The dreadful \"Rollerball\" is neither. If Jewison's film was half-baked, McTiernan's is not even quarter-baked. 2/10",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worst movie ever? Possibly...",
      "review": "Possibly the worst update/adaption of a classic movie ever. I cannot recommend that you avoid this movie strongly enough, especially if you liked the original. Not even the extreme sports buffs could get anything out of this terrible film. It epitomizes everything that is wrong with most action movies coming out of Hollywood today. Comically bad storyline, terrible dialogue (which, for the most part, is completely drowned out by the nu-metal soundtrack), and the most bizarre and overlong night-vision sequence ever, all combine to make this the worst movie I have rented in years. In fact, it was returned to my local video library containing a single post-it-note, compiled and agreed upon by the four that watched it - \"Worst movie ever!\".",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "great!",
      "review": "Great, a wonderful experimental and yet political movie about globalisation and violence,a bit like a Carpenter film, too bad it had Reno in it. John mcTiernan was always worth watchin' but with \"Rollerball\" he's takin his art to the next level.",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Well...at least it's an improvement.",
      "review": "The original 1975 movie was just plain awful except for some memorable action scenes. This remake was at least watchable. Oddly, the actual rollerball action scenes were probably the weakest part of this movie.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "The reason I don't go to the theatres anymore...",
      "review": "This was one of the last movies I ever saw in the theatre (my last trip was over a year ago) I paid $13 bucks to see this POS and have never forgiven myself for it. The first thing I couldn't stand was the fact that it took place in Eastern Europe.  Just listening to all those bad accents makes the movie look like a cheap wannabe action flick.  Plus, as every reviewer previous to me has pointer out, that STUPID night vision scene. Maybe would have been interesting for a minute, but not 15.  I remember people walking out of the theatre at this point.  After this disaster of a movie was over, everybody was saying to the people they came with \"what the hell was that?\". I admit that I will sit down and watch films others describe as camp or cheesy, but I think even if I was watching this on tape, I would have turned it off.  There is something seriously flawed with this film. Many have pointed out that it is the editing and I am inclined to agree. So the bottom line is DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.  This is without a single shadow of a doubt, the WORST movie I have EVER seen in my life.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Dropping the Ball",
      "review": "A classic thought experiment holds that if a group of monkeys are put in a room with typewriters for an infinite amount of time they will eventually pound out Hamlet. If this were attempted, the first product would more than likely be Rollerball.John McTiernan's remake of Norman Jewison's 1975 film is nothing more than lots of action sequences cut together with a little bit of skin stuck in between. Unfortunately, any attempt to improve on or update the original has completely failed.The movie plays out in the same way many of the low-budget action films of the late '80s do. Think of Rocky IV, but on rollerblades.What this film lacks the most is a script with characters. The main character, if any, is Johnny (played by Chris Klein), a daredevil from Houston, whose best friend, Marcus (played by LL Cool J), makes a living by touring Eastern Europe on a rollerball team. This is all the audience ever knows about his character.The opening sequence consists of Johnny racing through Houston on a rollerboard and being picked up in Marcus' Porsche just before the cops catch him.In the brief conversation Johnny is told about rollerball teams and quickly convinced to join. The screen goes black and reads \"Four Months Later.\"What follows is a full 15-minute Rollerball tournament, with absolutely no explanation of how the characters got there, and only a brief run-through of how the game is played.Rollerball is a good mix of a roller derby, a wrestling tournament and a football game. Each team member either wears skates or rides a motorcycle. The point of the game is to skate around the arena and throw a small steel ball at a large metal faceplate.The rules are simple, until they are changed by the evil Alexi Petrovich (Jean Reno) who owns, not only the rights to Rollerball, but many of the television networks in several Eastern European countries.Several members of Johnny's team become aware that Petrovich is fixing the games and killing off the athletes, but it may be too late to do anything about it.Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is in the movie, but only to give us a sneak peek of her breasts (just long enough to keep the PG-13 rating) and establish Johnny's love interest.While some may argue that Rollerball is a comment on how violence, television ratings and advertising have consumed our society, it is hard to ignore the fact that the film, by its very existence, is doing just that.The movie is full of product placements and cameos, including cleverly placed ads for 7-11, Porsche, motorcycles, skates, and special appearances by hip-pop artist Pink and the metal band Slipknot. While the movie is trying to show that violence and death is a bad thing, they are clearly the stars of the movie.This scary comparison of ultra-violent fiction and real-world 2002 becomes even more frighteningly apparent when using the original 1975 film as an example.In that version it is a view of our current century, and it isn't all that far off. In the new version it is basically a rehash of the same stuff, which isn't very exciting, because it's really happening on our television sets.As a whole Rollerball lacks what most films offer, but it does have a special quality of its own. The action is fast-paced and well shot. During the bulk of the movie the editing is tight as a drum, but tends to be sloppy when there isn't a whole lot of action.What McTiernan needs to do is make a movie of his own. It has been 16 years since he has written a screenplay and his last two movies have been remakes of Jewison films.Most of his projects are based off books or are sequels, and it's time for him to buckle down and try something original.Rollerball wants to be something that it isn't, a commentary on the ways that evil and greed can destroy lives, and ultimately our very existence as a worldwide community.While it has exciting action sequences, it fails to deliver any kind of worthwhile message.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "American Ironhorse",
      "review": "I was a owner in a American Ironhorse dealership in the 2002 timeframe. My shop was the biggest dealer in American Ironhorse in Texas, and Top 10 nationwide. We would get in a order of 12 Choppers and before we could unload them, at least one would get sold. We were 'burning and turning' motorcycles. It was like we could sell anything. We created promos, did displays, etc....motorcycles were being delivered to our shop 2-3 times a week. We were becoming the 'smoother' for the company. If a customer was having a problem, they came to our shop, we got them fixed and on thier way.I got the chance to purchase and own the motorcycle that is crashed at the end of the movie after it was rebuild post-movie. I created a display where if you bought the motorcycle, you got a signed copy of the DVD and a signed movie poster. That promo was a complete flop and no one was interested UNTIL I stopped advertising it as the motorcycle had been in the movie. The movie effected the sale THAT BADLY.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Sometimes less is better.  4/10",
      "review": "I've watched both the 1975 and the 2002 remake versions of \"Rollerball\", a story set in a future where the number one form of entertainment is a barbaric sport in which the players roller blade or motorbike around a small court and chase after a silver ball and put it inside a goal.  In both versions, the star player of Rollerball is a character named Jonathan (Chris Klein here, James Caan in the original) who after a series of near-death accidents occurs, decides to revolt against the bloodthirsty and corrupt business officials who may have something to do with the accidents.It's obvious why the release date for this film was pushed back so many times.  The reason is because people just didn't like it.  For me, this is one of the first cases where I actually prefer the original to a remake. One thing I really like about the original is that even though there is very little action, it still had a running theme throughout the movie. \"Rollerball\" is supposed to be talking about the corruption of human beings by an oppressive government.  That message is lost here in the remake largely because of mindless dialogue between the characters and pointless action sequences outside of the sport.  The remake is slow, loud, and kind of boring (though not on the sleep level of boring).  Of course, John McTiernan, who directed \"Die Hard\", directs this movie.  So you know that at least the action sequences will be good.This film bares almost no resemblance to the original except for the names of the movie and the lead character.  In both versions, we see a total of three games, so it's best to assume that there's only three games in a season.  Also in both versions, the producers change the rules so that in the final game there are no penalties or fouls to be called, which leads to the total annihilation of the players of both teams.  Predictably, by the time the bloodshed of the final game is over, only the lead character is left standing to make the winning shot and then leads the revolt against the evil controllers of the sport.P.S.: The only really good thing about this movie is the performance by heavy metal band Slipknot.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Take those people's names...",
      "review": "Write them (director, producer, etc) down, and don't ever ever ever see anything remotely associated with them, unto the fourth generation.  I admit, I am a long time Rollerball fan, and I had read somewhere that such people might appreciate this.  WRONG.  I probably would have rented it even if I had read the comments here first, but at least I would have expected (expectorated) excrement.  This is not the worst movie I have ever seen.  It wasn't truly sick, and the idea of the whole thing taking place in the \"'Stans\" (as in As;ugousdrhstan) was kind of cool.  I thought maybe it was a prequel, until they started with the Jon A Ton chant (four months into it and he's the greatest player ever.)  When he throws his hat to the crowd, I knew for sure it was just a pathetic remake.  And while James Caan went with his helmet unbuckeled for much of the movie, he was too cool to touch.  Our (hero?) must glue his helmet (or maybe nails it on) to his head, because he keeps it on until the near end. I have a generally low taste threshold in movies.  I like a good flic, but I can tolerate nearly anything and find some enjoyment.  The only redeeming social value I can place on this is to see the original with all its textures and the Albionini music, and then see this to compare just how bad and wrong a remake can possibly be.  I thought \"The Last Castle\" was pitiful as a remake of \"The Hill,\" but it had enjoyment value.  This has nothing. Nothing.  Not even half way decent gratuitous violence.  Nothing. Pathetic.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Utterly incomprehensible & incoherent!",
      "review": "Do not waste your time on this incoherent and incomprehensible mess! Read the Trivia section for this movie to get an idea of what kind of jumbled up mess the final movie actually is!The editing is absolutely disastrous! The camera work and sound design are extremely amateurish (the night club scene after the 1st game is shockingly bad). The acting - especially by Chris Klein - is bad and bland. What is up with all of the silly faces that Chris Klein kept making? Imagine a bad rendition of a young & dumb Keanu Reeves (who, incidentally, was originally intended to play Jonathan Cross).In summary: Avoid like the plague! Watch the original instead.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Just why?",
      "review": "I haven't seen the original so I can't say if it's good or not. However, I've seen this unfortunately. While there are some good remakes out there, this isn't one of them. This is an example of not everything needs to be remade. There isn't a single good thing in this film. The editing is choppy. It's filled with jump cuts, Dutch angles, camera flips, and a bunch of baffling edits to the point that you can't see what's happening. The action sequences and direction are shockingly terrible. It's puzzling to me that John McTiernan, who directed Die Hard (and the underrated Die Hard: With a Vengeance), Predator, and The Hunt for Red October, can direct action sequences (and this film in general) so horribly. Also, if he didn't go to federal prison, I wouldn't believe it was him in the director's chair and not someone else. The acting is abysmal, especially Chris Klein, who has the charisma of molded bread. At least Jean Reno was having fun though. The soundtrack...you know it's going to be bad when Godsmack is going to be on there. If you're a fan of the original, just watch that instead. This is unwatchable on every level. You can tell no one cared when making this especially when involved filmmakers who couldn't trust each other to the point that they started to wiretap each other over a disagreement. Avoid at all costs!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Lame remake of an equally lame original",
      "review": "There has been a giant stink recently about the makers of \"The Fast and the Furious\" suing MGM for using the name of their film in advertisments. After seeing this overlong music video styled mess I can't say that I blame them. Where that movie was a fun and gulty pleasure, this one is just plain guilty. Chris Klein and LL Cool J both find themselves stuck in another loser of a movie where they both try their best to make something out of their parts that seem wholly miscast. Stamos, however, has the thankless job of being saddled with a love interest role that any actress should be embarrassed to portray. Fault of this movie sould not lie solely with director John McTirenan as he isn't working from the greatest source material in the world. Hey, look at Rob Reiner. He had \"North\" that he had to bounce back from.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "See it and compare with the original one... if you want to suffer!",
      "review": "The original Rollerball was somber, critic and intelligent. The new one has in common with the original only the silver bullet. The rest is the kind of pointless action we are all used to. Use your money to rent the original one, and avoid the remake.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Changed my life",
      "review": "I woke up this morning in my trailer with my heart pounding with excitement because today Rollerball was out at my local cinema. I dug under my bed and found my £10 I had been saving for weeks and ran to my local cinema.By the end of this film I was in tears, I had never seen such a brilliant film in my life. A sensible real plot with real characters. I then decided to sit in the theatre and hide so I could watch it again.Do you like good films, do you want a good cry? Are you hoping to see the best action film of our era>?? then save up some money and buy this film on DVD then show it to all your friends Arrgghh!! I can't do it I don't want people to think i am an idiot, this film is genuinely terrible to the point it deserves an ironic review",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Don't over think",
      "review": "It's entertaining and a roller coaster. People think too much of a film.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "A sad, pathetic attempt at a remake...",
      "review": "ROLLERBALL / (2002) FBy Wes AlexanderROLLERBALL is a laughably awful film. It is filled with ridiculous dialogue, ludicrous situations, and some of the worst acting this side of Keanu Reeves.In case you were wondering, Rollerball is a sport. A stupid sport at that. It is where the players all skate (or motorcycle) around a giant figure eight that has ramps and obstacles in the way. The point of the game is to through a small, metal ball up against a gong to score a point. When you hit the gong sparks fly out like it was the Forth of July or something. Chris Klein stars as Jonathon Cross. He's a risk taker. In the opening scene we see him loge-ing down a city street for fun. He dodges cars and truck, but the only real thing you can see are quick glimpses and loud horn honking. The camera shots are so difficult to see, that all we get are glimpses and loud noises throughout the entire movie. His best friend Marcus Ripley (LL Cool J) informs him about Rollerball. Jonathon says that is not interested, but inevitably, four months later, joins the team and becomes the most popular player. Along with his on and off again girlfriend Aurora (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos), him and Marcus become the best at the sport. The owner of Rollerball, Alexi Petrovich (Jean Reno) doesn't care about the safety of the players, but about the ratings. Thus, we get a sinister plot to kill the members of the Rollerball team and get high ratings so he can have a cable show.I mean, this is this guy's motive? High ratings? Jeez, come on. How pathetic is this? This plot had me rolling in the aisles. In fact, every stupid line of dialogue had me break out in hysterics. As I said, it's laughably awful. But nothing comes close to beating the nighttime scene shot in night vision. I guess this was added to create an effect. All it creates is the sense that they shot it on someone's personal camera. And a cheap one at that. The green tint of the screen is not only distracting, it's annoying.And the acting! Whew! Chris Klein says his dialogue like he's reading the script for the very first time. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos's character is from another country (I didn't care to find out which one) and her accent comes and goes. She sounds American one minute, then is completely not understandable the next. LL Cool J plays the ultra-cool guy who gets all the money and the girls. Now, normally I like LL, but his performance feels plastic and forced. Jean Reno must have gotten conned into this. I know he can act. I've seen him act. But in ROLLERBALL, he obviously isn't trying. It was probably just a favor he owed somebody.When we actually get to see the Rollerball being played it arrives with aggressiveness and is marked by boldness. The speakers roar and the theater shakes. And then everyone in the audience gets a headache. Do you think they could have toned it down about one or seven notches?ROLLERBALL may not be as bad as this year's other early \"Worst Movie of Year\" contender, KUNG POW, but it's pretty darn close. And that's too close for comfort.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Sliced Rolls",
      "review": "Spoilers herein.This is one of the most interesting problems I've seen recently. Why is this film so bad?I don't think it is the story: we gladly tolerate such vapid stuff all the time. The acting and writing is bad, but normally so. I think where this fell apart is in the editing. Pretty sure there. There's enough motion in the shooting, after all this is the `Die Hard' guy, the guy that invented the action film. I'll bet we see a book about how the editing on this was screwed.(The `film within,' a steady convention, is here the characters as actors in a new performance art.)Ted's Evaluation: 1 of 4 -- You can find better things to do with this part of your life.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "How could that happen?",
      "review": "Rollerball had it all.  An all-star cast consisting of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, that guy from American Pie, and Ladies Love Cool James. The director's vision was most definitely realized in full.  The strong character development and excellent plot will pull the viewer into a world they never wanted to enter... and will never want to enter ever again. This movie is action meets art.The plot would shift every time the viewer thought they had finally figured it out.  There were more twists than a broken slinky, and that was only during the first 20 minutes.  The movie would introduce a new character, only to kill them off several minutes later.  If you listen hard enough during quieter parts of the movie, you can hear the last breaths of many of the careers of the actors in this movie. Rollerball and its stars should have been nominated for academy awards, though they should not have won any.The blisteringly average editing and the chase scene filmed in night vision (for no apparent reason) made this movie blindingly spectacular.(Read: This movie made you want to tear your eyes from your head.)  Rollerball was not a complete failure, however.  It succeeded at being terrible.I wonder what Hollywood was thinking when they created this movie.  I wonder if the script actually read well and it was the actors and the editors and the directors that made the movie dismal.  I would have to ask just one question.  Why?  I would ask that question to everyone who worked on the movie and I would bet that my response would be something to the tune of \"Why not?\"  If this is a movie that did well in the theaters, then America will watch anything and I am sad for being a part of it.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bad",
      "review": "Sometimes I enjoy watching bad movies just because it remembers me of why the good ones are good. So I ended up in this one and I was quite 'happy' about it, for it is plain awful in every respect I can think of.That is: lack of any message, lack of script logic, lack of intelligent dialogues, lack of characterization, lack of style and coolness, lack of suspense or romance or whatever, and last not least the camera is just plain unbelievable abysmal horribly bad.I only wonder why Jean Reno ended up in this movie. And why Rebecca Romijn-Stamos did that, too, and decided to show her beautiful breasts here. Well, I hope they both got a fair sum of compensation for being part of this movie.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why didn't they just go on strike?",
      "review": "I agree, this film is terrible. But I was wondering why the players didn't just go on strike in front of a global audience to protest at what was happening to them. Then again, that wouldn't make for a violent ending, would it?\"If they want me to play, I'll play\" (or words to that effect). Puh-leeeze!",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "John McTiernan faceplants hard",
      "review": "I'm not sure I've ever seen a talented director faceplant as hard as John McTiernan does here. This goes beyond bad story choices, performances, and unfortunate effects. There's an amateurishness pervasive through this film that makes it feel like the first film of a film student given too much money rather than the tenth film in a career that includes The Hunt for Red October. This is an embarrassment. McTiernan should have removed his name from the movie and attributed it to Alan Smithee.Reading a bit about the film afterwards, I found information that the original script of this remake was actually really well received. It was sometimes called superior to the script to the original Norman Jewison film. However, McTiernan didn't like the social commentary aspects of the script and completely rewrote it with an emphasis on action. Well, that was certainly a mistake. He most assuredly did get rid of the social commentary with any potency, but the fact remains that the shell of the movie that remains feels like it requires social commentary. It doesn't surprise me that McTiernan would be uninterested in social commentary considering his filmography. The only movie that came close was Medicine Man, and that was mostly a selection of a topic rather than a serious attempt at digging into a topical issue.What was left is, well, awful. Starting with the action, the supposed raison-de-etre of the film, it's pretty much incomprehensible. I think the problem may have been the set itself. There's a rink of a sort where the titular sport is played. From afar it looks big, but when you start picking out the details you realize that there's shockingly little room for a camera rig to move, especially with the two small towers at the center. It's an extreme limitation on the ability of the cameraman to actually capture action, preventing him from pulling back to film the movement of the sport in any sort of exciting way. The sport itself is supposed to be some kind of hard hitting action slugfest, but that sort of thing is hard to film from far away and sell convincingly to the camera without actually hurting someone. So, in order to convince the audience that the hits are hard, you have to go in close to do some in camera trickery that makes it look like the hits are hard, and the set is really small and has a lot going on (about ten people on rollerblades with at least two motorcycles at one time). I imagine they thought the set was big enough until they actually got onto it with a camera. I can imagine the panic that must have set in as everyone realized that the reason this movie existed wasn't going to deliver well.Usually, though, it's not just action scenes that drive movies, it's the drama as well. What about that? I mean, there are actors spouting dialogue that seems to have something to do with each successive scene. I guess. Jonathan Cross is a guy who races down hills in San Francisco in grungy outfits, gets picked up by his friend in a Porsche in the middle of a race, and told that he can make big money playing in the Rollerball league. Except that the movie makes a point later to say that nobodies make no money and only a couple of marquee names make money. So...how is this grungy guy racing down hills the marquee name? I mean, I guess there's someone filming him as he does it, but it's never shown that the handheld video that gets destroyed in the chase is making him a name in the world of extreme sports.Anyway, we skip ahead a bunch of time and we're in the middle of the season, and the league has finally decided that it's going to jack its ratings up by causing bodily harm to its players...in a game that includes metal balls flying at dangerous speeds and motorcycles driving amidst people on rollerblades. I mean...I guess? That's supposed to be the moral quandary of the film, but the characters are all so thin, poorly written, and barely sentient that when they start making the connection, we're wondering why it took them so long to figure it out.The absolute nadir of the film, though, is the green sequence. Rollerball, much like The 13th Warrior, had a disastrous test screening and went through massive reshoots, except that McTiernan actually helmed them this time. One of the scenes they had to reshoot completely was a nighttime chase through the Arabian desert on a motorcycle. They filmed it too dark originally, and then they screwed up the reshoots by not allocating enough money to do nightshoots right. So, they tinted everything green like it's night vision or a silent movie from the 1920s. It also looks like it was filmed on video instead of actual film. It looks really cheap, and, to make matters worse, there are random cartoon sound effects peppered throughout as though the sound editor had simply given up and was trying to screw with the production.The plot resolves with violence and no one cares because it's all stupid. Hell, the very last moments of the film feel like the editor joined the sound guy in giving up and just stopped the movie.I'll say it again, but Rollerball is an embarrassment. John McTiernan should feel bad for loosing this upon the world. It's flatly acted (except by Jean Reno as the owner who's just having a ball), flatly filmed (when it's not embarrassingly filmed), confusingly told (no except, it's always confusing), and rather painful to sit through. I hated this movie.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Nothing to remember",
      "review": "The only good point of the movie is its pace and the loud music. Nothing more to watch. The game sorts of get your adrenaline pumping. There is not much scope for acting. It features a good chase sequence. The ending could have been more action-packed.",
      "rating": "5"
    },
    {
      "title": "Stunningly Brutal",
      "review": "This was just really hard to watch. One of the worst movies I've ever seen, and I'd say the worst remake I've ever seen. I actually don't mind when a remake is not a carbon copy and does a reimagining, but this was something else. The original 'Rollerball' had layers and concepts that invoked interesting thought. I'm convinced this 'Rollerball' killed millions of my brain cells.The only potential redeeming quality would be the practical stunts. But that is absolutely it. Everything else is so bloody awful. I have an extremely hard time believing this film was actually made by John McTiernan. He's made some my all time favourite films, so I just don't know how it was even possible that he made something this bad. The writing, story, plot, and acting are atrocious. I really have no idea what they could have been thinking throughout the entire production.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "What has happened to John McTiernan?",
      "review": "To preface this, I am a huge John McTiernan fan. Predator ranks right behind Aliens, in my opinion as the best Sci-Fi action movie ever. Die Hard invented a whole genre of film unto itself. Remember Die Hard on a plane? Passenger 57. Die Hard on a boat? Under Siege.Hunt for Red October was hailed as the best sub movie since Das Boot. Still is in my opinion. Thomas Crown Affair was better then the original. I hear the first cut of 13th Warrior was outstanding (Michael Crichton re-shot and re-edited much of McTiernan's original film). Die Hard: With a Vengeance was a masterful sequel.Personally, I like Medicine Man, but I can see why a lot of people did not. The Last Action Hero had a horrible story, but it was well directed.Rollerball, much like Last Action Hero, was also a horrible story. The difference was McTiernan's direction was absolutely rancid. The editing was amateurish. The music was mundane. And the direction was awful, oh wait, I already said that.The plot involves a wayward amateur athlete in the 'States hoping to get his break. He does in the form of a childish sport involving roller blades, motorcycles, steel balls and viewer ratings. For some reason he gets paid lots of money, but when a dimwitted teammate gets creamed upside the head with one of the afore mentioned steel balls, he suddenly develops a conscious, after all he's only making \"100 times more\" than his teammates. Why would he care if one gets knocked off?What follows is a terrible story that tries to involve the audience on some pseudo-political level, but never even gets close. Jean Reno plays the owner of, apparently, not only the central team, but the league as a whole. LL Cool J plays a throw away part as Chris Klein's best friend. And Rebecca Romjin Stamos plays Chris' teammate/love interest. We don't care about any of the characters, they're never fleshed out. And they're doing something so childish, that even if they were, we still wouldn't care.The direction is so terrible, that it looks like it was edited on someone's home computer by an inept amateur. There are silly things like an entire night scene that is shot with a green tint. I assume that this is supposed to give me the feeling that I'm watching this through night vision goggles. Basically it made me want to fall asleep. Later on in the same scene two vehicles bust through a wire fence and there is a, I'm not kidding here, \"sproing\" sound. Much like the sound one would hear in a Wiley Coyote cartoon. Both vehicles make this sound. That basically describes the whole movie. You sit back, scratch your head and say, \"did I just see that? And if I did, that was terrible.\"I can't say the entire movie was awful, the opening race through San Francisco had McTiernan's usual flare and panache. An ensuing car chase scene through some dirt roads in the Ukraine wasn't bad either. But the rest can be flushed right down the commode.3 out of 10 stars. D+",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not great, but a good movie!!",
      "review": "I decided to watch this movie purely on the basis that it's a John McTiernan movie and I enjoyed the original. I have to confess that I did enjoy it and would recommend it to others. I certainly have seen a lot worse movies recently. The story is a little confusing to say the least, but the filming styles, action set pieces and general feel more than make up for it.It's not a great film by any means, but it is good! I would definitely watch it again (as I may understand the full story a little better). Chris Klein seems a little lost amongst it all and Jean Reno is definitely under used. Considering the reviews I had read, I expected some unwatchable trash, not a great escapism movie with some good music and great action. See it for yourself and make your own decision.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Underestimated Film",
      "review": "In my opinion Rollerball deserves a lot more credit than what it has got on IMDb. Although it's not any masterpiece and it is no where near as good as its predecessor from 1975, it is still an entertaining film that has even got a few comments on the real world.For instance the poverty stricken Russians spend most of their money on gambling when they can't even afford food (Just what happened in Albania a few years ago when a huge chunk of its populace lost a lot of money on a pyramid scheme). Parallels can also be drawn to professional sports, which are becoming more and more dangerous (who can forget Todd Bertuzzi's life threatening attack Steve More).As you can see it is better than what it has gotten credit for but still I would mostly recommend this film to fans of this genre.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Yech!",
      "review": "Rollerball, the 1975 classic sci-fi film with enough blood and gore to fill an emergency room and with the kookiest look of the future. Now flash back to now, the 2000's where we have suddenly run out of ideas for movies and now have to remake, prequelize or sequelize every movie that's older then 20 years. Now we have the \"prequel\" to the james Caan classic and I guess by prequel they mean the \"sucky\" version. Sorry for my bad grammar but the fact remains, you cant play a neo-futuristic sport in a movie if people dont get killed constantly. That's the way it works, i dont write the rules, but if your gonna remake a movie live up to it's standards.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Don't be fooled by all the negative comments.",
      "review": "\"Rollerball 2002\" is not that good. It seems that just about everyone from critics to the kid in the street think this flick sucked.  Even the target demographic (males under 18) gave this knock-off of \"Rollerball 1975\" marks so low they could limbo under a street luge.  Suffice it to say that nothing works and there are no redeeming qualities. A complete loser. (D-)",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Terrible remake",
      "review": "This remake of the James Caan original is just downright terrible. A mismash of a story line that makes very little sense at all. Chris Klein, who is a decent comedy actor, does not make a convincing action star, and certainly is not convincing as a extreme sports star. In this remake, Klein travels to Central Asia to become a star in rollerball, a sport that makes no sense considering the filmmakers make no effort to explain the game or to shoot or edit the sports matches so that we have any idea who is winning or what is going on in the game. In fact, the entire story is such a mess that attempting to follow the plot just leads to severe migrane headaches on the part of the viewer.. ignore this film at all costs. GRADE: F",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Who to blame for how bad this film is..",
      "review": "Based on the same William Harrison short story, Director from; 2 Die Hard films, Last Action Hero, Predator and The Hunt for Red October, pretty decent writers, at least one decent editor, Production designers from prominent films, DP ah there it is.An inexperienced DP. This and the horrible actor choices. Chris Klein?? Really?? WHY the American Pie actor??Have these people ever even seen the 1975 masterpiece? I don't think so. The budget on 1975 Rollerball was 5-6M$ which would be about 33M$ today.The 2002 Rollerball budget was 70M$ more that twice that of the 1975 film (in 2002 dollars) They completely missed the mark. The raw brutality and corporate world domination and futuristic dystopia turned into pointless drivel. Someone should have been fired and the direction of this film corrected. Sometimes a film is plagued with bad luck. I'm wondering if this was the case here. Exorcist II: The Heretic was one of those films. I've talked to people that worked on that film and asked them if they couldn't see how badly this film was going as they were making it. They said that there were so many s storms (like locusts getting loose and dying) and also that when following a great film, people think that they don't have to try as hard because of the previous film, but that was a sequel. This film is 27 years later, basically a clean slate. The people going to see this film have either never seen the 1975 version or they are part of the small cult following that loved it. In 2002 (Lord of the Rings Two Towers, Chicago, The Pianist) Some amazing films were being made. Why did they go thriller instead of edgy? This was a HUGE gamble that was horribly conceived and horribly executed and they paid big time with losses at the box office.How did they not see this coming? With a 70M$ budget, sometimes you're just happy to be working. I'm sure everyone took home a HUGE paycheck, they haphazardly threw the spaghetti on the wall and it didn't stick. No one wants to have their name on a horrible film but like I said sometimes you're just happy to be working.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "...",
      "review": "It is difficult to write this review, as the experience of viewing \"Rollerball\" has destroyed my ability to form complete thoughts and express myself using words and sentences.  Perhaps this should be a warning to anyone that is thinking of going out and seeing this film, but I would have to say that this moviegoing experience has given me more respect for the craft of filmmaking.  No matter how bad I thought any movie I had ever seen in the past was at the time, I now realize that the film projected onto the screen during those viewings could have been replaced by the film under the heading \"Rollerball\".  I now have more respect for anyone who did not, in anyway, participate in the making of this film.  I also have more respect for films that did not fail in the waysWatching this movie approximates doing acid.  If you have never done acid, and do not wish to try, you can watch this movie to assimilate the effects that the substance does to the human brain.RollerBall is a game that takes place in the future...way, way in the future...all the way in the year 2005.  Chris Klein plays Jonathan Cross, or, as his many fans in Southeast Asia would refer to him, \"Jon-a-ton\". Jonathan was at one time considered to be the \"Next Wayne Gretsky\", which I find to be quite incredible since he had refused to play professional hockey LL Cool J plays Marcus Ridley Jean Reno plays the villain, Petrovich Rebecca Romijn-Stamos plays the part of Aurora, or as the fans know her, the \"Black Widow\" Half the time, there was never a ball in place.  Another amazing fact is that there never was a score shown.I think this movie has the greatest example of unintentional Dadaist scriptwriting that has ever been done.  This film was a fantastic combination of nonsensical dialogue, plI think everyone that has any respect for the craft of filmmaking should go see this movie as soon as possible.  Note that, only two weeks after the film was originally released wide into several thousand theaters, it is nearly impossible to find a theater that is still showing this film.  I found that there were only two showings of this film in the entire city of Indianapolis that could be viewed.  At one theater, it only played at 4 o'clock, while we see it at a different theater, where there was only one 9 o'clock showing.  If you don't see this film now, you may have to wait until the film comes out on video, which would be a complete travesty.  The full experience of realizing the horror of this travesty can only truly come to life on the big screen, and any disgust this movie would cause watched in the context of a 20-odd inch screen would be filtered.  You owe it to yourself to see how corrupt and ill-managed the Hollywood system truly is, and you must realize that a film this horrendous was made to go on the big screen.  This garbage was made with the idea that it would gross more than it cost to make, which was, quite embarassingly, an excess of 80 million dollars.  Think about it.  80 million dollars.  An amount of money that could have been used to build a much larger studio at MGM.  An amount of money that could have been used to finance 80 small 1-million dollar budget films based on good independently written screenplays.  Heck, an amount that would be much better given to charities to feed hungry people.  Do you have any idea how many people 80 million dollars could feed?  The fact that this mass of money, the majority of which will never be made back and is simply gone forever, was used for the soul purpose to create \"Rollerball\" sets a new low for the studio system.  The very fact that producers at MGM thought that mainstream audiences would go for this trash makes me pessimistic in the Hollywood system, while the fact that audiences were smart enough to stay away from it gives me optimistic for the integrity of humanity.  There is no reason for this film to exist.  The fact that a major film studio would spend so much money on a film this bad shows that there is something wrong with the way the system works now.  Wake up, Hollywood, wake up. 1/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "One of the worst re-makes ever",
      "review": "Just what was John McTiernan thinking, this film absolutely awful. through the years McTiernan has given us great films like Predator, The Hunt for Red October and Die Hard but Rollerball does not even class as a film. Its dull, the acting is awful(LL Cool J and especially Chris Klein). The script is terrible, just how Jean Reno could agree to work on this film is beyond me.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "What an AWFUL film",
      "review": "Why do they bother to remake films? I'm not sure but at least when they do they should try to make them better. I'm sure they had the budget so it must be the director or cinematography. Anyway this is probably one of the worse films I've seen. No story, terrible music, terrible filming. Can't believe I've wasted 2 hours of my life on this. DO youself a favour and miss it if you can.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Who in God's name greenlighted this?",
      "review": "This movie was the most random thing I have seen in a long time.  Things like entire scenes filmed with night-shot cameras and music from the 8th grade help this fact.  The summary says it all, but more importantly, how did they get fairly popular actors like Chris Klein and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos to do this?  Sure, LL did 'Deep Blue Sea', but even that was better.  This was a really, really bad idea and movie.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "A real disappointment",
      "review": "I decided to go see this film in spite of the bad reviews, because it stars Jean Reno, and I'm a fan of his work.  Unfortunately, this is the worst performance of his career.  His character is shallow and played like he was hung over most of the shooting.  He has only one good line in the whole film.  And it's the only humorous line in the film too.The only good performance is that of Naveen Andrews, who plays Jean Reno's sidekick/assistant.  His is the only character who has any sort of personality, and you will find yourself waiting for him to appear on the screen.  Not so much because his character is essential to the story, but because the rest of the film is so horribly bad.  His character brings us the only human being in the film.  The rest of the actors are just cartoon characters of themselves.This film has nothing to recommend it other than the action scenes.  The problem there is that the action scenes are shot too close to the action, and quick cut to the point where you can't actually see the action.  If they had used a shorter lens and not been so eager to change cameras every 2 seconds, this could have been a much better film.  It would at least have been watchable.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "An enteraining, if complicated movie",
      "review": "Ignore what you may have heard, ignore what you may have read. Rollerball is a much better movie than most people would give it credit.I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and found it to be a great piece of escapism. The only let down in the movie was the confusing story line which was far too complex at times. However, at the heart of it is a well crafted and filmed story which does not seem to be as far fetched as the original Rollerball seemed to be upon its release.This re-make is a far more human version of the story and far less idealistic with its core meaning. If you enjoy sci-fi and action - go see it! Ignore what you have heard!!!",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "An OK film for a quiet night",
      "review": "This film looked like a cheap remake, but i was quite surprised.All the actors put in good performance, and the story is quite interesting. People who like gory violent films will find this film amazing. The whole idea of a sport where people are deliberately hurt or killed to make the ratings higher is interesting. The love interest between Jonathan (Chris Klein)and Arora (Rebecca Romijn - Stamos) makes the film just a little bit more fun.There are no boring bits in this film, there is always something happening which will catch your attention.Overall this film is a good film to watch when there is nothing on TV, or if you like violent sport films.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerbumble!",
      "review": "The original lacked many things, but it at least had a socio-political edge. The first film version had to labour under the acting of James Caan (his has improved marginally), but it did convey the essential political overtones and the de-sensitisation of the global TV audience to violence.Rollerball 2002, seemed to be trying to depict the now without comment, and use the violence to paper over the cracks created by a paper thin treatment.Super villians seeking global domination (if only in TV ratings), are the stuff of third rate comic books. An opportunity to make a movie that kept to the spirit of the original story, provide food for thought, and lead us on a fantastic trip was sorely missed.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "not the best",
      "review": "Scanning other user comments I noticed many people quick to point out the multitude of flaws this film has.  Which is easy to do, the film is unmitagated garbage.  Bad acting, nonsensical plot, the infamous night vision sequence ( i swore my DVD player broke when this was going on), but what I didn't see mentioned (although it may have been and I missed it) was any commentary on the Rollerball sport itself.In Jewison's original (a film I adore), the audience could easily follow the premise of the sport.  Two teams circle around the ring, pick up a metal ball and try to place said ball in a metal hoop.  And I suppose the sport in the remake follows the same rules, but... Why are there random jumps and little bridges all over the place?  Are the teams suppose to race around  in any order? Offense, defense...anything?  Did anyone put the slightest degree of thought into the film at all?  Well, the answer to that last question is pretty obvious.  In the DVD booklet of the original RB, it is mentioned that the films stuntmen would play Rollerball in thier spare time.  I'm sure the stuntmen in the remake were happier playing gameboy.One more complaint, though Rollerball is not the only recent film this criticism could be levied against:  Why is it with this  recent trend  of playstation/Tony Hawk action cinema are the filmmakers  so petrified of showing the brutality of violence? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a sadist, but from The Fast and The Furious to the infantile XXX, the horrific SWAT and the mindnumbing Rollerball, people are beaten, shot, knifed and mangled in every possible way, yet it never looks like they experience any actual PAIN!??!!  I suppose no one wants to offend critical watchdogs and what not, and I'm certainly not asking for every film to be a bloodbath, but shouldn't fight sequences or gunfights give the viewer a sense of some sort of jeapordy?  Shouldn't a protagnist see the consequences of his actions?  When a character does die in any of these \"extreme (!)\" action films, the best any sort of intelligent person can hope for is a melodramatic stab at an \"I feel cold\" speech.  And that sort of thing was old hat by the 1950's, and done with more craft and drama in the 1950's as well.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "WOW",
      "review": "Take a classic movie, remove all the good elements including its soul and you are left with the incredibly unnecessary Rollercrap 2002!Well done guys you nailed it!!!Tiernan should send a hand written letter of apology anytime someone watches this.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "What a deception",
      "review": "This was the worst deception for me in my long moviegoer lifetime. Yes, the worst, a nightmare; I have always admired John Mc Tiernan as one of the most gifted American directors of his generation, and besides, ROLLERBALL was in 1975 one iconic movie, and ever after, this was the perfect topic for him, because of his intelligence, brilliance and also because he is an outstanding action film maker. So ROLLERBALL I repeat, was the perfect, the terrific opportunity to hope the best. But unfortunately everything collapsed in my moviegoer life after watching this piece of crap, ..straight to the garbage piece of sh.... I don't blame Mc Tiernan at all for this awful mess but those f...producers, only interested in gross, gross, and not creativity; they only thought of reaching brainless teen audiences. Not the same kind of audience as in the seventies. So, the director had the same issues on this film as he had a few years earlier with TH THIRTEENTH WARRIOR. Those bloodin producers.... Shame on them.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not a 10, but not as bad as people say",
      "review": "You know i just watched this movie, and although im glad i didnt shell out money to see it in a theatre, i did enjoy it...yeah it was cheesy in some parts, and was the worst movie i ever seen LL Cool J in,<well maybe except TOYS> i still watched the whole movie..I could have seen the movie ending alot better ways..like to have LL COOL J roll in with united states marine corps to save the day....but all in all...it just kills me because people are always so quick to beat down a movie, when they could never make even a 3 minute short film...",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not your father's rollerball",
      "review": "The biggest problem with this movie is that it is a remake.  If this were the original movie called Rollerball, it would be seen as a slightly above average action movie.  Well if it had someone who could act instead of giving a bad Keanu Reeves impression like Chris Klein does.  Actually aside from Chris Klein I thought the actors did a rather decent job given the inherently weak character developement allowed by the script.The thing that really stuck out for me though was the very basic differences between the original and this incarnation.  The original movie was a typical mid 70's near future movie.  Rollerball being a game that was so brutal that there was never a \"star\" until James Kaan that is.  The purpose being to strip the common man of yearning for individuality.  Since individuals who stick out during the game get taken out.  The new version is a typical turn of the millenium movie about greed.  The movie feeds money to the evil producers of the show.  In both cases the point was delivered a bit heavy handed, and very heavily doused with cliches of the time.Things to watch for: Oleg Taktarov (of ultimate fighting championship fame), Paul Heyman (prowrestling producer/commentator), and a cameo by Shane McMahon (Son of WWF owner Vince).",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Get ready for 15 minutes of green and blurry action!",
      "review": "There are plenty of good ideas in this movie, but most of them very badly used.The main good idea is that of the sport circus broadcast around the world in different languages. Some good references to the original movies or even to the Japanese comic book Battle Angel Alita.But the entire development of the story is extremely disappointed. Who could think that the man who gave us Die Hard could give us *that*?There is nothing wrong with the acting, or the actions, or even the script in itself. Just the whole filming and putting together of that movie is totally out of it.Now, would you shoot an entire night sequence using infrared cameras, forcing people to watch 15 minutes of green and blurry action? McTiernan did. It looked awful on a 50 feet wide screen. It sure will look even more awful on a 50 inches screen.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Possibly the worst movie ever made.",
      "review": "The original Rollerball was a masterpiece of its time. Great direction, acting and story.This is a catastrophe. A carbuncle on the backside of moviemaking.The rollerball games themselves make no sense. The casting of the slightly young and effeminate Klein is a disgrace to the memory of James Caan's Jonathan E.The decision to then meld this game into a ridiculous heist movie is mind blowing.So this car crash of a movie vies with Exorcist 2 The Heretic, Star Wars The Rise Of Skywalker and The Last Jedi as the worst movies ever made. If you spend multi millions on movies that both turn out to be a huge disappointment and are objectively awful then they are worse than any amateur nonsense made for 50 bucks.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "\"Rollerball\" should pick up every Razzie award in 2003...",
      "review": "I don't know how a talented action director such as John McTiernan could end up with a piece of trash such as \"Rollerball.\" Last time I checked, movies were supposed to be entertaining and fun.One of the many problems is the sloppy editing, which was obviously made to cut the dialogue out. Now I've had experiences with poor editing in movie, but what I saw in \"Rollerball\" was ridiculous. Sometimes, it's literally impossible to understand what's going on. And the camerawork isn't much help, either.There are two kinds of bad movies: The kind so bad, it's hilarious, and the other kind is just plain bad. Unfortunately, \"Rollerball\" would have to fall into the second category. Believe me when I say I've never seen anything as bad as \"Rollerball.\" Luckily, I only rented it on DVD after seeing so many negative reviews. And that was one of the biggest mistakes I'd ever made.Not many movies get to be as bad as \"Rollerball.\" I still can't understand why a whole action sequence was shot with an infrared camera, and why a motorcycle crashing through the gate makes a Looney Tunes cartoon sound. The film doesn't even pretend to be serious, and still, it's not even worth watching; it had no business being at the movie theaters and has no business being sold in video stores.I don't think many movies will ever get to be as bad as \"Rollerball.\" It seems the stunt people are the only ones actually doing their job, the rest of the characters just seem to be little more than elements of second unit. Avoid \"Rollerball\" at all costs. F- (This is a little too kind.)",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball is terrific..",
      "review": "Rollerball is one of the best movies i have ever seen, the start is terrific....and the ending is even better. anyone that liked FUTURE SPORT will love this one..I'm telling you, if you haven't seen this movie yet.......SEE IT NOW!!!!!i gave this film a 9 out of 10....CHRIS KLEIN IS HOT!!!!!!!",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "RollerBawful!",
      "review": "It's hard to believe this is the same director that made \"Die Hard\"! This was one of the worst movies I've seem in decades. As a lover of \"Bad Cinema\" I have looking forward to this movie since the started showing \"Rollerball 2000\" adds in theaters in 1999. It's hard to understand how they could take 3 years of \"retooling\" and still come out with such a complete pile of garbage. I can't give away the story, because their isn't one! It's just a jumble of skating and guys driving cars really fast.Please rent the original \"Rollerball\" and see what with today's technology they could have made if they had expanded on the original story.This movie is a little over 1 1/2 hours long it seems like 4.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Completely misses the point of the original movie (spoilers)",
      "review": "Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...........This movie has to be seen as one of the worst remakes ever. The cental character, Jonathan Cross is a real joke compared to the original Jonathan.E, played by James Caan.Caan's Jonathan E was driven to play the game and the story centres on his struggle to continue playing the game when his paymasters want him to quit. He is potentially bigger than the game which was meant to be a method of control. No-one was supposed to ever become \"good\" at Rollerball as it was designed to outline the futility of individual effort.Klein's Jonathan Cross is trying everything he can to leave the game and is desperate to do so. He is blackmailed into playing by the TV bosses who are desperate to get the game on American cable TV (gimme a break!).Rollerball is a story that carries the message that the human spirit cannot be broken and that no matter how difficult the challenge, the human spirit will prevail.This load of garbage loses these key elements which made the 1975 movie an extremely valid film. It was not a glamourisation of violence like the new movie. The ending is truly stupid in the new movie and is the final nail in it's coffin. In the original, Jonathan E claims victory and rolls around the arena with his name echoing around the arena. He became what the bosses where afraid he would become, a hero. In the new movie Jonathan Cross kills the network bosses and frees himself from the game.I'd advise anyone thinking of renting this film to watch the original and not to waste their time on this pile of excrement.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Terrible missed opportunity",
      "review": "`Rollerball` stinks! Between the bouncing camera, the incomprehensible game, formula action scenes, lack of plot, lack of character development (who cared about the \"zero\" annonymous atheletes?), lack of drama in conflict moments, much too brief and rushed climb to the \"climax\", its hard to say in mere English just how bad this disjointed stinker really is! Absolute trash! Ten thumbs down! What could have been \"cat and mouse\" between good and evil, greed and honour, was a hurried rush to meaningless violence from terrible camera angles and even worse dialogue. Only a forest could be more wooden...and more exciting to watch. A meaningless indulgence in gyro-cams. Awful! P. Scanlon",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worst movie EVER",
      "review": "\"And the Oscar for worst scene produced in a movie goes to... Rollerball!\" For those who are still skeptical  about seeing this movie, let me decide for you. Do NOT see it. I was optimistic going into the theater, I came out with a grin wide enough to fit all the talent involved in the flick. The grin was not from me loving the movie, but a certain scene so badly produced that I could not help but to smile the rest of the movie. The rundown: first, it starts with a cheap camera and/or film shooting everything. Add a sort of a night-vision effect. Then, terrible acting by Klein and Cool J. To add to my amusement, a terrible 30 second car chase that ends with them on a motorcycle. While hitting 110 mph (since when does a motorcycle NOT flip when it is being jerked around at 110?), a car/plane comes in flying very low to try and capture the two fugitives. The fugitives go through a barbed-wire fence (notice the VERY cheesy Saturday morning cartoon sound when they go through). The plane follows (ANOTHER cheep noise). It ends with a death and more bad acting.Yes, this is the worst scene I have ever seen. It tops all of the scenes from Supernova! Just don't watch it. Don't associate yourself with anyone even remotely involved with the film.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why was this made? (POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!!!)",
      "review": "Seriously folks.  Rollerball is bad for the following reasons.Acting: The acting is just awful.  LL is the worst by far.  Chris Klien and Rebecca Romajin Stamos also suck.  In other words, they all suck.  Jean Reno should've never been in this.Night-Vision scene: Honestly, the Night-Vision scene has to be one of the worst scenes ever filmed.  It just looked stupid.  And to add on to the stupid way they shot the scene, some bad sound effects as well.  Would a fence really go \"SPROING\" if you drive through it? I think not.Pointless? Yes. Very: What was the point in this movie? The ending of this movie sure was uplifting.  Yeah, let's kill everyone.  This is nothing but a plotless, poorly acted and terribly shot violence fest.  Yeah.  Like an R-Rated DVD with Stamos' hooters would make this trash any better.In conclusion, this movie was terrible.  Oh, I also forgot.  Having Pink lip-sync to the music of Rob Zombie was just hilarious.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "What have they done to one of my favorite movies?",
      "review": "In more than one sense the new movie is the negative of the 70's movie. The old Rollerball movie had a story, a message, actors, and a director. The new one does not have a story, does not have a message, ... you get the picture?About ninety minutes of light and sound to fill a void and in doing this creating one. McTiernan: a philosopher? Rollerball 2002 a koan? Or just McTiernan sitting in his warm cave watching the CNN shadows of the ROW turning them into one of the longest and worst music videos in history?But who cares? Just ignore this movie. Unless you want to catch a glimpse of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' naked, ahhh, bosom.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not...not a good film.",
      "review": "Rollerball is a bad movie. It is extremely bad. It is unconscionably, incomprehensibly, horribly bad.  Literally the one positive thing I can think to say is that Rebecca Romijn-Stamos takes her clothes off once or twice. I'm not joking. That is as good as this movie gets.While there are dozens of things wrong with Rollerball, it's the editing that sinks it. The movie seems edited in an amphetamine-induced haze without regard to performance, plot or coherence. It is very hard to tell what is going on from one-second to the next.Another problem is the leading man. The hero is a young American hockey player.  He is an extreme sports fanatic who journeys to Russia and becomes a star player in the brutal new sport of \"rollerball.\"  He soon finds out that \"All Is Not What It Seems™\" and has to fight for his life.  The rollerball league functions like a futuristic French Foreign Legion so the hero becomes first among a brutal, subhuman pack of desperate characters. The character has to be tough, dripping with testosterone.  Vin Diesel should have been a shoe-in. Instead they cast Chris Klein. Sweet, young, apple-cheeked Chris Klein. Young Chris doesn't look rough enough to watch the sport without his mommy much head the league in broken limbs.  This is not a question of acting talent.  This is a question of sheer physical believability.  You wouldn't cast Michael Jordan as a jockey.  Seeing the other actors relate to the affable Klein as if he were a berserk Klingon pushes the movie towards parody.The other actors seem to be doing what they can but it's really very hard to tell what they are up to because of the terrible editing. There are times when the actors are cut off in mid-word! \"Hacked up\" doesn't begin to cover the effect. The person who bears the brunt of the editor's depravations is that most French of actors Jean Reno.  Here he plays a Russian and between the editing and accent, his part is all but unintelligibleSometimes cinematography can save a movie. Not Rollerball, however. When the images aren't pumped up and jarring they are dark and dreary.  An entire sequence is shot in the grainy-green style of night-vision goggles. As nobody in the film is wearing goggles at this point one would assume that the director just liked the style.  It may be cool but it's exceedingly hard to take for any length of time. Here you have around four minutes during which you witness major events through a muddy green fog.Suffice it to say Rollerball should never have been released, not even direct-to-video. Honestly, you wander away from the experience wondering what caused the disaster.  Quite a bit of thought and money obviously went into the film and John McTiernan is an action director of considerable talent.  It should at least been an enjoyable time-waster. Instead it fails at every level. Recommend Rollerball to your worst enemy. You'll be glad you did.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Walked out!",
      "review": "I'm a huge fan of the original Rollerball, having seen it 10 or 20 times and bought the DVD to see it even more.I knew to not expect anything remotely close to the original, but went to see it out of sheer curiousity.This is the first movie I've ever walked out on, ever.That says it all.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Where to start....",
      "review": ".....after reading all the comments here on IMDB about this mad-woman's breakfast of a movie, I don't really feel the need to say anything more than.....WHAT THE HELL IS WITH THE NIGHT VISION SCENE????  You can't see a damn thing, it looks like it was shot on home video, you can't see the characters or the action.....what the hell were they thinking??I just had to get that off my chest.Oh, and if you feel like a laugh...God knows you'll need it if you've just watched this flick, check out Roger Ebert's review!  It's the best thing about the movie!!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Years ahead of its time",
      "review": "This film was simply to good for its own time period, i fully believe and predict by 2015 this film will climb exponentially up the IMDb rankings. Viewers will become more increasingly aware of its brilliant concepts and flawless acting, Chris Klein truly deserved numerous nominations for his top shelf delivery of the acting craft.I don't feel like i need to persuade you to see this film, just look at the cast list: Naveen Andrews, LL Cool J, Pink, Chris Klein, Jean Reno and finally the legend that is Alice Poon. Also it isn't unfair to say that Jean Reno delivers such a performance it rivals his own performance in LeonWithout giving too much away i have to say Bravo to the person who came up with the night vision scenes, they successfully envisaged scenes of the futuristic world in 2005Finalyy ... WOW at that tag-line \"some pretty serious consequences...like death\"BRILLIANT",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Its a very good 2000s movie, i dont get the rating",
      "review": "This is a remake.. ok.. i noticed so many times that remakes get poor reviews even when the movie is good, because of some ancient nostalgia of those who are rating the movie.This movie has all that it needs to be good, action packed, even a bit emotionally involved.Good assemble of actors, good storyline, a lot of fun moments.There is literally nothing that i would add or remove from this movie, its just a good movie that deserves at least 6/10, and for some i would understand even 8/10 rating.Give it a shot dont listen to stupid reviews or poor ratings, those are just not reliable!7/10.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not quite as bad as I expected",
      "review": "But still pretty dire. First off, I'll make it clear that I'm a long-time fan of the 1975 James Caan version so I may be biased by that. This movie seems to have missed the point of the whole story - we get lots of glitz and violence, and none of the social comment of the original. Even Jean Reno can't save this from the bargin bins - only bother seeing this if there's nothing else on TV and you don't have any paint to watch dry...",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "There's fun trash and dull trash...This is DULL TRASH!!!",
      "review": "Now I haven't seen the original \"Rollerball,\" but the old Normal Jewison flick didn't get such glowing reviews either, so it's not like millions of audiences came forward and hollered, \"The original was so much better!  Why did they have to butcher it???\"  The previews looked really cool.  And the previews...are the movie!  Aside from the spectacular opening skateboarding sequence, all the coolness the movie has to offer was given in the previews, and as an added bonus set to the jamming sounds of Limp Bizkit.  And for those renting the DVD, it's not a total loss.  Hell, I least I got to see some bare boobs.  The uncut, R-rated version is available on DVD.  So for those thinking of renting this flick--only rent it if you're absolutely desperate to see some bare boobs.  I feel even sorrier for those who had to watch this crap in theaters WITHOUT the nudity!I just found out that the movie was re-edited countless times because of disastrous preview screenings.  That alone hints that it's gonna be a crappy movie.  I could be wrong, but so far I don't recall seeing a good movie that got its release date pushed and pushed and pushed.  The same thing happened with that horrible movie, \"Soul Survivors.\"  And I should've gotten a clue when a big, over-hyped action movie like this bombed, even in the first week.  Even some of the crappy action movies do wonders at the box office.John McTiernan, director of \"Die Hard\" and \"Die Hard with a Venegance,\" does the best he can, and even overdoes it.  Some shots seem flashy for the sake of being flashy.  A few of the flashy images are fetching, but most of them just look gratuitous.  But McTiernan was working with such a shallow, meaningless script that he tried hard to keep this clunker afloat.  So I appreciate the effort.  But I gotta say, that green-light chase scene--What the hell was that about?Every square inch of this movie spells \"forgettable.\"  Take away big stars like Chris Klein, LL Cool J and Jean Reno, along with the huge production values, and you got yourself direct-to-video filler.  Why did French character actor Jean Reno degrade himself in such a one-note role?  How many zeros were in that paycheck?  It's tragic to experience such a fine actor like him laugh maniacally and spurt out horrible lines of dialogue.  As for Klein and LL--they'd jump off a 100-story building for a film if it promised a huge paycheck.  Let them degrade themselves.  At least I get to see the beautiful Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.  She's no actress, but in such an utterly trash flick like this I wasn't a stickler for acting.  Topless Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is pretty much the highlight of \"Rollerball.\"This is an example of art imitating life.  Extreme sports didn't prove successful with the XFL, and people didn't have to pay to see that!  That just proves how successful extreme sports will fare in cinema.My score:  3 (out of 10)",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Promising start but no substance",
      "review": "I was really into this for the first 40 minutes wondering why it had such a low rating... then i found out why. The plot is undeveloped and runs out 2/3 into the film, the rest is piecemeal rubbish. The actual rollerball scenes are pretty cool and worth watching, but everything else is unnecessary. Fair acting, cool action, terrible plot and useless filler scenes.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ughhhhh...",
      "review": "I couldn't even get through the first 20 minutes of this movie.  I saw the first scene of the testosterone contest street luge race and was hoping it might get better afterward, but after another 10 minutes, I got up and left the room.  I think it was the guy tipping th other guy's helmet off and then going at him at breakneck speed and slamming an iron ball into his face, causing his jaw to break and blood to splatter everywhere.  It's barbaric and stupid.  In fact, I believe those were my exact words as I got up and left: \"This is barbaric and stupid and I'm not going to watch one more minute of it.\"Don't waste money renting this movie, you'll regret it.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "rollersuck",
      "review": "Oh dear, once again a remake that hopes to rake in a few quid from a successful predecessor that does not quite work.What a horrible film, the acting was horrible, the tension in the matches was non-existent and where was the blood and gore?!?!?  Not to want to pick holes in this film *scoff* but the film is supposed to be based on an ultra violent cross of rollerblading and lacrosse, right?  So where was all the violence and blood and gore, surely this film would have succeeded if Tarantino would have directed it.  At least the premis of the film would not be misleading.  OK, so there is some shooting and a few killings near the end, but really this film had so much more potential in it.Klein although good as the sensitive Keanu Reeves clone from American Pie does not suit this role well, but he is not the main reason for hating this film, (he doesn't really help save it either).  His range is constantly stuck between brooding and setting up to brood.  Not a good characteristic if you're supposed to be an intense rollerball athlete really.  Someone with more intensity or charisma would probably have made this film entertaining at least.Poor L.L.Cool.J, I feel sorry for this guy, here is a man, who clearly wants to make the serious leap from rap star to movie star and you thought he actually had a chance after watching him in Deep Blue Sea, which has been very successful, and justly so, really good film that.  But here's rollerball come to knock him back down, not good.  Even though he tries to make the best out of a bad situation he is really given nothing to work with, playing second fiddle to Keanu, sorry Klien and not a good script.What would have been good in this movie would have been if they had made a huge elaborate set with hard gritty violence that climaxed in a huge match which people really cared about the outcome, oh well.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "So so bad; the nude scenes were never going to save it.",
      "review": "Terrible film.Worse than the 1975 one.Poor acting, bad conversational timing between actors. Poor audio.Actors were reacting too fast to what was being said to them at times because they clearly knew the script. It didn't seem natural.Emotionless lead actor that I confused for Keanu Reeves in the first 60 seconds.Something terrible happens to your friend.... zero emotion, fear, anger anything.A mishmash of cuts and b-roll that were a failed attempt at being gritty.Random 10 minutes sequence using night vision throughout. Why?Also the looney toons spring rebound sound effect played twice in the same sequence. HahaSomeone was clearly attracted to the lead actress because she had way too many unnecessary scenes where they kept showing us her eyes to make her look mysterious, as though she was a mind reader or something. We didn't need all that.This film went a step further than the original by having an actual story, yet it failed to be interesting. At least with the first one you could make out some semblance of the sport they were playing. This one had riding/skating past the camera, maybe a collision and then a cut to someone jumping and making a goal shot.Unless you want to watch it for the sake of seeing how bad it is, I would not recommend it in the normal entertainment sense.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "A pathetic attempt. * out of 10. Almost as bad as Exit Wounds",
      "review": "When I saw this movie,I knew it would be horrible. I was right. That guy from Fast and The Furious is one of the worst (behind Stephen Segul of course)in the entire world. I'm sticking with Ebert this time,but what i dont get is he gave Escape From L.A. ***1/2 out of for. I watched it and commented on it not long ago (read it,it is quite funny)and it was almost as bad as this. This movie (with the exception of Exit Wounds)is the worst movie out right now. If you are in to these kind of movies(which are terrible)see it,if you want to be throwing up at such a script as bad as this. My advice to you is do not see it,it will give you that same queezy feeling that Exit Wounds did. Yes, it is just that bad. Thats all folks!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Well Meaning but Messily Directed",
      "review": "Gosh this film ends up being a mess. I can see what the director was attempting to achieve and there's some merit in his attempt – a remake of a very good 1975 film with updated politics. Unfortunately the updated politics are too shallow to take seriously.One central trouble is there's too much frenetically paced action and not enough time spent on explaining the story or the society in which Rollerball is set. The original Rollerball by comparison is a very intelligent piece of speculative fiction which films its ‘Rollerball' sequences expertly and a lot more cohesively than the updated version.A specific annoyance for me was an extended scene shot at night which uses military night view technology. Suddenly the picture on my TV went monotone and grainy. I thought my trusty 1983 Sony was finally giving up the ghost. I smacked it's side repeatedly until I realised it wasn't my dear TV's fault, it was bloody Rollerballs!Towards the end, the film becomes disgustingly violent. I was going to give Rollerball 4/10 but the ridiculously overt violence makes me subtract a point.Despite my harsh words, I will say that I enjoyed Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (what a mouth full!) declading out of her robust costume to reveal two of the most formidable and juicy looking breasts I've ever seen. If only she had spent more screen time naked, I'd raise my score a couple of notches.3/10",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Relentless action",
      "review": "This was never going to be a commercial success and I'm sure Jonh McTiernan knew about it. Too relentlessly negative and violent. Watching it, one feels like Alex in Clockwork Orange, sitting in a cinema with our eyes forced open, gore on the screen, so much gore that it makes us sick. With this, McTiernan takes the action film to an extreme that I can't recall in any other film, certainly in no American film. It's no wonder it flopped, and it's no wonder preview audiences hated it. Regular blockbuster audiences like their action to be slick. They don't like to be made to feel its consequences. And in this, McTiernan makes us conscious of the pain, and more importantly of our prosaic enjoyment of this pain, as attested by the recurring images of the roaring spectators in the arena and by the rise in TV ratings whenever there is some extra violence on the field.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Twin of Fast and the Furious",
      "review": "Just seeing the poster for \"ROLLERBALL\" I knew it was going 2 be like seeing \"THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS\" all over again. Most of the characters r almost the same, for example: Paul Walker same as Chris Klein, Jordana Brewster same as Rebecca Rojman-Stamos, Van Disel same as LL COOL J. So on a scale of 1-10 i give \"ROLLERBALL\" a 8, for being copy-cats!",
      "rating": "6"
    },
    {
      "title": "Terrible remake lacking in charm.",
      "review": "While the original Rollerball isn't considered a classic or required viewing in the whole Sci-fi genre, it at least had a plot. The story there was the world was now controlled by corporations and in order to keep the populace appeased they created a violent deathsport known as \"Rollerball\". The reasons for this were two fold. The first, and most obvious one, was that it was like the old gladiator fights of Ancient Rome. So long as the people had food and entertainment they were appeased. But the second, and most insidious reason, was that it showed individuality wasn't something to strive for. They created a brutal game in which the only way to succeed was teamwork but they didn't count on one man becoming a legend and possibly ruining their plans in the process by showing people that one man could make a difference.This movie seems to have ignored all that in favor of action. The basic plot is the same but it's now more about the actual sport which is now about blood and the more of it the higher the ratings. Gone is the social commentary and it's replaced with lots of fast cuts and really nifty stunts. It's like only half the movie the original was.The dialogue is pretty bad, the actors look way too pretty for the dangerous sport they're playing and most of the time the actors don't feel like they're giving it their all. Jean Reno feels like he's sleepwalking through the role and maybe he is. He's done great work in the past but this is not one of those movies.Watch the original and give this one a pass.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Don't bother.",
      "review": "All right, right off the bat, I'll let you know I am an open-minded person towards movies.  Early in 2002, I saw the trailers for a new film called \"Rollerball\".  The previews made it look like the flick was going to be pretty cool, and fast, a la \"The Fast and the Furious\".But one day, I was on the iMDB home page when I read a news article saying that MGM was in a big financial rut.  Two of their big spring releases-\"Hart's War\" and, uh, \"Rollerball\" were sinking faster than a swimmer in a pool of oil.Reading both film's box-office businesses, I understand.  \"Hart's War\" had a budget of $70 million, and it's opening weekend gross was $8 million. \"Rollerball\" had a budget of $85 million, and it needed a month to make $17 MILLION.  In these cases, they were not even duds-they were two big financial busts.So, I waited for \"Rollerball\" to come out on video.  When it did, I evenutally checked it out from my nearest Family Video.And from my viewing, it was terrible.  The whole movie didn't seem to have any point, plot, characterization, thrills, etc.  From the high-energy trailers, you might think that this film would offer that type of thrills. But the game itself makes \"Baseketball\" look like fun (a Comedy Central Canned Ham told us the Baseketball game itself was a very boring game to play).What was the point for the Slipknot appearance?  And that scene filmed in Nightvision?  It's obvious the filmmakers wanted to work on making the movie LOOK cool.  Too bad the scripting was awful.  I even remember seeing the camera focus on one character only to stop and then make them face a different direction!  Intelligence insulting at its finest.It got my vote in the \"Worst Films of 2002\" list.  I close by telling you, dear reader, not to bother with \"Rollerball\".  At least I didn't go to the theater and PAY for it...I just doubt movies based on original sports will work.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Freinds don't let freinds watch Rollerball (2002)",
      "review": "I saw it because I remember the original (from seeing it years ago) wasn't perfect and I thought, maybe a few things were fixed.  Well, besides a motorcycle and a ball and the name there wasn't much else here that reminded me of the original. I never could figure out what they were trying to do with the plot.  They took away the whole thing and set it in Russia and well.  There was no plot. Some things just got lost, but then that was OK, since we just fast forwarded through much anyway.  The REALLY BAD editing hurt my eyes.  I mean, I mean, no self respecting editor could watch it.  No self respecting 6th grader editing home movies on a VCR could watch it!  I mean it was really bad.  It wasn't the worst movie I have ever seen, as I managed to actually finish it (with serious fast forward action) but it was close to the worst movie I have ever seen. I had to comment just to help some other poor soul avoid seeing it.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "horrible",
      "review": "Quite possibly the worst movie ever.  I originally thought Cool World was the worst movie ever but now I think Rollerball (2002) has taken the title. DO NOT PAY TO WATCH THIS MOVIE.  If you can watch it for free and you're a huge Rebecca Romijn-Stamos fan then it might be worth seeing, other than that don't waste your time.  I am never getting those 2 hours back.  What a waste.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "I'D RATHER WATCH PAINT DRY!!!!!",
      "review": "Rollerball was a horrible movie and i could've made a better movie with a $2.00 video camera. HORRIBLE!!! all the way through. No storyline. Bad acting. This movie made no sense at all and the direction was all messed up. The camera wouldn't stop moving in 80 different directions and it made me sick. I hope this wins every Razzie award in 2003. PLEASE!!! SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!! and do not rent it. Not even an appearance from one of my favorite bands (slipknot) could save this horrible disgrace. For those who bought it I hope you know that you have bought an expensive coaster. FINAL VERDICT: 0/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Waste of time",
      "review": "Rollerball quite easily qualifies as one of the worst films of all time (among the likes of Rambo III and Surf Nazis Must Die). It's not even funny to watch it, only a waste of time. How is it possible to make a remake of an already bad film and even manage to make it even worse? And who funded this? Beware!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "To Ridiculous and Beyond!",
      "review": "As soon as I saw the previews I knew this movie was going to be bad, but I never, NEVER, imagined it would be this bad.Let me start with the plot: unless you've seen the original you're left to guess what the plot is (if anything?). The plot is given no date, one could assume it happened 20 years ago, and it appears the old Soviet Union is still alive and kicking although the movie is supposed to be set in the future. The whole point of the movie (or at least the original) is supposed to be about individuality, happiness, and control. Forget about any of that because it's not in the movie. In fact, the entire movie would seem to suggest \"if it feels good, do it\" and \"follow the crowd and you get these nice cars and women\". The movie even ends on a ridiculous quote about having sex - it seems the writers didn't care about a moral or even writing a story.One might assume that since there is no plot it must be all action? Yes, it is action and No, it's not good. You know the action is going to be poor when the players come out in ridiculous costumes and helmets that look like bears or cats - at least the original version took itself seriously. Don't try to keep track of the action either - the track is so badly put together it is impossible. With the original version you could keep track of the action, but with this version all you see it motorcycles and people flying and hitting each other.Its a real shame what this remake did to the name of Rollerball. I highly recommend you see the original if you want to know what the plot and action is really supposed to be like. One might note that the very thing this movie is SUPPOSED to go against is the very thing it relies on for its success.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Definite \"Dog of the Week\"",
      "review": "Many years ago, PBS had a weekly film review series called \"Sneak Previews\", with its original hosts being Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. Each edition would conclude with a feature known as \"Dog of the Week\", introduced by a single bark from the resident canine. (I recall the first one being a charming terrier named Spot.)The re-make of the classic \"Rollberball\" would definitely qualify as a DOTW. The only things it has in common with the 1975 original is the name and the first name of the main character.\"Rollerball\" 2002 is a mess. It starts with a game of an apparently illicit skateboarding down the streets of San Francisco, which has absolutely no connection to the main plot. As for the game of RB itself, it seems to be a combination of \"American Gladiators\" and roller derby with some elements of mixed martial arts.There isn't much of a plot so it's hard to figure out just what the purpose of the game is, let alone its rules, aside from being a gimmick by which certain people can become rich. At least in the film directed by Norman Jewison, RB serves as a substitute for war in the society that exists.On the whole, the acting is awful. Chris Klein was no James Caan and the female lead, Rebecca Romijn, made Raquel Welch's performance in \"Kansas City Bomber\" look Shakespearean.I used to work in industry, and we used to have a saying: \"If it works, don't fix it,\" something that Hollywood habitually ignores. A re-make should be an improvement on the original. This version of \"Rollerball\" fails in this regard.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Lame Remake That Removes The Original's Message",
      "review": "Rollerball was a classic film from 1975 that has its fair share of good and bad reviews, but what set it apart was its social commentary, which showed a dystopian future where corporations take over everything, with one trying to get the main hero killed because his refusal to retire threatens the purpose of the sport according to one businessman. This remake basically removes it because the director thought it would be boring, changed the setting to present day, and focused more on action, which ends up being its main flaw. Not even Paul Heyman as one of the announcers and cameos from Shane McMahon and the band Slipknot can save this mess. The only reason I give this two stars is for the soundtrack (with awesome bands like P.O.D. and Godsmack), but the acting is bad, the action is too much the focus, and you know it's bad when the director of this garbage remake is sent to prison for a year for making false statements to FBI investigators about his role in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal (where he hired the detective to wiretap the producer due to disagreements), and this remake is one to avoid in favor of the original.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Decent action movie",
      "review": "I went to see this out of pure curiosity and thought it would be horrible. well guess what it was not nearly as bad as everyone is making it out to be. It was a good action movie with not a great plot but the plot was there and it was an o.k movie. if you like action check this one out. I mean what is wrong with you people, this movie had a B- cenema score and you people have given it a 3 out of 10. Oh well i guess everybody has there own opinion.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Um...Mr. McTiernan...WHAT HAPPENED???",
      "review": "I have to say, when I first heard about a remake of \"Rollerball\" and John McTiernan, I nearly wet myself.  In my opinion, he's one of the best directors out there (Die Hard 1 & 3, Predator, Hunt For Red October)!!!  So I was pretty happy about this remake.  Then I saw the trailer, and was a little skeptical, but I just said to myself, \"John McTiernan is directing, so it'll be good, have faith Chris\".So the other day I went and saw it.  \"WOW...WHAT A LET-DOWN!\"  I won't say it was a HORRIBLE movie, but it certainly wasn't \"GREAT\"...I'd even have a hard time saying \"GOOD\".  There are SO MANY problems with this movie, but here's some that stood out.The editing was god-awful!  There were some cuts where there definitely shouldn't have been cuts and it was often chaotic!  I think I'd have to see it again to point out particular scenes, but I'm sure you'll agree if you've already seen it.There were a number of times where some explanation was desperately needed! Or...maybe I just missed something.  For instance, when Jonathan and Aurora go to \"Sergei's\" apartment and they were attacked.  Who is Sergei?  And who attacked them?  What the heck did this have to do with the badly-told story? Just seemed pointless to me.  ...Or how about when Jonathan's car gets destroyed because of the riot.  Why was there a riot?  What was that about? I didn't get the point of that whole scene either.  These are just two scenes that I didn't get.What on earth was with that whole scene being filmed in the night-vision green lens?  It was kind of cool for a few seconds...but not for the entire scene!*---------SPOILERS AHEAD---------*Why did they have to throw in the \"Romance\" between Jonathan and Aurora?  It just didn't fly!  I guess it would have been ok, but they just seemed to be \"getting-it-on\" WAY too quickly and it just didn't seem right.  And while I'm thinking of it, what was with that computer monitor and all that in the friggin' sauna?  That was just stupid to me.Ok, what is with the Naveen Andrews character?  Why the hell did he appear all sympathetic towards the players saying to Jean Reno \"Isn't that enough? Cut the feed\", and then he turns out to not care about the players in the end?  That was just LAME if you ask me.*---------END OF SPOILERS---------*All in all, I just have to say this, the plot to this movie was EXTREMELY BAD, and HORRIBLY told.  The acting wasn't terribly great.  Not to disrespect Chris Klein, but they should have got someone else.  He's cool in the American Pie series, but get him out of Rollerball.  LL Cool J, was ok, but I'm not terribly fond of him.  Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was fine with me, I didn't mind her at all.  Jean Reno, was ok, but he need to speak clearer.On the other hand, there were a few things I did like about the movie.  I did like SOME of the costumes, but some of them were ridiculous.  I did like Chris Klein's, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos' and LL Cool J's, costumes but the rest were kind of lame and childish.  I also LOVED that the band \"Slipknot\" was in the movie, even though it was only for a few moments.  So I'll leave you with this, if you want to see this, by all means...go see it, but if you want my advise...wait till it's on DVD/VHS.And that's my two cents.  Thanks for reading.-Chris",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Who edited this?",
      "review": "My husband made me watch this.  I was expecting to totally hate it.  It wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  Dialog and parts of the story were weak. And this is possibly the only movie I've ever seen where I actually heard comments on how bad the editing was, during the movie.  `Oh that was bad.' `Who edited this?'  `Can you believe how jumpy that was?'On the positive side:  The movie did point out that the driving force for almost everyone involved with the `game' was the love of money.  That was a believable motive for most of the characters.  Also not take place in the US or Canada, made a little easier to swallow the idea of how popular this game was suppose to be.The actual game:  Think WWF meets hockey with a motorcycle and roller blades.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "hardball",
      "review": "i thought i give it a shoot.john mc tiernan's starting to loose his light after die hard 2, dimmed in the medicine man, getting worse in last action hero, and keep on getting worse.rollerball suppose to be another try out just to prove what potential can still be left of him.nothing.bad script, weak casts, not even a single interesting approach or style or even camera angle. the soundtracks sucks, the action blunt, it's such a blunder.the characters undeveloped, even the rules of the game (which was suppose to be there) was not informed to the audience.there's no connection between the audience and the characters, and seems the director fails to deliver any message or so whatever. such a failure. mr mc tiernan, you flunked big on this one.a great weekdays movie to be watched whilst you're browsing or hang around with your lousy neighbour...",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I've never been so confused by a plot",
      "review": "Wow, I can't believe how bad this was. Like, bad bad. And it's not even the acting or the filming that did it but it was truly the plot that was just a mess. Don't get me wrong the acting was bad and there was an entire 15 minutes that was filmed in a green light in the middle of the night for some reason and the full got reduced to 140p the entire time. But the plot was such a disaster it left me so confused every 5 minutes as to what the heck was going on. Would highly recommend to anyone that loves bad movies.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "On a Collision Course with Confusion",
      "review": "Just one guy's opinion, but this is not a good movie.  Two noteworthy elements of badness: first, the insistent jump cut/slow-mo cinematics, the likes of which could make even Oliver Stone nauseous; and lets not forget the excruciating \"getaway\" sequence, shot through some fuzzy night vision filter that leaves us expecting a pan to Geraldo Rivera reporting live via satellite from war-torn Baghdad.  On the whole a visual nightmare.  A far cry from the McTiernan of the late '80s who we came to trust for a decent action flick.  But, no point in drudging up the past or the plot for that matter...was there one?  Still, in all fairness a solid believable story is not what we want from a movie like this, but at least give us something coherent. This plot, with all its vague allusions and exhaustively cryptic reaction shots, provides an experience not unlike hearing an inside joke not intended for you.  Which leads me to ask, was this movie intended for anyone?  Well, you be the judge, but something in my gut tells me that somewhere some filmmakers are enjoying a hardy chuckle my expense; in which case, good...at least this movie has given someone some pleasure.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Just saw it today and...oh god.",
      "review": "I never saw the original, but maybe that will help me to make this post into a critique rather than a comparison. Well, from the start of this movie it seemed it had nothing going for it. I was actually looking forward to seeing it, seeing as how I enjoyed Die Hard very much. But...well to start with, Chris Kline is a laughable Keannu Reeves wannabe. The movie itself is a Fast and the Furious wannabe. While I thought the latter was great, this movie...well, err...is not. As the movie progressed my patience slowly regressed, and I was happy when it was over. So, this kid Kline is a street luger (is that spelled right?), a potential hockey superstar, the greatest rollerballer ever, and a natural jackass. what can't he do??? Well, act is one thing. Quite funny how he seems like he never knows what's going on. And the ending is very bad. If you've seen it, than you can understand that by doing what he did, he lowered his standards to the \"tyrant's\" level, and is no better than the rich owners that controlled him. He went out to stop the violence, and caused an extremely violent, bloody riot in the process complete with fighting audience members, overturned cars, and setting fires. The only thing this movie had going for it was the previews, which offered Resident Evil and The Time Machine. Stay away, from this one, it is poorly made, strayes in all kinds of directions, and is hard to watch. 2/10 stars.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bad",
      "review": "Remake of the 1975 cult classic, which starred James Caan, this version is set in the present day Kazakhstan (well, 2005 to be precise).\nVery poor movie. I like LL so he was one of the few thing points of interest to me. Jean Reno is a great actor but he fails to completely lose his French accent here, surely this must rate very low down on his CV. Rebecca Romijn looks good as the lead female, sadly the same can't be said for Chris Klein, he looks completely lame in the lead male role.\nThere's plenty of violent action but it gets pretty messy and boring, Slipknot performing on stage at one of the venues did briefly stimulate my interest. Waste of time, watch the original instead.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Unfortunately... Not enough...",
      "review": "I just finished watching this movie. I had read some comments on this site, ad I had been warned. But I confess: I love violent movies. Some people may think that that makes me a nutcase, but as much as I hate real life violence, I like movie violence.Well... I expected a violent movie... I expected the Rollerball-game to be cruel and ultraviolent. And it is violent at times, but it is also a sissy-game of jumping and posing. And the game is not the main plot of the movie... Everybody who saw Salute to a Jugger/Blood of Heroes knows what  a violent futuristic game looks like... This is not it!Okay, so I was disappointed about the violence which mainly takes part in the last 15 minutes, but also the story is going nowhere. Several times I caught myself thinking what dinner I should eat tonight, and if I should go shopping.... That means the movie stinks! The camera, the editing, everything is so bad. Nothing saves this movie.Unless you have been very bad and want to torture yourself, do not watch.P.S. Since the movie has some violent action scenes, I give it a 4/10, but if you are not a gorehound, the score will be less.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Sacrilege of the name Rollerball",
      "review": "Whenever I rented this, I expected a slightly updated version of the 1975 movie. What I got was a totally different focus and ideal. The thing has taken too much of a punky extreme focus instead of the simple struggle. After the first few scenes, I realized this was not trying to live the spirit of the original. Instead of the game being worldwide, it is underground, and wars still exist. I turned it off half way into it, because it tried to be popular instead of thought-provoking",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Whoa",
      "review": "I still can't figure out why there would be a remake to an obscure movie no that no one really paid attention to when it came out.  Oh, wait, yes I can. Money.  Hollywood's system of rehashing every book, movie and TV show they can think of continues with Rollerball, a remake of the 1975 James Caan film.  Of course, what the fairly good original had in a well-scripted plot and interesting allegory to corporate power and American bloodlust, the remake tries to make up for in bombastic music, lots o' blood, and MTV-style editing.  My biggest gripe with this film, though, is the way they diced up the scenes of the Rollerball tracks to the point where you can't tell what the hell is going on; the original, at least, made the game and its rules clear.  I wasn't expecting much when I went to see this mess, so I was shocked when it went below my expectations.  I didn't even feel any testosterone-fueled adrenaline at the finale.Okay, I'm spending way too much time on this review.  Just do yourself a favor and rent the original.  Or do anything else, for that matter.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "good action movie",
      "review": "i thought this was a very good action movie. the plot and character development was thin but hey you go to an action movie for action and this one delivered. I am not a fan of chris Klein but i thought he was ok in the lead role and jean reno was cool as always.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not Just Mindless Violence",
      "review": "At first Roller Ball seemed like a super-violent grudge and sports movie, and nothing more. Just violence, a little sex and no redeeming value. At times I thought it was designed to invoke rage for rage's sake, with the dreaded other. Well, I watched it to the end and I think it is worth watching. If you like heavy metal music, like tough sports and don't mind some violence you'll like the movieRoller Ball is a parable for much of modern life, from the war in Iraq and Afghanistan to professional sports. From police brutality to labor exploitation. Yes there is something more, it isn't pretty, its wonderful. It seems designed to reach an audience with a message that probably wouldn't be open to it otherwise. The audience that might most gravitate to the message, isn't the one that will watch the movie to the end because it is harsh. In its own way it might even be considered uplifting.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Ugh",
      "review": "The original had something to say, even if sophomoric (with a big point being that in the future, governments will become irrelevant, yielding their purpose to private corporations).  But this??Just rented it.  Really bad.  Much of it makes no sense whatsoever, in that there is no motivation for, or reason behind, much of what happens during the story.  The \"owner\" who has much, much financial incentive to keep this game going turns unexpicably maniacal in the climactic scene.  He didn't get to be who he was by being that nuts, such that he gloats over the killing of the goose (the game) who would otherwise be dropping golden eggs for him. Small things:  two people, travelling together from point A to point B. How do they get there? one drives a car, the other a motorcycle.  Why did they not go together in one vehicle?  So the car can be torched by an angry mob at point B.  So they brought the motorcycle to get back to point A, I guess. Other small thing:  High Greek Orthodox priest happily arrives in what is WWF type entertainment, and acts pleased to be in owner's box?  Why?  So he could walk out in disgust as things fall apart, to show us that what the owner staged is a bad thing.Film assumes audience is very, very dumb.Just looked at grosses.  The original (made 25 years before the remake) outgrossed the remake, with 1975 dollars.  I guess the audiences weren't so dumb to attend this bad film.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "See the original",
      "review": "Okay, I'll admit I've been a fan of the original movie ever since it came out back in 1975.  I thought (hoped) that it would benefit from a retelling in much the same way that Gone in 60 Seconds had.Well, I was wrong.  Dead wrong.At the onset I was thinking prequel.  I was right.  Where the original movie took us to a futuristic version of Corporate World Domination (CWD), this version goes to a world where the game Rollerball thrives in third world countries, almost in a \"Fightgame\" or \"Kickboxer\" atmosphere.  This gives the game a decidedly underground flavor.  This would have been, and was a good starting point for a good movie.  Trouble is, we just don't have a good movie here.There is a superficial resemblance between the games in these movies.  In this film, the Rollerball arena seems cramped, claustrophobic, even.  With figure eights, ramps, jumps, a \"bunny tube\", it almost seems that the game of Rollerball started out with \"feature bloat,\" (in the 2002 version) which was cleaned up for the future - which was the 1975 version of the movie.  In the future, Roller ball will be played out on a much neater and cleaner arena, and with less confusion and chaos.Where the original \"Rollerball\" took us into a multi-layered and complex look at the life of a single player (Jonathan E.), this movie plays on a single level and on two dimensions.  There is no depth, and the action photography is especially shallow and confusing.  Trying to follow the action sequences during a single game, there seems to be no flow, no coherence, merely an blind adherence to the \"3-second rule.\"  I almost groaned - no, I DID groan at the first chant of \"Jon-A-Than\".  I knew right then and there that the viewer was in trouble - particularly if they were fans of the first film.Do yourself a favor, watch THIS version first, THEN watch the original. You'll see that the original is much more polished, much more fully developed as a story.  Then again, John McTiernan is no Norman Jewison. Where the original movie was an anthem of the value of one man in an anonymous and faceless society controlled by Big Business, this film is formulaic story of greed and violence.  Where the original movie took the high road at the climax, this one sinks into a cesspool of violence.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Original was only okay",
      "review": "So I don't get it, the original was just okay, not even cult status. So why remake it? Also, reminded me Starlight Express!",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "This movie is a disgrace",
      "review": "I cannot believe that McTiernan could face such a failure. The movie sucks big time. - weak plot - bad action scenes The 1975 Rollerball is so much better. Rollerball 2002 was so bad that it did not make it in theaters in Switzerland and was directly released in DVD. I was unfortunate enough to rent it.Do not make the same mistake, it is not worth it !",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "AWFUL!",
      "review": "My friends told me that this is supposed to be a very good movie, cos they've seen the trailer and have heard good reviews (I think that was a lie). We went into the cinema and there were just about 10 people - that was the first bad sign! And when the movie ended I was shocked! I've never seen such a bad and unintelligent movie like \"Rollerball\"! This movie has a story and a screenplay which I've could written in 10 minutes... I just want to tell everybody: DON'T WATCH THIS BAD STUFF! I think \"The Golden Raspberries\" are just waiting for this trash - especially for the bad acting of \"Chris Klein\". This film should be banned because of stupidity. My Rating: 1",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Roll -yer- Eyeballs",
      "review": "Once again, another stupid movie is cranked out of Hollywood...and for STUPID people, this is ALWAYS great news...however, for those who insist on having such \"minor\" things in a film...Oh, such as: Plot, good directing, decent acting, its yet another let down. Oh, and men who LOOK like MEN...ie; Chris Klien....what is a femm' boy doing in a movie that should be about folks with RUGGED appearances? Isnt Rollerball supposed to be a mix of VIOLENT SPORTS?...Pretty boys need not apply for a film like this..this is a movie that demands the looks and attitude of an Ice-Cube or ANY other actor EXCEPT those who look like Freddie Prinze Jr. or Chris Klien! It seems the CASTING directors are about as STUPID in picking actors for roles these days as dim witted nephews of Producers get picked to write screenplays. The problem is with the almighty BUCK. A casting director looks at the DEMOGRAPHICS of which \"star\" will draw folks to a film...paying NO ATTENTION to the THEME of the movie, the PLOT or what TYPE of performer is needed. I also blame the DIRECTOR...dont these \"mouthpieces\" ever step in a say, \"hell no, he aint right for the part\". But then again, they got their paycheck so why rock the boat... If anyone out there in Hollywood land, ever has a need for someone with INTELLIGENCE give me a call.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "I hate this movie with every fiber of my being!",
      "review": "This movie doesnt even deserve to be called Rollerball, Jewison's breakthrough Social Commentary piece of cinema. This movie is bad from the first scene. We see the dude from American Pie in a street luge competition. Then he gets picked up by LL Cool J during the street luge race. When is the last time you saw a man pick up another man in a street luge competition in San Francisco and not be a homo? Wait! I'm not gonna talk anymore because this movie isnt even worth me talking about! Bye! This Movie sucks!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "The single worst film I have ever seen in my whole life.",
      "review": "WARNING: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS OK, I've seen a quite a few awful films in my time. I've witnessed such titles as Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, Killjoy 1 AND 2, House on Haunted Hill and Thir13en Ghosts (modern versions) just to name a few. But this, a film that seems to have everything going for it, takes the cake. It's not the pointless nudity, the unbelievably awful script, or even the 20 minute scene that is in night vision for some reason that makes this #1 on my all-time worst movies list. It's the last scene, a scene so brutally and disturbingly violent that it rivals \"Taxi Driver\" (it hurts me to say that, because this film should not even be in the same room with \"Taxi Driver\"), that really puts it over the edge. Why did the filmmakers (especially the formerly reliable John McTiernan) think that this would work as the climax to the film? In the end, this film's message seems to be: if someone is getting you down, brutally murder them in cold blood. Don't even get me started on the part where Chris Klein (who is slowly starting to suck) blocks a shotgun blast with a stool and doesn't even flinch from the impact.Final Grade: 0 out 10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bad - though not quite terrible",
      "review": "Rollerball is without any doubt a bad movie. Especially getting through the first 30 - 45 minutes will strain ones patience (and taste). It gets somewhat better when Jonathan tries to escape - here (or rather in the aftermath of the attempt) at least some effort is made to give the audience a little inside into the characters.Jean Reno is the only actor in this movie who can really act. Unfortunately he is not given much chance to do so - the only time he can really do something is once again the aftermath of the escape.Eric Serra usually is a good sign (some people would disagree, but IMHO he has never turned out a bad score while composing several exceptionally good ones), but here it takes him a long time, to find the mood. The music in the first 30 minutes consists solely of rock music; only in the end one gets to hear the classic Serra drums and synths.All in all I was expecting much worse after reading all the reviews - but nonetheless, all the time invested in making this film would have been better put somewhere else. (4/10)",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Super happy!",
      "review": "You are with your friends wondering what to do on a weekend night, I suggest you go view a movie.  Don't go view one of those crappy war movies like Black Hawk Down, you should go see a movie of originality and quality plot. Yes my friends I am talking about the one and only, Rollerball.  If you like action and retards whizzing by on their rollerblades dressed like Mardi Gras circus goblins, then go see this movie!  Ah yes it too has a great story line behind all of the great acting and stunts.  Although the plot is hidden beneath a mesh woven skating parade of s***heads, it is quite an elaborate one.  It starts off in a random point in time, with people street luging and some on motorcycles presumably in San Francisco.  Why San Francisco you ask? Just think about what SF is best known for!  Anyways, then it progresses to unknown countries and places with the starts of the team \"red horsemen,\" despite having women on the team.  Nothing really exciting happens but the tricky camera angles and techniques like \"night mode\" make this film outstanding in boldness and visual majesty.  Watch out!  You could be hit with the \"Rollerball,\" or pushed over, or hit with a motorcycle in a very small arena painted like an elementary school mural.  But I give this movie some credit; there are some major actors in this fecally produced movie, also some all right action scenes.  There is only one thing that saved this movie from me burning the theatre down, and that was Paul Heyman. Commenting in the movie with numerous brilliant lines like, \"was that supposed to happen?\" and \"that was a hit!\"  As you can see from these high quality and very intelligent words from his mouth, Paul Heyman is the savior and best actor in the thriller, \"Rollerball.\"",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "I feel like Freddy Krueger.....",
      "review": "Jonathan Cross is recruited by Alexi Petrovich to star in Rollerball. Jonathan accepts and learns the ropes of Rollerball: The players are on Rollerblades, trying to bring a heavy metal ball into a high goal.Also, there are motorcyclists around to bring momentum to the players. And there are no rules in the game.During his career, Jonathan has to experience what Alexi has found out: Blood brings more viewing pleasure to the audience. So, Alexi starts to bribe members of the different teams to cause more trouble than necessary on the field, and the viewers love it.Jonathan's life becomes in extreme danger as well as those of his friends and teammates. In a final game, Jonathan and his team have to fight for mere survival against their real opponent.....their boss.....I'm not sorry, I think that this movie is just fine. Gone are the politics of the original, and in comes with a simple premise, Reno is killing his players in order to get higher ratings, and he gets to have Nareen Andrew's as his right hand man. And boy, is he the pantomime villain.The problem here is Klein, the man simply cannot act, and he does not convince as the saviour of Rollerball. He comes across as the more stupid friend of Bill and Ted, and he really causes problems with the film. Any time he is on screen, the film drops like a lead balloon, and unfortunately, hes in it a lot. Which is a shame, as the rest f the cast are over the top, but they are actually pretty good.The studio interference her is so evident, and the cuts and the edits are so blatant, that it makes you want to hate the film, knowing that McTiernan probably did something much better than that is shown.But why the high rating? Because it's just so much fun that it's unreal.The set pieces are pretty cool, as aer some of the stunts (with real people), and then there is the night vision.What is there a seven minute night vision sequence? It adds nothing to the film, literally nothing but its just so cool to see fake night vision, especially with the fact that Kevin has the line \"they have an off road plane\" during this this sequence.Aren't all planes essentially off road?Guys, if you get a chance to see this, please do, it's terrible, but it's so delicious to see it unfold on screen.The height of so bad it's essential.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worse than Hitler!!",
      "review": "Of course I'm referring to \"They Saved Hitler's Brain\" a very very bad movie made in the late sixties. I don't think I have to touch on the specifics of Rollerball being awful. I think Ebert said it best when he called Rollerball \"...an incoherent mess...\" So I guess what boggles me, because bad movies are inevidable, is why actors choose such horrid roles.  It makes we wonder what kind of dirt MGM has on Chris Klein that they would have the means to force him into this movie.  I am by no means defending Klein as an actor, he makes me want to punch myself in the face with a brick.  My question is, why make bad movies when there are so many good movies to be made?  Why remake a movie that wasn't that good to begin with?  Might as well just remake \"Solarbabies\", it had skating in it, but for some reason it was much better.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "this film is awesome",
      "review": "(first of all : i'm from italy,my English,like petrovich's, is not so good,sorry : read with a Russian accent)maybe there's something wrong with me,but i think this is an incredible movie,made with passion and a \"vision\" and well directed : the plot is very good,the action scenes are great,the finale highly emotional,the score is comprised of cool songs ; chris klein is perfect acting as the clean-faced American guy who,supported only by his courage and his positiveness (positivity?),is able to destroy all by himself petrovich's \"evil empire\" ; the other actors,according to me,do well their job and the movie has also several funny moments : i would say that is perfect ; probably i'm an idiot,'cause all the other comments were extremely negative,but i was lucky enough to find the special edition and i'm seeing it again and again",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Downright Bad",
      "review": "This movie was downright bad, and im usually good/leniant about reviewing movies, but this one was BAD. Honestly, I was bored from about 10 minutes into it. The only good, eye opening parts were the actual Rollerball Arena Game sequences themselves, but at that, it was nothing thrilling. Definitely not worth seeing this movie. 2 thumbs DOWN.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "The worst movie ever made",
      "review": "This movie about a violent sport gone bad for the sake of ratings is a new low in the motion picture industry.  None of the shots blend together, or do the changes in to the plot.  It ends more suddenly than a F-150 hitting a brick wall, and is about as deep as an evaporating kiddy pool.  If I could I would take those 1 hr. and 38 min. of my life back, and would rather spend it having a nightmare.  I urge whoever reads this not to go see the movie, even if you are bored and it is out on video.  It's just not worth your money or time.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Get the number of that TRUCK!!!  OWWWW",
      "review": "The original Rollerball was an underrated SCI-FI classic with a message about what society might become in the future if Mega-corporations are allowed to grow unchecked; THIS version of Rollerball is what the contents of a septic tank might become if not properly treated! If not THE WORST film I ever saw then in the bottom 5. No Plot- thats gone! No characters- there gone  No Acting - Lost! Editing?- A mess. Left is only brute violence and staged action; What was a heavy metal band doing in this?? Tony Bennett dressed as a referee singing out the penalties would have made as much sense. Mess! That is the operative description! MESS! I paid around $4 to watch this????? Save yourself some money, put your washing machine on \"SPIN CYCLE\", get yourself some popcorn while you watch it twirl!!!.. You will find your Whirlpool far more interesting than this celluloid garbage... Can you tell I didnt like this movie yet????                         (no) stars out of 4...",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Film That Really Drops The Ball...",
      "review": "Set in the near future (possibly the early 2000s lol), our film begins with Jonathan (Chris Klein) accepting a dangerous dare which leads to him being hunted by police within the city. While on the run from the police Jonathan bumps into an old friend who just happens to be in the right place at the right time. His friend Marcus (Played by LL Cool J) suggests now is the time to do something better in life and suggests Jonathan joins him by his side on the \"Rollerball \"team. Naturally with the police trying to hunt Jonathan down he decides to escape the city and run away from the police by accepting his friend's offer, becoming a professional player in \"Rollerball\". While participating in the world's most watched and dangerous game, Jonathan suspects foul play from the hierarchy above. He believes that someone is setting up players in his team to get injured, or, worse, die which would result in boosting both television ratings and larger bets from people among the crowd.One of my biggest surprises while watching the start of this film was that there was no character setup (seriously none). From the get go all the introduction (Jonathan accepting a bet and suddenly bumping into his old friend at just the right time) is so far fetched and along with that, there is zero reason to care for any leading character because of the lack of setup. After the introduction, the film continues to ignore any element of character development and jumps straight into a round of Rollerball with our leading cast.Let's talk about Rollerball as a game. There are two teams in which the players are all on rollerblades. A metal ball drops and the teams are required to collect the ball, go around a specific path and then dunk the ball into a goal. The arena for Rollerball is also filled with Rock N' Roll music and an audience making large bets. It's boring. While the film is able to explain the workings and rules of Rollerball, when it's actually game time in the movie... as a viewer it is truly impossible to follow. When a game of Rollerball is in motion the filming style is full of close ups. The Rollerball sequences in the film also go for a lengthy duration. When the viewer can't follow what's going on it's a painful experience to watch lengthy sequences and uninteresting. Not to mention the spoon-feeding of information by the commentators that's also over used here.As a plot, it's incredibly thin, but it also takes a long time to get going. It takes at least 30 mins until any type of developed plot surfaces. The outcomes are predictable and the plot speaks down to its audience as if we will never guess who the bad guy is. Villains are also childish and silly.To give the film some credit I actually liked the way Rollerball looks. The arena itself and some of the costume design work is probably the one and only major element I find enjoyable within this remake. Nudity in certain scenes is unnecessary and one scene in particular chooses to use a \"Night Vision effect\" which doesn't hold up on the Blu-ray.Supporting actors such as Jean Reno & LL Cool J are incredibly way over the top and give a confident yet dissatisfying performance. Actress Rebecca Romijn is flat and serves no real purpose to the film other than to give our leading man a love interest and a purpose to fight on.Overall, I'm shocked. Quite possibly one of the worst remakes I have ever seen in film history. With uninteresting characters and a thin (yet predictable) plot, Rollerball's excitement fizzles rather quickly. The game itself is hard to follow due to excessive close ups. And to think, this film was directed by John McTiernan. He's the man and legend who gave us the greatest Christmas film ever made: Die Hard (1988). In the end, we're all human and make mistakes in life. If you decide to watch this film you just made one of them.1.1/10\nWalkden Entertainment",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Crap",
      "review": "Man, this movie sucks. Although I have never seen the original, I have unfortunately seen this... I'll just keep my words brief...Acting - Absolutely abysmal... so bad that I think Shane McMahon's two second cameo and Paul Heyman's announcing gig are pretty much the best acting in this movie. (And apparently, so did a lot of other people - as certain reviews have made mention of Heyman's exciting performance as a Rollerball announcer.) When two then-sports entertainers show more impressive acting ability than the actual Hollywood actors cast in the picture, you've got problems.Plot - Lacking. It's an EXTREME sports movie... which already disinterests me from the get-go. And yet as I watch it, I can somehow feel my soul wither away as I attempt to follow the excruciatingly awful storyline. Terrible.Visuals - Holy crap on a stick, this movie looks appalling. Absolutely terrible. There's nothing visually appealing here - even the token post- apocalyptic features have some reasonable visuals. This is just really ugly. An eyesore to say the least... especially in regards to those HORRENDOUS night vision sequences.Sound - My ears bleed listening to this noise. It's just awful.Direction - Lacking. Just... no.Editing - Bad. More emphasis is spent on close-ups and horrible acting than on the sport itself. In fact, the pacing is so bad that I often lose track of what's going on, but I'm too scared to go back and rewatch because that means subjecting myself to this horrible mess.Overall - Pure crap movie. Just pathetic.You want a better quality movie? Go watch Battlefield Earth... sure, it's bad too, but it's better than this...",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Could very well be the worst movie i have ever seen!!",
      "review": "This movie was awful, if i had paid to see it i would have demanded my money back.Let me sum it up like this:**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**1. No real plot2. Whats with everytime an announcer says something they have to give it to us in 5 different languages?3. And i am not kidding on this one.........cartoon sounds i thought this was a roadrunner cartoon for a second4. A very annoying very long very unbelievable sequence in GREEN FILM!!!!!5. Terrible costumes6. Terrible music7. Along with half the movie in different languages, Reno who can hardly be understood in english8. The track, not because it was different, but because it looked way to small for the configuration it had and was just plain stupid. It was more of a hamster cage.9. Quite possibly the worst editing job in movie historyThe ONLY thing i remotely liked in this movie was the ending, if they had a plot to go along with the ending it would have been a good movie.I think everyone should see this so that i am not the only one to suffer1 * out of 10 *",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Questions that might be less frightening than the answers",
      "review": "*** WARNING!  POSSIBLE SPOILERS MAY BE INCLUDED IN THESE QUESTIONS! ***What causes the \"instant\" global ratings to go up?  Are all 8.2% of the people watching calling their friends to tell them to turn it on?  And if they are, wouldn't the people they called be watching the show instead of calling more people?  And if the \"new\" viewers are so impressed, why is it still only the same 8.2% watching the beginning of all subsequent \"roller games\"?  Why was it suggested that Aurora couldn't hear Marcus screaming at her about the trail of fire coming at her because of the roar of her motorcycle and their distance apart when they're both wearing headsets? How could Larry Ferguson (screen writer) possibly have Petrovich's lackey tell Jon-a-ton that they are deliberately keeping Aurora alive to keep Jon-a-ton cooperating, when, in fact, they had tried to kill her in the previous \"roller game\"?  What was Larry Ferguson thinking when he wrote the line, \"I don't need a political position because I own the men who do\"?  The men who do what?  Who need a political position?  If they NEED a political position, what's the advantage to owning them?  Why is everyone in the stadium reacting to all the English-language statements being read in the broadcast booth, since these statements cannot be heard over the stadium public address system?  Why couldn't Mystery Science Theatre 3000 stay on the air long enough to bring justice to this film?",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Zoom!",
      "review": "\"Rollerball\" rocks! Man, for a person who likes action movies, I like the sports as well!!!!! This movie is an exciting sports action film; remade so that today's generations can sit down and awe at all the exciting parts and effects that the new millennium version of \"Rollerball\" so good! So great! So fun! The 1975 version is actually better as considered my many of our IMDb users because it wasn't as cheesy and weak as this version. All in all, I could go either way with \"Rollerball!\" You know, if there is ever such a sport as this, then I'd like to give it a shot! Then, think of all the fun I could have! Think of all the fun my friends could have if they wanted to participate in this neat sport!",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Spartacus 2002",
      "review": "This remake of the original Norman Jewison's masterpiece of violent satyre on the future of the media is far from the original in caustic comments on society but it's definitely sheer fun if you watch it without thinking on anything else. Sure, the story is full of preposterous archetypes and machismo runs free of any limitation, but McTiernan is a great director for action movies and this Rollerball is better than I thought of. It's like a modern day Spartacus and if a movie like Gladiator won several Oscars, this one deserves more than one vision.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bad,bad and ugly",
      "review": "I didn't expect much, as word of mouth was bad. But this is worse than Iexpected. John McTiernan is a good director and he is slumming. He is doingan uninpired, sloppy job as director of a remake starring a bunch of no-goodnobodies. I have seen my share of poor remakes, but this is the bottom of the barrel. Ugly and undynamic photography. The Rollerball sequences aredesastrous, confusing, poorly editited. The least poor scenes of this movie are the lugaring scenes down the San Francisco streets in the beginning of the film. I don't know why Norman Jewison's great 1975 movie was remade. Rent theoriginal and skip this sorry mess. 1/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "2002's Rollerball Was Okay, But i Did Like it Towards The End That When it Has Great Rough Brutal Violent Moments.",
      "review": "I Know Back in 2002 This Remake Version Of \"Rollerball\" Was a Box Office Flop And i Thought it Wasn't That Bad i Consider The Remake Rollerball a Pretty Decent Film it Had Stunts And Some Cool Action Scenes Like The Opening Street Luge Scene. This Film Stars Chris Klein From Both Sequels Of \"American Pie Films\", Rapper Singer And Actor L. L. Cool J., Jean Reno From Leon \"The Professional\" And The Sexy Rebecca Romijn- Stamos From Brian De Palma's \"Femme Fatale\" Who Plays Chris Klein's Character Secert Love interest And The Film is Directed By John McTiernan Who Did 1987's \"Preadtor\" And 1988's \"Die Hard\".",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "At a rating of three, I guess I'm a defender...",
      "review": "To all of the reviewers who think this movie is the worst thing ever, allow me to refer you to Mr. Godfrey Ho...No matter how bad a movie is, it always seems to have defenders. I was astonished to discover, after rating Bio-dome and Who's that Girl a two, that many people were jumping in to claim that I was overly harsh. But here I go with a review of the much hated Rollerball remake on the other side for once. By this I only mean that I hated it less than movies I gave a two. The thing is still pretty awful, but I would watch it again before Glitter.To address the obvious point first, this is not your daddy's Rollerball. The 1975 version was a minor classic, thanks to its complex thematic landscape. There, sport was social hypnotic to keep the class distinctions in place, an intention which found itself clashing with one man's view of sport as masculine imperative. Nice. The creators seem here to have gone back no further than The Running Man for thematic inspiration. Sport is once again just more entertainment junk food for an audience too numbed by mediocrity to put up a fight. It's an equally cynical viewpoint, just a less sophisticated one. There is thematic synergy in the fact that the movie itself is as cynical, derivative, unimaginative and lowbrow as the thing it is portraying. Points for that, if unintended.The directorial choices by John McTiernan, as pointed out by other reviewers, are indeed unfortunate. The overuse of night goggle POV is just one example. Note however that in the early 2000s, tech-eye viewpoint shots were being overused everywhere. I objected to this particular cinematographic gimmick less than I did the inescapable Dutch angle shots in Battlefield Earth. This is hardly a ringing endorsement, but we are grading on a curve here.The failure to inspire a sense of threat during the matches is also a clear weakness. Minor league hockey in Slap Shot comes off as more violent, and that was played for laughs! That Rollerball's appeal is founded on bloodlust is hard to sell when the hitting in the game is at the level of senior league flag football.Of most interest in this movie is the amazing Chris Klein. Like donut hole, he is defined only by what is around him, as has no substance of his own. In a two-shot with a sock puppet, a viewer's eye would be drawn inevitably to the latter. I know this from The Election, when I honestly could not keep my eyes on him, even when the only other thing to look at was the utterly colourless Matthew Broderick. The fact that Hollywood had enough roles for vapid pretty boys lying around to provide Chris with even a brief career is curious and perhaps a little terrifying. Here, of course, he is woefully miscast as a human with a personality - a thrill-a-minute thrill-seeker just looking for a few thrills. (He reminded me of Jimmy Stewart in his Oscar winning role in The Philadelphia Story, in that they are of similar height.) If his character has a setting beyond this default, I must have blinked and missed it. Chris Klein is, in short, a major drag on an otherwise capable cast phoning in performances that they would be keeping off their résumés.As bad as the Rollerball remake is, I cannot bring myself to hate on it as much as Jaws the Revenge, Ghostbusters 2016, European Vacation, or some of the thousands of other remakes, reboots and sequels nobody wanted or requested. It's a lame cash grab to be sure. At least there was no role for Rob Schneider.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Plot? Where?",
      "review": "Even though the fast action of Rollerball was interesting, the weakness in the plot stood out much more. Interesting first 15 minutes and last 15 minutes, other than that not worth the money. Except for Chris Klien, I thought the actors did pretty good job, a little fakey. As I said the last 10 minutes were a lot more interesting than most of the movie. The actual playing of Rollerball was cool, the brutality was kind of fun to watch.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Heavy Handed and Terrible",
      "review": "Before I say anything, let me dispel the myth that the R-rated version of this film made some valid artistic statement and was gutted by the studio and MPAA to achieve the coveted PG-13.  Having just viewed the R-rated DVD I can honestly say there is no aspect of this film that is not stunningly bad.McTiernan seems to be attempting some sort of convoluted style that actively gets in the way of storytelling.  Don't get me wrong here - there really isn't a story to get in the way of (Rollerball being the worst excuse of a film to merely be a few big action sequences spliced together since Mission Impossible).  The camera work and editing are the worst elements of the film.  The cameras in the rollerball arena are very static and never really draw the viewer into the action.  Every dialog scene has some distracting jump cut within it.  It's highly distracting and does more to bring the viewer out of the film rather than draw him in.  McTiernan also uses footage of semi-dressed athletes that looks like stock footage from deodorant commercials to transition between scenes.  Very few elements of the film don't beg the question \"what were they thinking?\"  Perhaps the greatest beggar of them all is the scene presented entirely with a green night-vision effect.  The effect isn't used because the scene is from the perspective of a character wearing night-vision goggles.  It really just brings up more questions for which there are no answers.  Am I in the scene?  Did I just put on night-vision goggles?  Why wasn't I wearing sunglasses during the opening sequence?  Or a helmet?  If the film hadn't been so bad up until this point, I would have checked the settings on my television to see what had gone wrong.  All that had gone wrong was that I had rented this terrible movie.Even the stars have nothing good to say about the film.  The audio commentary on the DVD provided by Chris Klein, LL Cool J and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is frequently silent.  I'm sure they're invoking the \"If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all\" rule from childhood. The only time they can muster much excitement is in regard to driving the Shelby Cobra and other vehicles used in the film.The film purports to be a cautionary tale about violent entertainment and the greedy global corporations who put their profit ahead of their employee's well being, but the extremely violent ending of this film released by multinational MGM in which many stars risked injury doing their stunts (\"I had a stunt where I had to jump a ramp and save a young lady whose motorcycle was on fire,\" says LL Cool J, \"I pulled her off her bike, but when she let go, the handlebars hooked onto the spur of my boot. So here I am riding with a burning motorcycle hanging off my leg. It was crazy.\") renders the message moot.  This may be the greatest on-screen irony since Kenneth Branagh delivered Hamlet's advice to the players sawing the air with his hand and splitting the ears of groundlings.My advice to those interested in seeing this film: move along, there's nothing to see here.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "French Sign !",
      "review": "When Jonathan his on the way to the gym before he take the highway you will see few French signage",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Another remake that shouldn't be",
      "review": "Sigh...another remake of a great film that is anything but great. Sad to see Jean Reno in this. This film is a waste of time, but what else can be expected with LL Cool J and Chris Klein in starring roles. Zzzzzz.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Very, very thin!",
      "review": "In countries that nobody really knows, playing a game that noone fully understands, a young, too naive, daredevil, fights for honour, money, and love against Jean Reno as the incredible bad-guy.Don't waste your time on this. I'm just glad I just borrowed the DVD from a friend.The movie is way too thin!!!",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Its a must see, good movie to rent on weekends",
      "review": "***Contains things that may be regarded as spoilers you are warned*** Its like hockey without the sticks. I mean I've seen this movie twice and i still enjoy watching it. I love all the action scenes, and the ending is one in a million. Its got stuff I've never seen before in movies. the chick of the movie is a well known actor Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, the actor who plays mystique in X-Men 1-2-3. Ll cool j is in it too and he plays his part extremely well. So don't get me wrong this movie is a great one, and would be a great selection to watch when u get that action movie craving. This movie is a must see, and is a great movie to rent as a weekend movie.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "good action movie",
      "review": "i have seen the original, but it has been a long time.  James Caan in the original was awesome.  but, with any remake you must remember that they aren't out to put down the original.if you have seen the first recently or really like that one, this one will be hard to watch.this is a good action movie; loud, fast and hard hitting.  the story is a bit lacking, but is a basic story: good versus evil! the ending is a bit predictable, but the stunts are very cool. this is not a blockbuster movie, but i would say that it is enjoyable.",
      "rating": "7"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hoo boy . . .",
      "review": "Note to future self: yes, you have seen this, it's not good, do not revisit.The film is pumped full of \"2002\", both in aesthetic and the awful hard rock soundtrack. None of the good stuff from the original is present; James Caan is sorely missed; that cool '70s futurism is gone; and the most important part, despite the boobs and the violence is that it is boring as hell. It's a challenge just to get through it, and there's no reward at the end of that tunnel. Believe the naysayers; it's terribleJohn McTiernan has given us a killer run from '87 to '99 and I have no problem pretending this never happened.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Extremely violent; extremely pointless",
      "review": "The violence is Rollerball is extreme, but it's not particularly good or impactful. It's just violent.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Bad, real bad.",
      "review": "Sir Michael Caine once said something like \"In order to have a good life you sometimes had to do a very bad movie.\" This is a very bad movie. The \"sport\" is bad; the acting is bad the plot is bad. Nothing like the original short story, or the even better film with James Caan. I give it one star for having Rebecca Romjin Samos in it, she's always worth watching, and another for Jean Reno, he's always worth watching too, but for different reasons.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "it really is that bad 1/10",
      "review": "Words can not describe how bad this film is -- but I'll try anyway.  First off -- I would like to make it clear that I'm not making fun of  this film just because everyone else is.  I like to make my own opinions -- and folks -- you have got to see this film, just to see how bad a film can truly be. Unlike Waterworld or Hudson Hawk, which were good fun in their own rights; Rollerball has zero redeeming qualities.  Terrible action which was probably ruined in the editing room.  Zero nudity -- but it hints at it terribly. Bad acting!  How could this movie be made by the same man who made so many action classics????This film will be remembered -- but for all the wrong reasons.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "It rolls, but it's got no balls",
      "review": "I was stunned when I heard the budget for this movie was $ 85.000.000 ! Beats me who wanted to invest that much money into this piece of crap, what were they thinking!The good thing is that the best scene takes place at the first 5 minutes of the movie, during the street race. After that it's going downhill and it's going downhill fast!The biggest problem with this movie is that the director wants you to believe Rollerball is real, but the way this concept is presented to the viewer is so poor and downright amateurish, that it rather made me laugh than feeling any compassion for the characters. Let alone the plot, which seems to be a collection of random 'cool' situations added together, what a stinker!I hate it not to watch to the end of a movie, but Rollerball gave me itchy fingers. I did watch it to the end and I shouldn't have...and neither should you, I think.If you want to see a \"TV-Show to the death\" movie, try Running Man instead, it's really a lot better than this one!1 out of 10, exit stage left!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Has All The Elements Of A Good Film But Still Isn't",
      "review": "I suspect that the original script with the social commentary angle intact, which McTiernan rejected, would have been the reason to do a remake of Rollerball, but this is basically a crap retelling of the same story. However, in this version, it's difficult to work out the sporting plays, because the track is too short and a figure 8, so whereas in the original the players had a long track to skate around for each play to take shape, so you could work out what was happening, in this version it's just a mad free-for-all: there's no excitement build up. It's just violence for the sake of violence, the very antithesis of the message of the original and also of what message there is in this version.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "where do you start?",
      "review": "There are quite a few obvious problems with this film. The film lacks the energy/drive it requires to pull off such an supposed intense thriller. You find yourself being dragged unwillingly through the different scenes instead of catapulted. A change in cast could possibly have fixed this if it were not for the poor direction. The cast look confused as to where their coming from, rightfully so as we are never really told as the audience either. The editing style doesn't suit the film. The uneven cuts are (I assume) meant to add an element of speed/intensity, instead they just look like dodgy editing. And finally the set is so monotone that you would be forgiven for thinking that \"play school\" would have been a better location. All in all this film seems to be a waste of money/film and talent.",
      "rating": "4"
    },
    {
      "title": "Holy crap!",
      "review": "To begin with, I never had high expectations for \"Rollerball\". It was supposed to be released what seems like years ago, and kept getting pushed back. That being said, one would think that meant they were making it better. Thank God they didn't \"fix\" it any more than they did. Other than the great Jean Reno, (whom I now pity for being in this movie) I was left wondering where the hell the actors and actresses were. I couldn't find any. Did anyone else? The editing was terrible and the \"Blair Witch\" cameraman did a better job showing us what was going on. The supposed \"action\" scenes were extremely tough to follow and frustrating. Four minutes of night vision didn't help either. The cartoony BOING! of going through a fence got me laughing, as did the supposed speed of 120 MPH as we see the road passing underneath them at about 30. And how about that fight at the end? Wow... that was about as exciting as watching grass grow. When it was all over, I was amazed that it was only an hour and a half long. The ever so slight glimmer of hope of Slipknot's performance was quickly dashed by more bad acting and editing. I'm tempted to take the DVD back to the rental store and demand a refund. If nothing else, tell them to pull the copies of this abomination from their shelves to save business. giving myself a root canal while being held over hot coals with gremlins twisting corkscrews into my feet would have been more entertaining. Do yourself a favor and avoid this like the plague. You have been warned.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Simply one of the worst in cinema history.",
      "review": "That moving picture do not have anything to defend about that.\nAn expensive trash that unfortunately ruined director's life forever.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Oh, dear...",
      "review": "I have not seen the original, but rest assured I can agree it is better than this. First of all, Chris Klein is not an action star, nor will he ever be. He is not a physical character, capable of playing an athlete or extreme sports enthusiast. He should stick to movies like American Pie.Second, what is going on? I have enough trouble figuring out what is happening half the time. The green stuff? That must have been the dust. Needless to say the only enjoyable part was Jean Reno. While incapable of playing a weak character, this was just not his movie.In terms of the actual sport, how could that be pleasant? The arena's about the size of a skate park, and not much room to move either. I would not be one to play in that space. So, in summary, don't waste your money. Watch it for free on TV.",
      "rating": "5"
    },
    {
      "title": "If you though Battlefield Earth was a quality show.. Enjoy.",
      "review": "First off I'm gonna respond to this comment though. \"First off, let me explain why I hate reviews. THEY ARE FREAKING OPINIONS! Dont let somebody else ruin what could be a good experience for you. \"How so true. They are opinions. I love imdb.com for this. I can listen to normal people make decent reviews. It's a good debate. I don't have a problem with Roger Ebert. Sure he's a critic. I usually agree with him when he gives em thumbs up. But not thumbs down. Leonard Malten (sp??) I do happen to have a problem with. He's rather stuck up in my opinion. But indeed. I can't get angry with people I disagree with. I'm still reeling from the cancelation of Politically Incorrect. I was usually in disagreement with Bill, but he created a great debate.So onto this movie. I didn't think a movie could be this bad considering it's a remake. Oh but it isn't. It ripped the name off. The Get Carter movies are more comparable than this.Let's get started: 1. The ring is too small. 2. oops it wasn't a ring. 3. there is no direction in this movie. 4. Jean Reno made a fool of himself in the movie. 5. Topless women doesn't prove anything. 6. this was no vision. 7. the rules are confusing. 8. hell the movie is confusing. 9. Where's my mommy? 10. there's not a single character that was in the original. Jonathon E. Became Jonathon Cross. 11. The gloves aren't deadly. 12. There's no character development. and finally 13. The story has nothing to do with the game. o_OWith the original... it was the future. 2018. The lead star Johnny E was in the game for what? 10 years. This Cross idiot was here for 4 months. That and it's 2005. Indiana Jones 4 will be out by then.The original movie has great design. Was more arena like. And didn't look like WWE style. The original had to do with a corporate world with no wars. People couldn't remember the past. They had no books.This movie is about what happens with that very corporate world gets there hands on creating another Rollerball. And utterly destroys the very meaning of the first movie.So if your pro Microsoft. Pro biz. Pro violence. Yahoo for you. But if you loved the original because it was anti violence. Stay the hell away.3/10Quality: 1/10 Entertainment: 4/10 Replayable: 0.1/10",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "Gotta be kidding.",
      "review": "If you want to save 8 bucks picture a bad set with corny costumes and some nude girls(completely out of context) and some very lame fights on rollerblades. Add poor photo and editing and you got yourself  Rollerball. I took one for the team, do yourself a favour and see something else.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "John Mctiernan, the killer of MGM.",
      "review": "First off, I'd like to just say that this review is for the first 20 minutes of this rubbish. I hated the original. It looked like it had a budget of 20 bucks. Do take note, I am a huge Norman Jewison fan. But Rollerball? What was he thinking. The new Rollerball was so hurtful to watch. It was so hard to follow. So, what are the rules of the sport? And uh, what is going on? I saw 20 minutes of this filth, and I saw the camera in reflections twice. Another amazing fact is the budget. 80 mill for this monstrosity. Where did all that money go? I guess to Rebecca's horrible accent. I hope this movie bombs. I want to meet the person that greenlighted this picture. In fact, I am going to write a screenplay, and walk over to MGM. If they turn me down, I will inquire about Rollerball. \"You won't give me the hookup, but you'll re-make another bad movie into one that is worse?\" Thank you MGM. Rollerball sets a new standard in bad movie. Every bad movie I have ever seen is an Academy Award winner compared to this filth.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Wow, it is so bad",
      "review": "First, I wanted to start with the sentence that yes, the movie is bad, but it's not that bad. I won't start like that though. The movie is really, really bad, on every level. The scenario is painfully awful, full of illogicality. Although this is a remake, there are practically no points of contact with the original because they changed absolutely everything. The film is no longer about the future, but about extreme sports, and that's where it got lost in the depths. And if at least it turned out to be a solid action movie, but unfortunately it's not even that. Which is actually a big mystery because the director is John McTiernan, one of the greatest action directors in history. The film has a very bad edit, conversations, characters, plot, the point itself is not clear to me either. As if it was made by amateurs and some beginners. He would not even mention the actors. There are some controversies surrounding the film, but I don't want to waste time on that at all. Bypass viewing in a wide arc. The only good thing is that it's 90 minutes long, so you can kind of make it easier to last until the end of the movie.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not a good movie, but I didn't mind watching it",
      "review": "This was an odd movie. I knew going in that this movie was a mess by all accounts, and by the time it was over I could agree with all of the criticism. Yet I found that I did not mind watching it and was mildly entertained. the only reason I could come up with was that I liked watching the game contained in the movie. Everything else was crap.I can't say I would recommend this on any count, as watching Ticker is the only thing that keeps me from calling Rollerball the worst movie of 2002. But if you like the extreme sports action take on roller derby shown here, you may just want to part with the rental fee. Otherwise, skip it!3/10",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "absolutely pathetic!!!",
      "review": "Is this a joke or is it really supposed to be a movie?  I suggest that everyone involved with this film go back to junior high and learn to tell a story.   The sex and violence isn't even good enough to be entertaining.  Cinematography - terrible.  Editing - terrible.  Acting - I think they did alright considering what they had to work with.  I wish I could do more than just voice my opinion here because I really hate to see films/scripts like this get any further than a producer's trash can.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "NO WAY...",
      "review": "SPOILERS EVERYWHERE (Like anyone will watch this movie anyway, after reading this review)You know you are in for a treat when the movie opens with Chris Klein and some guy racing down a hill while lying on skateboards for a bet.  When the other guy flies through a glass window (the only good effect in the whole movie) and the cops arrive, Klein gets picked up at the bottom of the hill by LL Cool J and suddenly forgets that he is owed money from the guy that went through the window.  Klein then turns down an offer to be in Rollerball and then the movie throws the viewer 5 months ahead to Klein being the best player ever.Why go into that much detail for this review?  The answer to this question and the reason this movie fails miserably is all in the opening.  Everything is rushed throughout the movie.  It's like a race down the hill is not good enough, let's add skateboards, gambling, cheating, a wreck, cops, 30 people rooting them on the street, and introduce LL and Rollerball, all in the first five minutes.The pacing is all wrong.  They break your neck in the first five minutes, while none of it makes any sense, and then you are supposed to care about a game that they don't even bother to explain because it's \"too complicated.\" Action, action, action, sex, action, action, action, action, it's like if you keep the camera on something moving maybe someone will care. Unfortunately, there is no way to even care at all, because no one in this film is likeable.This is just garbage.  The acting is as bad as anything a major studio has released in the last 20 years.  Klein is miscast (duh?), and the rest are either wasted (LL), misused (Reno) or should not be in any film (everyone else).The actors aren't the only ones to blame.  It's hard to act when the dialogue is just grunting and occasional sentences that don't explain anything.The basic direction of the film has to be questioned.  Anyone who would shoot, and leave in, 10 minutes of \"night-vision\" film in all of it's multiple green-colored luster, should be blamed.  That was quite possibly the worst shot sequence I have seen in a movie, and it was allowed 10 minutes of time?  How is that possible?  I have so many more questions that I would love to ask the director:  How in the world is everything else in the movie so bright, yet the shots with night-vision so green and the shots of Ms. Stamos in the locker room so dark?  I saw the \"R-rated\" version and I thought I was watching a \"PG\" film, because all of the violence and nudity were kept to brief flashes, but wasn't that the draw of this film?  Where is the extreme violence, because it didn't look that bad to me? How hard is it to complete a simple shot without chopping it?  I mean simple panning shots were chopped several times and I don't know why?  Was it to cut down on time?  Where'd the plot go?  Did it get cut for time, too?  Was it fun making the worst movie ever made?  Why did this feel like a movie version of the XFL?Obviously, this movie is horrible.  Whether you are fan of any of the people involved, or not, don't bother wasting your time watching this junk.  In my opinion, John McTiernan has now made the best (Die Hard) and worst (THIS) movies ever created.  Everyone involved should be ashamed.  What a terrible waste of time and money!  They should had shelved this movie forever and everyone should had made sure Rollerball never saw the light of day.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "I thoroughly enjoyed the action",
      "review": "I must admit to being surprised at the harsh criticism this movie is receiving. Granted, I enjoy Mystery Science Theater 3000, :-) but those are obviously bad movies. Perhaps one factor is that I did not see much of the original Rollerball - but enough to know it was excellent.The concept was modernized here - given the ESPN treatment. It's depicted like a rough Ice Hockey game gone too far. It also addresses some serious social issues. I like the combination of music with action too.It's certainly no blockbuster, but if these elements appeal to you, give it a shot. I think I own one of the 65 DVDs that were purchased nationally and it was worth it to me. :-)",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "What were they thinking?",
      "review": "Prior to the press-screening of this movie I was told that the director had already taken pains re-editing this thing due to disastrous test-screenings. Well, you certainly won't gather that from viewing this outright piece of rubbish as it is now! Let me assure you that I'm in no way unimpressionable with action movies and I sure can embrace stuff like \"Terminator\" or McTiernan's own \"Die Hard\" for the sheer fun of it. But this film is a complete disaster! The so called story involves the cruel gladiator-like sport of the original film, but fails to even begin to hint at the multi-layered social commentary of its predecessor. Instead you get loads of rah-rah-machismo and an uninspired, humorless and boring storyboard that makes the 90 minutes of the film feel like an eternity. The camera work is a major embarrassment too: fervent cutting doesn't allow you to actually see anything and the whole thing plays like an MTV-clip from hell. Oh yeah, and star Rebecca Romijn-Stamos runs around topless a lot, but without a proper context \"it didn't get me excited, it just made me feel mean\", as the song goes...",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Poor remake of an ordinary movie",
      "review": "This was a poor remake of an ordinary movie.  While the 70's flick had at least some grit and a semblance of  social study, this remake is flaccid and lacks the biting irony its predecessor sometimes had.  A show for teenagers in need of a quick crash-bang fix.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Extremely confusing",
      "review": "This movie... ugh... so bad.  The cast actually is not that terrible, but the movie is amazingly terrible.  This one of the worst movies I've ever seen and I'd die before I let a friend rent it.  Do yourself a favor, if you haven't seen it, don't see it.  If you have, I have set up a support group that meets MWF.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "If they taught how NOT to make a good movie, the product would be Rollerball(2002).",
      "review": "WARNING this critique contains spoilers. If you really want to spoil something, like 90 mins of your life watch this movie.My god where do I start.  This is one of the biggest peices of trash ever. The real problem here is it looks as though there wasnt enough footage after filming to edit together a coherent story so they just used what they had.This is a movie where the actual players of rollerball in the movie admit they have no idea whats going on.  The main character complains that one of his friends chin straps was cut, yet he never puts his strap on, ever. There is also a long boring sequence shot in night vision that looks so good I could have made it with a 10 year old camera, but if you like blury and hard to watch its all you.I give credit to LL Cool J and Kris Klien for trying to work with the material.  The problem is there is nothing to work with.  If you love rollerball watch the original.  Hell I would even recommend some of those horrible Kevin Kostner epics over this.  Really folks when it comes to Rollerball (2002) just say no.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Craptacular!",
      "review": "This movie is real bad.  I walked out with a headache.  This would have to have the worst editing job I have ever seen in a movie.  Was it intentional? Having a million cuts in a second does not make for very good viewing.This movie also has the worst scene I have ever seen on film - the green night shot sequence in the desert.  What were you doing John McT?  Was it meant to be funny?  What was the deal with the motorbike?? And crashing through the fence (BOING!) sounds just like the cartoons.In summary.The acting is badThe dialogue is worseThe direction seems non existant.Avoid this movie at all costs.Shame on you MGM for releasing crap like this.  How many millions of dollars were spend making this from an R to a PG-13, digitally cleaning up blood (painfully obvious).  What a waste of time and money.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "The user ratings say it all...",
      "review": "I don't think I've seen a remake this terrible. There have been quite a few bad ones (most of them infact) but this is by far the worst. They took the elements of the origional rollerball and rather then updating the special effects and cinematography and making the story more relevent to the world today (rather then the 70's) they choose to make it a showcase of everything that is bad with modern films.The changes in the story from the origional were terrible, especially replacing the end with this considerably more tacky one. The special effects were highly poor, and the cinematography was a joke with little of the action being able to be made out. The film became a band wagon for any \"actor\" that wanted to boost their waining career and there were far too many attepts at being \"clever\" and \"arty\" that simply back fired and made the production into more of a joke. The idea to shoot a scene in night vision was just painful, and the final action sequence was so terrible (including a scene where a small stool is used to block the blast from a shotgun and ultimately defeat the big baddie) you just keep hoping the film will end quicker. It is impossible to care what happens to any of the characters in the film because they are so shallow and lifeless and the plot itself in it's entire depth could be summed up on the back of a relatively small stamp.There is not much else that can be said, the user ratings speak for themselves and I'm not sure I've ever seen a film (with this many votes) with such a low weighted average rating. Really in most cases if someone says a film is bad and your tempted to watch it your best off making your own mind up, but with this, well, you can trust the (when I last checked) 1337 people that gave this film a \"1\" vote. It's also ranked, on last check, as IMDB's 39th worst movie of all time and only a handful of the films considered worse have more user votes then this (Battlefield Earth being the most notable, lol).So really, just don't bother. If you haven't seen the origional cult classic, watch that instead, because that is a good film and this really isn't. You can follow the action in that, the characters draw you in and the ending is great. This film is a pale shadow of the 70's classic. If you have seen the origional, then trust me when I say you'll be even more disapointed with this remake.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "3 stars for the soundtrack",
      "review": "Slipknot is no Slayer but it's nice to see metal in a movie. Oh. The movie. Fkn atrocious and an insult to the original.",
      "rating": "3"
    },
    {
      "title": "bollerrall",
      "review": "I'm pretty nervous, because I invested time to watch this movie. It is the worst crap lately I've watched. It has absurd action, the actors suck bad, the screenplay blows. It is just another boring movie, skip it, watch better some Disney stuff!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Even LL Said This Movie Sucked!!  **Spoilers**",
      "review": "Even though everyone dissed this film, I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt and watch it.  I've watched films that no one else has liked and ended up loving them (i.e. \"Under the Cherry Moon,\" \"Kingdom Come,\" etc.), and this movie had so much potential to be great:  it had lots of action, a very interesting plot, and most importantly, the finest and sexiest man on Earth, LL Cool J.  I found out the hard way that this movie was what everyone made it out to be...a waste of time.First of all, the game of Rollerball was never explained.  If this were a movie about football, basketball, or any other known sport, there would be no need for explanation.  However, the game of Rollerball doesn't exist, so it would've have been nice if we got some kind of idea of what's going on in the game.  Instead, we see a bunch of folks riding motorcycles and skating around a rink, and we don't know what in the world they're really supposed to be doing.  All we do know is that when one of them gets the steel ball in the weird looking goal, they score a point, and if it wasn't for common sense, we wouldn't know that much.Second of all, the movie doesn't flow smoothly.  It's like the storyline is in a race to get to the end.  One minute, LL and Chris Klein are talking about playing for the Rollerball team, the next minute, four whole months have passed, and Chris Klein is the star of the Rollerball team.  Then, when the players find out that the game of Rollerball is corrupt, everything is rushed through; from the time  Toba gets killed to the last getaway scene. I don't know about anyone else, but I didn't really understand how the miners really played into the story, either.  They didn't spend enough time on it for me.  Maybe that's just my ignorance, but I felt that should have been explained further.I didn't really mind the \"infared\" scene (although it was a bit odd, at least it was original), but the editing got on my nerves.  I never thought I would be so nit-picky as to complain about the editing in a film (no offense to the people that do pay close attention to editing), but the bad editing in this movie was obvious.  It was like they cut the actual film in half and put it back together with tape...Scotch tape, that is.In spite of the points I just mentioned, the main reason I didn't like this film is what happened towards the end (**SPOILER**)...they killed LL!! Why did LL have to die?  I'm a die hard LL Cool J fan, so when he got killed, I wanted nothing more to do with this movie.  Another thing I didn't like about this film was that LL's character didn't really do too much for the film (he did more for it than Rebecca Rojmin-Stamos, in my opinion.  I felt she was just an extra character), and he had some dumb lines.  It was reminiscent of his role in \"Halloween:  H20\" (I don't like that film, either).  Also, the ending was garbage (mainly because LL wasn't in it).The only good things about this film are the action scenes (even though you don't know what's going on when the Rollerball games are in session), the fact that LL was looking fine (as usual), and LL being the team captain. Other than that, this film has no real redeeming qualities.  The actors themselves were okay, but not really phenomenal.  LL did a great job, but like I said before, some of his lines were dumb, and his character didn't do much, so that hurt his performance a little.  Chris Klein did okay, but he had some idiotic lines himself.  Rebecca Rojmin-Stamos was alright; her accent needed work, and Jean Reno could be irritating at times.  In my opinion, this movie could have been really good.  I don't know where the people involved in this film went wrong.  It ended up being a real disappointment (not to mention a waste of $3.00 and an hour and thirty minutes of my life!).  Interesting enough, not only has everyone that's seen \"Rollerball\" hated it, but LL himself publicly announced on \"Late Night With Conan O'Brien\" that this movie sucked.  That's really sad.",
      "rating": "9"
    },
    {
      "title": "I'm sorry for this travesty",
      "review": "I want to pledge my sympathy for all those unfortunate souls who had to suffer through the viewing of this atrocity.  My thoughts and prayers go out to you.  I will trust in due time you will be able to find some sort of meaning for the torment you experienced.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Simply horrifying.",
      "review": "This must be one of the worst movies I have ever seen. 70 mil $ budget and they come up with this? Anyone over 11 years old could write a script with better action, deeper characters and some goddamn sense. What a waste of money (and not that much waste of a talent). 1 out of 10 is too much for this pile of dung.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Terrible and unnecessary",
      "review": "I don't want more remakes or reboots but if it is being done, I never understand why those involved stray so far from the source material that it's \"in name only\" instead of just making a new film telling the story they want.The original is one of my all time favorite movies, this is terrible. The only connections to the original are the name of the game being played and half of the name of the central character.So terrible. Never understood why Chris Kline was famous (beyond being a so-so petty boy), he is such an awful and unconvincing actor.LL Cool J was the best thing in this train wreck.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "This movie sucked!",
      "review": "This film has b***ardized the name Rollerball and now people in today's generation will gringe when they hear the name Rollerball and think of this remake, but if they would have seen the 1975 version... everyone would nod their head in approval and remember James Caan as Jonathan E. with the superior direction by Norman Jewison.  Speaking of which, John McTiernan, I gotta tell ya...You have made so much better films than this.  You should go back to writing your own stories like you did with Nomads because that movie kicked ass! And also you've directed so much better epics like Predator, Die Hard, 13th Warrior and so on.  Well, folks, don't waste your money like I did on this. Just rent the original version.  Or better yet... if you never did like the 1975 version, go see it!  You'll hate this version and will want to buy the 1975 version!  Seriously, that's how bad this movie was!",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "One hour and forty minutes of my life that I will never get back.",
      "review": "The TagLine for \"RollerBall\" is \"Get in the Game\". All during this movie, I just wanted out. There are severaly apparent flaws with this film, all of which will be discussed further on.ROLLERBALL, the sport of the near future. It takes place in a ring that looks like a giant 8, with two sky tracks on them. One team must maintian possesion of the Rollerball for two trips around the track before jumping off of a ramp in the middle of the Arena, and throwing the ball into a big golden bowl \"score\".The Arena in a big bowl in figure eight fashion, as told above. The offense on a team are mounted on RollerBlades, while the Team defense has motorcycles. They zoom around the arena, knocking each other out and scoring for a specified period of time. The team with the most points wins.This sounds cool, right? Well, it is infinitley cooler in writing then it is on the big screen.Chris Klien plays the role of Jonathon Cross, a rookie at the sport that the masses just love to shower with affection. I don't see why, but they do. He comes from AMERICA and to the Russians he plays for, he seems to be a miracle boy.Jonathon Cross is supposed to be the hero, but to me, he just comes off as a big slow guy. There was no reason for me to like him, except that I am told he is good at the sport, and that I should love him.LL Cool J plays Marcus Ridley, the man who gets Klien into the sport. LL goes through the role with typical LL ease that we seem to love ans respect.Jean Reno plays Petrovich, which is not at all a stereotypical russian name. He owns the sport, or the team, or some part of the sport/team. He is just there, and I never really felt anything twords him.The rest of the cast is just there, and we seem to care very little about them. They are just there to make Cross and Ridle look good.The acting is subpar, with the exception of LL. No one seems to care about what they are doing, and it shows. Reno could have made a better movie in his sleep. He was my favorite part of Godzilla! But he just couldn't do the same for this movie.The story is weak, at best. It is all anti-establishment, media is the devil bull-hockey. Without giving too much away, all I can say is the people like the sport, the people like the hero, and I hate the movie.The directing style also irked me to no end. It was all close ups, and shakey camera. It made the sport very hard to follow, and gave me a headache. One scene was filmed entirely in Night-Vision... Very poorley.This movie tries to preach that the media is bad, and that random violence is worse. All the media cares about is the ratings. This has to be one of the most hypocrtical morals I have ever heard.A movie trying to preach against the evils of the media, and the evils of sensless violence... I can see at what they are getting at, and it seems to me that they tried to add the moral for a good reason. They tried. I can tell, but... The movie starts with senseless violence, ends with MAJOR SENSELESS VIOLENCE, and I am pretty sure there is sensless violence in the middle, too.There were some parts I did enjoy. No wait... I really didn't enjoy this mush at all...All in all, I give RollerBall a heartfelt*1/2 out of *****.Because they tried.",
      "rating": "2"
    },
    {
      "title": "Boredom on Wheels - Very Bad Remake",
      "review": "This is a truly pitiful attempt of a remake the original starring James Caan is a brilliant movie, whereas this movie sucks the big one.The acting is so bad and its so shallow when the film ends your left wondering what the hell the movie was really all about because its so shallow there is just no depth in this movie.Even the actual Rollerball game scenes are so boring, there is no atmosphere and they just look so tacky and lame.Trust me don't watch this pile of junk, but if you haven't already seen the original make sure you do because it is a classic.1/10",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Hard punishment",
      "review": "...to everyone (even the electrician) involved in the crime of remaking like this, of a really good film.",
      "rating": "1"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not As Bad As Everyone Thinks",
      "review": "OK OK I've been seeing all of these sick and harsh comments made towards movies such as Rollerball and I'm very very sick of it. The Movie was not that bad overall. Chris Klein believe it or not is one of my favorite actors. I was disappointed when he wasn't in the 3rd and final American Pie Movie. In my opinion I think hes a good actor and played the part very well. The Other Roleplayers such as LL,Reno and Stamos did a fine job as well. Movie was weird @ times and not great especially when their getting chased trying 2 leave the country, but it still thought was good and the ending was great with Kleins fight scene when they tried 2 have him killed. Gonna say its about a 6 or 7 out of 10 considering the job Klein does because no one could have done job he did and made the movie happen. Not Bad @ All Thank You MR4",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Stupid, but good",
      "review": "This movie may possibly be the stupidest movie of 2002.  The plot is very dumb, and Rebecca didn't show!  It was still good but a little too stupid. The performances were good enough.  The action and sport sequences were top of the line, which gave some points to the movie.  The scenes are pretty brutal and violent, and the ending is good.  Take that Jean Reno and that guy who did that thing that I don't know his name of!Overall the movie was good, yet stupid.  Rating 7 out of 10.",
      "rating": "9"
    },
    {
      "title": "Brutal, violent, and somewhat loud entertainment.",
      "review": "Rollerball (4 out of 5 stars)Rollerball is a science fiction remake about a futuristic sport were tyrants are trying to increase the sport rating by having violent events. Chris Klein takes on the main character and did a decent job. The cast is good. Nothing award winning performances. There is plenty of mindless action to make this entertaining. It is bloody and brutal. The costumes of the sports teams are cheesy and weird. The plot is good. The soundtrack is heavy metal rock that is good. If your looking for a mindless action movie. This would definitely be recommended.",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Subtle Great",
      "review": "The reviews on this are harsh.It is written off as senseless pulp in the shadow of a former classic. And I won't recommend it to the politically uninitiated. If you want the politics of rollerball in your face and to understand the concept fast, then watch the original. But for me this film is just as political as it needs to be. It's straight to the point and it's go, go, go. One of the reasons I preferred it to the original is it doesn't mix up it's themes. In the original it touches on AI, Censorship and 'The individual will' over the group. This is great but the modern remake stays right on 'Rollerball' World and The Corpo/Monopolistic environment that leads to 'Rollerball' World.",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "**** out of *****",
      "review": "In a remake of the 1975 Standard , Chris Klein gives a 2 thumbs up performance of Jonathan Cross (the original Jonathan was , of course JOnathan E. portrayed by James Caan)...... Cross, turning down a king's ransom to play in the NHL, relotes to Kazakhstan to play for the Golden Horde..Where He Meets AUrora, The Black Widow. They hit it off immediately...., yet under the watchfull eye of the corrupt ALexi Petrovic, (Jean Reno) -  Aurora, more serious about her relationships than Jonathan, [who is rather casual] is traded to the  Siberian Golden Horde at Jonathan's request. The GOlden Horde and Horsemen meet for the championship. Is the Individual Destiny concept maintained, as Petrovich WOULD NOT WANT? Do Aurora and Jonathan get back together? Watch and See.Kudos to Bill harrison",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Nothing like I thought it would be. Much better than expected!",
      "review": "This is an action packed movie. I thought it was going to be a lame skater movie and it wasn't. It really had nothing to do with that at all. My husband and I were very surprised and impressed. I am also a huge Chris Klein fan! I thoroughly enjoyed it. Two thumbs up!",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "Most underrated movie ever",
      "review": "Some movies people love to love, some movies people love to hate. The critics are always the ones responsible for a movies reputation. They reviewed this movie as a wrong remake. Like \"Dawn of The Dead\" it's more like a new movie with some elements from the old one, so see it with an open mind.It's a actually a great action movie from the director of Die Hard 1 and 3, Predator the 13th Warrior and several other okay cool movies. Actually it's one of the best movies from 2002.Right now it's one of IMDb.com 100 worst movies ever. After seeing it would you really say it belongs to the 100 worst movies ever made? If yes then give it a score under 3, if no then be fair.",
      "rating": "8"
    },
    {
      "title": "SEE IT!",
      "review": "SEE IT!If you're into high adrenaline filmmaking, run, don't walk to see Rollerball.  It's quick, tells its story, tells it well, and gets out.  No lingering on extraneous backstory or exposition.  The \"corporate\" message from the original is solidly packed into a screamin' 90 minutes.Any holes?  Who the hell knows?  There isn't time to consider any before you're swept off into the next awesome sequence.  Anyone who doesn't like this can go rent THE PIANO and save the seats for the rest of us.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "Don't believe the critics...",
      "review": "I went to see this movie, and while I agree that the beginning of the movie is very slow, and there are many plot holes in this movie (such as what happens to LL Cool J), this is still a really cool movie.  It makes you feel good, especially at the end when there Chris Klein's character, Jonathan Cross, goes crazy and kills about 10 people.  During this part of the movie, many people walked out of the theater.  This is still a really good movie and there is certainly a lot of action, although I thought the movie coul have worked better with a better sub-plot story line, and definetely with an R rating.  Overall, 7/10.",
      "rating": "10"
    },
    {
      "title": "It makes attack of the killer tomatoes look like oscar winner",
      "review": "Noxom of Cologne is waaay too kind to this piece of trash.My 7 year old could have done better.Let's see...sound track (noise track actually) drowns every other noise/sound including dialog (bunch of unconnected words actually)I was actually reaching for a dial to fine tune the signal, as it sounded like a radio on a bad frequency.Editing. Well, I think the director and editor used a veg-o-matic to cut, and the munchkins from the Wizard of Oz did the pasting.Talent. Jean Reno (totally wasted talent on this...thing)Talent, other.. well... noneIf you wish to enjoy Roller Ball, stick to the original 1975 version. It is not dated and it is a movie.This thing seems to have been conceived by Eddie Kruger on a bad hair day. Star rating? yeah right. I give it 10 black holes.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Proof that Jesus died in vain",
      "review": "I'll always remember the time I went to see this movie. I went with a couple of friends figuring to see a normal, popcorn movie. Boy was I wrong. What sticks out in my mind is that when we went in the theater there were about two people in the theater beside us. I just figured that people had seen it already. Ha ha ha.The movie starts out with a teenager doing some extreme street luge down the streets of LA. Because, of course, that is legal. He is approached by LLCool J to come into this new, cool, dangerous sport called Rollerball. Boiled down it is a hardcore rollerderby with a ball and a big dish. It is the most uninteresting \"sport\" you could think of. There he meets a woman and they fall in love. So, as his career flourishes, he dates her. As this goes on, the president of this sports league starts to bribe teams to get bloodier in their combat, being that there are no rules. Chris Penn sees this and, after fighting for their lives, he and a few people escape...and then the movie ends. There is no scheming of plotting, they just escape. There is no closure and it's not satisfying like in Pulp Fiction or something to that effect, it's just an end. Like they forgot to distribute the ending of the film.This movie is easily the worst I have ever seen. The plot is virtually non-existent, the acting is bad, and the directing...wait THERE IS NONE. Don't waste your time with this crap. Final Grade: .5/10",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Say What?",
      "review": "What was this movie even about?  I mean, it made no sense because it's a sport that nobody's even played, so how could anybody understand it. That last sentence was just like the movie, confusing.I'd say see the movie for the action but that's it.  The movie earned a 2.....3 most on my scale of 10.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Boring",
      "review": "This movie was SO boring.  I felt myself nearly falling asleep.  The characters weren't developed to a point where you care about them.  It's just here's they are, here's what happening, they don't like it.  It didn't flow, it wasn't logical.  Don't waste your money seeing this movie.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Pure, crystaline, unadulterated crap",
      "review": "Whomever enjoys the 1975 version of Rollerball -- a piece of sincerely offered advice: Stay away from this garbage. Way away. This is a singular slice of disaster from beginning to end. The awful reviews posted here give too much credit to the thing.Where was the director? He must have been half in the bag when directing it, and the guy doing the cutting must have been right there beside him at the bar with glass in hand. The characterizations are awful and the script even worse. Chris Klein, a reasonably acceptable actor, does an incredible job at doing a Keanu Reeves style acting demolition -- as if he were in a contest to be the worst actor on the planet, and winning.One might think that at least the special effects and the aesthetics of the movie might exceed he original, if nothing else. Nope. Not even close. In fact the original's view of the distant future comes off better than this movie's vision of the virtual present.Go into this movie with the lowest of expectations and it will still fail to rise to them. Remember that silly MTV video that you hated? This is longer and worse. The cuts are staccato machine gun attacks of extreme sports silliness, like thousands of tiny little moronic films about a millisecond long strung together.It's impossible to find even the smallest redeeming virtue in that even Rebecca Romijn Stamos is wasted--and she's absolutely wonderfully gorgeous, they managed to screw that up too.Rollerball was well worth remaking in that it's an intriguing concept and a reinterpretation would be welcome, but this was an embarrassing effort--the worst directing since my six year old nephew wandered around the house with a video camera, and the worst writing since God was born.Stay away from this bilge at all costs.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "What a stinky rotten piece of S**TE!",
      "review": "Not words you will ever hear linked with this film. I mean, what was that grainy night vision thing all about. Did they reach the shooting location and realised that they only had a 1952 cinecam? What were the editors up to?? SPOILER ALERT (actually who cares if spoilers make you lose interest in a film then good, it will save you the torture of watching this one) At one point when LL & CK where in a gaurded room and we were wondering how are our brave heroes going to escape????? The editors helped them out and cut to to them in a truck in the middle of the desert at night WOW - AMAZING!!I will now amaze you all (and do you a huge favour)with my Jedi mind trickoooooOOO Yoouuu Wiiilllll Noooottt Waaatccchh Thhiiiisssss MooooooViiee oooooOOO Yoouuu Wiiilllll Noooottt Waaatccchh Thhiiiisssss MooooooViiee oooooOOO Yoouuu Wiiilllll Noooottt Waaatccchh Thhiiiisssss MooooooViieeA new low point for hollywood 0/10",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I liked it!",
      "review": "I actaully liked the flick...I checked it out on pay per view the other day and thought it was very funny (intended or not) with great action scenes. Plus, who doesn't like Rebecca Romijn Stamos????  Definitely check this one out!!!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Embarrassment to John McTiernan",
      "review": "John McTiernan has directed many good films such as The Thomas Crown Affair, The Hunt for Red October, and Die Hard.  From the quality of these films, you would think he would make only good quality movies.  I can assure you that Rollerball is not good, not quality, and not worth seeing.  From the opening scene of the movie to the last scene, the movie is just stupid violence and action that shouldn't even be called action.  It makes a laughing stock of the original '70's film.  The acting is no better than a high school play, the plot is unconvincing, and the whole story is just stupid.  Go ahead and see it if you want to waste your money, but you would be much better off seeing one of McTiernan's other films.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "why so harsh?",
      "review": "Ok, seriously folks, what did you want? While I don't think this was any kind cinematic art piece and the story was all over the place and the acting was below par, I don't think this was the worst movie I've ever seen, and I've seen some stinkers. I give this movie credit for not pretending to be anything more than what it was. About the only similarity to the original is the title and the sport. Once you get over that, it is what it is. It certainly wasn't worse that the Running Man fiasco a few years back (1987). That garnered 6.2 stars. Geez lighten up. My thoughts. Yours?",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "roll over my balls",
      "review": "OK, first off, why remake the movie? It was a good ol' movie with James Caan. Now, they re-make it with Jason Biggs and 2 Pac??? that is so wrong. I mean seriously, American Pie was great, but rollerball, THAT WAS EVEN BETTER. I would recommend never seeing this movie, unless you go to a movie theater. This movie was a waste of money, look at the budget debt and starving children and they spend millions on this horrible piece of amazingly original and creative art. As creative as copying a movie done in 1975! To everyone involved with rollerball....I love you, call me.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Never should of been remade.",
      "review": "This movie is terrible.  Absolutely terrible.  I don't know what anyone was thinking while this movie was being made, but it is not worth the time and effort to sit through and watch it all.  It's flashy, choppy, and unexciting.  The game Rollerball doesn't seem all that interesting to begin with, but once you base an entire movie around it and some conspiracy to raise ratings, it ends up missing everything.  After watching this movie, you just have to ask...\"Is this from the same director as the Die Hard movies?\"I'm sorry to see it fail so miserably.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "OLD vs New",
      "review": "I think alot of the negative reviews focus on people who appreciated the original.  The Original was a much more cerebral movie than this one turned out to be.I saw this with my wife who had not watched the original and she quite enjoyed it for what it was.While the story here is completely different, it still hints to the spirit of the original even though the social commentary is a different one.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I actually rented it with my own will",
      "review": "A couple of days ago i dropped by the video store and came across to the remake of the 1975 Rollerball. Havin watched and quite liked the original one I did a dear mistake and checked out the cover of this remake. The director and the cast seemed ok and the music was from Eric Serra so I willingly rented it. I didnt expect a master piece as I hadnt rated the original so highly anyway but this one sucked beyond imagination. I can not even call this one as a movie since throughout the whole running time it seemed more like a prolonged trailer to me. I wont talk more about how bad this thing is as other ýmbd users had covered it all. But i have to admit i quiet liked the night-vision style shoot and the band that played during the competiton (or whatever it can be named as) Some may have said that \"it is so bad that it is actually good\" my answer to such comments: \"NO, it so bad that it is just plain bad\" Stay way in all circumstances unless u dont mind throwin r 1.5 hours to garbage.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Am I alone on this?",
      "review": "I didn't find this 2002 remake of the 1975 James Caan movie as deplorable as all the other so-called critics.  In fact I found it very entertaining as an action movie.  The photography and visual effects were outstanding.  And talk about stunts.  It takes impeccable timing to pull off the spectacular stunts called for in this dog eat dog blood sport.  My hat's off to those that designed, supervised and executed the action. A special mention goes to Rick Miller who did Chris Klein's stunt skating.Written by William Harrison, who also penned the original, and directed by John McTiernan, the DIE HARD director and HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, this flick is a decent remake.  Heading the cast is Chris Klein, who seems to be taking a bad rap from other critics.  I found him quite appealing and certainly a handsome dude.  He carries the film.  Action films don't always give their leading men any quality moments.  Most of the time is spent carrying out the action required,  Klein does bring what he can to make his hero believable. He is joined by Rebecca Stamos as the female lead, another team member in the rollerball game.  Together they spark up the screen.  LL Cool J plays the \"best friend\" and Jean Reno does and admirable job getting you to hiss and boo his villain.I enjoyed this movie.  Hats off to Klein, Stamos and Reno for a good job. Poo poo to the other critics.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "The original was bad enough...now this???",
      "review": "I thought the 2002 remake of Rollerball would be much better than the 1975 original.  Big mistake!!!  This looks as if it's been lifted straight out of a comic book.  To make matters worse, they set the story in this supposed former Soviet republic where everyone speaks Russian, French and a dozen other languages!  What is going on?  I can't think of anything else to say but...skip this at all costs!!!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "The 'ball' rolls right down a hill",
      "review": "**Starring: Chris Klein, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, LL Cool J, and Jean Reno.In 2005, there is one main sport that dominates all.  A brutal sport where one person on a team must capture a metal ball and throw it in a goal.  All on skates.  Three of the players must fight back against a tyrant who is willing to kill for his sport.You know what I think is funny?  Well, it's how 2005 is only in two years, yet everything must fit into place in those years.  But this is a fictional movie so let's just forget that.The movie doesn't have the fun as the first did.  It just had no spark that ever lit anything good.  It was fun at times, but it was too much of a dud than anything good.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "roller-boing!!!!!!!!",
      "review": "besides the terrible script, acting, editing, bouncing camera, that annoying sports announcer guy, the desert scene has to be the most atrocious and herendous thing ive ever seen. and whats the deal with the boing!!!!!!! sound when the jeep crashes through the fence. is that a sick joke? i think everyone who worked on this \"movie\" were playing jokes on each other. i dont think this was supposed to be seen by anyone!!!!!              0/10= pure garbage",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Blunderball",
      "review": "What a waste of money and time! This movie had me falling asleep towards the end. Just another dumb attempt to remake a classic sci-fi film that had a message.The message this film sends is that the producers and director are STUPID!Watch the original only.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Contender for Worst Film of Year",
      "review": "The kindest thing one could say about this is that it looks like a WWF promo assembled at random from bits of film salvaged from a cutting-room floor, with one of the worst soundtracks you could imagine played backwards on top.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Like Drinking a Quart of Gasoline Mixed with some Milk",
      "review": "Okay.  I've seen bad movies before (Feeders, Castle Freak, Jurassic Park 2), and rented Rollerball because I heard it was bad.  But hey, it might be bad-fun, right?  As in at least funny and easy to mock, right?Oh no.  Oh no no no.  Rollerball is an entirely different breed of film altogether.  While it at least has some good lighting, and a soundtrack not ripped right out of another film, every single other aspect of this 'movie' (cause it has moving frames of still pictures running together to create a flow) is like a car accident.  Some people turn away in disgust and shock, some look, then turn away, and some can't turn away because of the sheer appalling nature of what they see.  That's Rollerball -- a cinematic 15 car pileup.Where to start?  How about the 15 (or 30...It felt soooooo long) min stretch of film done in Night Vision?  Who has the night vision?  The director? God?  Who is using the night vision to relay the scene we're watching? Normally, a director uses altered modes of filming to depict altered states of mind of characters, or monsters (Alien 3 fish-eye lens), etc.  Here, it's just a scene done in night vision.  I thought it was going to be a gimmick, like the characters were being watched by a helicopter, but that hope, that fiendish desire, faded after the night vision just stayed on the screen...WHY????!!!!!!Oh what else?  What next...okay, how about the premise of the movie. Violence is bad, especially in sports...but wait...people watch NASCAR for car crashes (some of them) and hockey for fights...and I love football, partly because it's a violent sport...and isn't the whole point of Rollerball (not having seen the original) that the sport distinguishes itself from others through violence?  Rollerball in the movie isn't nearly as violent as a cricket match until the incomprehensible last 15 min...so is McTiernan trying to seem 'smart' by showing that people like violence in sports and that's bad?  Is Rollerball an art form, being corrupted by the violence of filthy eurotrash capitalists (sorry Jean Reno, but this was not your finest hour)?To be fair, I was drinking Maker's Mark during the movie, thinking it might help...and it kind of did.  I at least began to overlook Chris 'Little Keanu' Klein's 'acting', but couldn't handle the 'editing', which seemed to have cut the original shoot of the movie apart, threw the shreds in the air, and then glued them together as they picked them up.  And the plot also got easier to handle...after the insipid opening where Klein goes from homeless to superstar in one fade cut...WOW!  I wanna try...I'm typing right now...gentle fade to black...fade in, and I'm Sultan of my own province in Asia!  Hey!This whole pile of crap smacks of having been birthed in a corporate startegy meeting at MGM, where McTiernan was just sitting, listening to 'Think-tank' solutions for MGM's flagging profits: 'Hey,' says one thirty-ish blonde executive, 'the kids LOVE night-vision nowadays...(snaps fingers)How about a whole scene in Night-Vision!' 'Sure!' says McTiernan, desperate for a hit.  'How about we also get those bands the kids love nowadays...you know, that Pink girl, oh and Slipknot!!!  The kids love Slipknot!!' 'And we'll film it like an hour and a half music video,' says another short-haired exec.  'You know, with the 'jump-cuts' (doing the whole quote-finger manuever) and all!  So the kids will love it!  And it'll save out on costs typing the screenplay and editing, cause the kids don't like those anyways!'  (execs give each other high fives, McTiernan scuttles away to start shooting)I digress.  Don't watch this 'movie'.  Even if you like bad movies, you won't be entertained.  Don't watch it if you like pain -- you're better off cutting yourself with a razorblade.  Don't watch it if you want a trippy, incomprehensible series of images and sounds that leave you with a headache -- drink the 'milkoline' I suggested at the top here.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I'd recommend this film when all you want is an entertaining escape on an otherwise dull day.",
      "review": "I just watched Rollerball for the first time a couple of days ago off of pay-per-view and I must say that even though it wasn't an Oscar winner, it was worth the distraction it provided me on a boring summer afternoon. I'd recommend this film when all you want is an entertaining escape on an otherwise dull day.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Joan-a-than, Joan-a-than, Joan-a-than.....!!!",
      "review": "I laughed, I cried, I threw up on my shoes.Worst piece o crapola I've seen in a while. What a waste. Jean Reno, so great in Leon (aka The Professional) and so laughable (and unintelligable) in this joke. Chris Klein should stick to comedy (actually maybe thats what he was going for here?) As for LLCoolJ? Say it ain't so LL!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Save your money go see something else",
      "review": "Its hard to find a word to describe this movie.  It lacked plot, feeling and all around anything to make it worth watching.  Yes there was a lot of action but you couldn't figure out the point, and I'm not sure that there was one.  The crew and screenwriters didn't log the necessary time to ensure that it was believable, and it doesn't have a story to rest on.  And the script is full of plot holes. You don't know what happens to LL Cool J's character.  Chris Klein's part was fair as far as the acting, but he has played better parts.  It just isn't believable.  Through the entire movie his helmet is unlatched and even though he takes hits to the head, his helmet seems to stay in place magically.  There is one shot where you see his helmet fly off then in the next shot it has mysteriously made it back onto his head.  Then it is gone again.  There really wasn't an opportunity to create plot in the story, and all the emphasis is on action.  I say shame on you Hollywood, there are better scripts out there to turn into movies.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Welcome to one of the worst movies you will see this year",
      "review": "That's really all I have to say about it.  Story?  None.  Acting? Terrible. Dialog?  Laughable.  And what's with filming an entire action sequence in night vision -- for absolutely no apparent reason?Along with \"Battlefield Earth\" and the immortal \"Whipped,\" yet another new millenium blunder to notch its way onto the worst of all time list.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Something went wrong  *SERIOUS Spoilers*",
      "review": "I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, from about a year ago, when I first found out about it.  It started out promising enough, but as time went on, I started to doubt more and more.  There were too many inconsistencies in the plot, and certain minor details didn't add up.  (And, it had some of the worst editing I have ever seen.)  Here's a few examples:*MAJOR SPOILERS*  1)  For instance, who the heck is Sergei?  They went to his apartment, they got ambushed, then there was a quick mention of him getting killed.  But, I still don't know who he was, or why I was supposed to care about him.  And why was there a riot?  No details are given, or if they are, they aren't given in English.2)  Why shoot the night-time chase scene in NightScope Vision?  It was probably supposed to be artistic or something, but GOD was it annoying!  And even with all the green lighting to distract you, you can't miss the fact that there's no way Jonathan could have gotten on the motorcycle from the driver's seat that quickly.  When it first happened, I thought he got left behind.  Then, they cut to a close-up, and he's riding on the back.  Plus, when they busted through the barbed-wire fence, and it made that cartoon \"boing\" sound, my friend and I laughed out loud.  It was so wrong!!3)  Why did it take four months for the first act of violence to occur after Jonathan arrives?  I say that, because after the first one, we are lead to believe it happens every single game.  Or, at least, every single game that has low ratings.  So, what, they didn't have low ratings before?  It just doesn't fit.I think the movie's biggest problem was trying to fit an ultra-violent storyline into a PG-13 rating.  It's like they changed their minds after they filmed it.  4)  Because when Jonathan and his boss are talking at the mines, Jean Reno's mouth clearly says the \"F\" word, but it was re-looped, so he says \"fooling\", instead.  Like it was edited for television.5)  At the climax scene at the end, when they are trying to beat Jonathan to death, there is blood coming from cuts on his face, and coming from his mouth.  But, in the next shot, the blood and cuts are mostly gone, and there are black smudges on his face and clothes.  The rest of the players who were fighting suddenly look the same, also.  It appears as if there was some gory blood effects that were digitally altered to make them not so violent. Jonathan's shirt also looks like he was just sweating or something, but you know it had to be covered in his own blood at one point.  How much did all the digital cleanup cost, I wonder?6)  The \"love\" scene suffers the same fate.  It has no tension, passion or anything worth caring about, not to mention that it lasted all of 5 seconds. Why put it in the movie, then?  It didn't last long enough to establish Aurora and Jonathan as an \"item\", so what good did it do?  Either make it longer and more interesting or take it out completely.  Again, it's the PG-13 curse.  I believe if they had made this movie with an 'R' rating in mind, it would have been MUCH more interesting, and it would have flowed a lot smoother.  They screwed it up by trying to patch it up.And, I just got home from the movie, and I can't remember how it ended.  I mean, I know he killed his oppressors, and he walks down a hallway with Aurora... people are now worshiping him.  But, I can't remember what happens between that and the credits rolling.  I hope that's not how it actually ended.  That's how bad it was.  There's no lasting memory, no parting shot that makes a difference.Oh, well... it was all worth it to see Slipknot.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Fast-paced and loud",
      "review": "At the movie's start, several skateboarders ride down a long hill lying down. It's not that dangerous out in the country, but when they reach the city, they must deal with traffic--including truckers who must honk their horns before they narrowly miss these daredevils! One of the skateboarders is Jonathan Cross, who had a chance to be the NHL's no. 1 draft pick. Instead, he goes to the former Soviet Union to participate in \"a real man's sport\".Rollerball works this way: male and female skaters and motorcyclists travel around a figure-8 track with ramps and a \"rabbit hole\" in the middle. Points are scored by hitting one of several bowl-shaped goals above the track with a ball--hard enough to make a bell ring.There is a lot of corruption in this sport. People bet on it as if they were betting on horses in this country. And TV ratings can be seen instantly--I haven't seen this since \"Max Headroom\". Ratings go up if a player gets hurt. And this is a very violent sport. The players look the other way instead of concerning themselves with the ethics. After all, the money is great, and people who try to buck the system disappear.I'm not really a fan of movies like this, but I thought LL Cool J was good, and Rebecca Romijn was beautiful, despite her scar. She also did a good job; I wouldn't have known her because of the dark hair and the accent. Both played members of Jonathan's team.The standout performers, though, were Paul Heyman as the English-language TV announcer and Jean Reno as the man who owned the team, the coal mine, the supermarkets ...I also thought it was interesting to go behind the scenes. The men in suits got so excited. And an Asian announcer had about as much energy as his English counterpart. Fans of Metallica and other hard rock will probably enjoy the background music for the games, provided by live bands. I was going to say the band in Mongolia or Siberia or wherever it was made Metallica look like The Spice Girls--but then I remembered Metallica used to rock even harder than those guys.This seems like it would appeal to fans of \"The Fast and the Furious\" as well as pro \"wrestling\". In addition to the skateboard scene, there were plenty of exciting chases involving cars, trucks, even an airplane. And of course the action on the track. One nighttime chase scene was filmed entirely in green, so some sort of night vision technology must have been involved. I will say it was pretty.What can I say? My taste in movies is obviously like 98.7 Simon on the radio--I'll watch anything.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "See Johnathon suck.",
      "review": "See Johnathon play Rollerball, See Johnathon fall. See Johnathon skate really fast, whoa. See this movie? Johnathon don't think so.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball is the movie of the ages",
      "review": "The movie, however much many of you may feel, is not all that bad. Rollerball does deliver action and sometimes, humor, if you look at it in the right light.  I just saw the movie on pay-per-view and was laughing through the whole thing.  My friends and I really got a kick out of it. Check it out and see for yourself!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "An uncohesive piece of drudgery...",
      "review": "Somewhere deep inside John McTiernan's ‘supposed' action fest is a tepid social commentary on the direction in which the line between sports and entertainment are intersecting. Rollerball is at best a hybrid of social commentary sprinkled with some of the worst acting, scripting, directing seen on the silver screen in a long time.      Director John McTiernan has been in a slump over the past decade with the engineering of many mediocre films. Starting with Last Action Hero back in 1993, excluding Die Hard: With a Vengeance, and The Thomas Crown Affair (which really wasn't McTiernan's forte) this Director has not been consistent with his filmmaking.  Therefore, skepticism was high upon screening this film. I have always admired this Director for his previous efforts and he always seems to hatch something new, yet in this film, it sinks to a new low.      The film commences with its' hard rock and fervent editing in hopes of imparting upon the audience the dizzying effect this film wants to emit. Unfortunately, its' grand production values and mock storytelling cannot hide the fact that this is a poorly made film. Chris Klein stars as a young athlete unable to make a name for himself in North America Professional Sport. On a suggestion from his best friend Marcus (LL Cool J), he joins an overseas Sports Entertainment Empire called Rollerball. This mix of fast paced drudgery and furious speed leads to serious ramifications which question the integrity of the sport. Jean Reno plays Petrovich, an entrepreneur who decides to sell the sport as the most violent and fast piece of entertainment in order to land a contract with the North American market.     Operating in remote and hostile countries in the Middle East, Petrovich wants to take the sport International and slowly escalates the game's danger in hopes of attracting ratings. Jean Reno does his worst to bring no class and no charisma to this awkward character while Chris Klein is just deplorable as even his beard seems painted on for how young he is to play the lead in this kind of film. McTiernan does his best to capture the ferocity of such a sport but fails horrible in what is the most taxing 90 minutes for a film. I can respect the fact that the film is not as visually a debacle as it could have been, nor is it as bad as I thought it would be –but it still is a bad film. One can simply take a look at any 10 minutes of the film and derive their own assumptions about the film; the elements that make a film a film are lacking in this piece. The only noteworthy and experimental aspect would be a scene of several minutes duration in which McTiernan lenses the scene with a NightVision Lens (Those green, grainy images) in order to evoke a feeling of compete and utter darkness. But that soon gives way to a mockery of a scene as all reality and excitement is washed away with some of the worst filmmaking in a long time.Giancarlo's rating: * 1/2",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I liked it... but I like stupid movies!",
      "review": "*spoilers... maybe* Everyone has already explained over and over the flaws about the movie. They are right. This movie was a creation that self destructed... but they released it anyway. All you need to know is this: It was entertaining, more so than most B-movies, and Rebecca Romijn Stamos is so hot with black leather and a big scar!!! Plus the blood bath at the end was satisfying to watch... even if it was silly!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Wow, that was horrible....",
      "review": "Yeah, uh, that sucked. I never saw the original, and really didn't want to see the updated version, however, all intentions aside, the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics seemed a second option. So, I graciously walked into the theater, missing the all important background story, as I was two minutes late. The story begins with the intention to give any viewer a seizure by bombarding them with clips of money-counting  and dirty ill-repute citizens cheering for a game of the modern gladiator. American Gladiators, the television show, had better producing capabilities.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Worst editing ever",
      "review": "OK, it doesn't help that the script is a mess and generally that the movie is no good.  But what ruined this was the editing.  Not once do you get a clear view of what goes on, anywhere, least of all on the Rollerball court. The cuts are so frequent it plays out like one of those horrible \"in-your-face\" kung-fu movies.  Makes you think that they couldn't get the actors to deliver two good lines in a row (which I know isn't true) so they just cut back and forth constantly to splice it all together.I walked away from this movie with a headache and a feeling of anger at the 3-4 hours it felt like I wasted watching it.  If any of you can bear to watch MTV anymore, think of any of the horrible videos from that band Dream, where there is a cut for literally every single second of film.  Now stretch that out to 90 minutes, and there you have it.  1/10 (1 for near-nudity of Rebecca Romjin)",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Underrated actioner that's much better than Jewison's pretentious original",
      "review": "Seems John McTiernan's ROLLERBALL is already generally accepted as one of the all-time turkeys, but I'd recommend it as a fun action movie that's not remotely as bad as it's usually made out to be. In fact, it's very good, and much better than Norman Jewison's pretentious original, which seemed to think it was an art house movie disguised as a sci-fi thriller, but which had neither the necessary panache nor the necessary brains.The locations are fresh and atmospheric, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos and LL Cool J look great and drip charisma, the cinematography (by Steve Mason) is first-rate, and McTiernan gives us his best action since the original DIE HARD, with a particularly stunning \"night vision\" chase across a desert involving trucks, bikes and a plane. The bonecrunching, bloody violence of the Rollerball games and the opening street luge race will also keep action fans on the edge of their seats.Pretty dumb, but never boring, ROLLERBALL is one of those movies where you should make up your own mind rather than let your thoughts be dictated to you by majority opinion - you might be pleasantly surprised. It's too bad that the film - which bears strong evidence of heavy pre-release cutting, with missing scenes as well as trimmed nudity and violence - is almost certain never to be released in its full-length version.Still, ROLLERBALL is a blast. See it.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but not far off...",
      "review": "Well, I watched this one very aware of everyone else's comments. Normally I don't pre-judge on the basis of other's views, but it's hard not to in this case.What the hell happened here? This remake was a bad idea to begin with, but there was so much potential to update the story and the ideas in Harrison's script for the 21st century. Unfortunately, none of that potential has been fulfilled.What you have here is a rapid-cut, vapid, characterless and mostly humourless blur of a film. There are a couple of good ideas (the whole Russian setting being the main one) but this is one of the biggest nothing movies I've seen - and I've seen a lot! It's flash, it's fast and occassionally flashy, but generally it's emptier than Chris Klein's head.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "this movie sucks",
      "review": "It basically had no relevance to the original aside from the \"game\" so to speak. The footage was horrendous and as already stated previously, it was like watching an mtv vid clip. I like action movies, even if they are b-movies. Bad acting had nothing on this freakin' mess that was supposed to be an extension of the 75' hit. What a waste of talent. I have seen Jean Reno in \"The Proffessional\" and Godzilla, and Ronin, How could he ever have agreed to do a piece of crap like this movie. Not only was I dissapointed, but I was totally infuriated and felt cheated at the shallow plot and gross negligence of the producer/directors editing of this flop. Thanks but no thanks",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "oh boy....",
      "review": "Man, I really wanted to like this movie, and I gave it every chance in the world to impress me.  I like Chris Klein, I like LL Cool J, but this movie sucked.  Period.  I'm not a \"hollywood basher\", but maybe it's my aging that has made me notice that a lot of the new releases seem to be cut from the same mold or have the same cookie cutter feel to them.  Less than impressed, here........",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Oh, my achin' eyes!",
      "review": "Who cares what this late middle aged dude thinks who saw the 1975 version and a couple of times since? Just this, s.v.p.:There is only one feature about the \"re-make\" perhaps slightly superior to the original, the sociology or the social context. How violent gladiatorial sports might soon find fertile roots in the putrifying portions of the old Communist bloc is an interesting proposition. Beyond that, and not a large point, ROLLERBALL is an abortion which takes little of the good of the admittedly understated 1975 version by to-day's standards -- and makes its own contribution (bad) by an order of magnitude.Recently there was a FRONTLINE (P.B.S.) airing about the contemporary film industry a propos here. One of the interviewees said that movies to-day are made for a)teen-agers, and b) a broad international market where English skills are limited or zero, how we get so much crap under the guise of \"action\" films. (sic) Explosions, gun play, car chases, choppy takes, minimal dialogue, and two-bit sex.I was rather looking forward to it too. Perhaps the commentator from Germany says it better, so read him too.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Go for the entertainment",
      "review": "I must say the Rollerball is, by no means, Oscar material.  However, if you are looking for a descent smash-em-up action type movie, go for it.  I enjoyed this movie for the entertainment value and the attractive scruffy Chris Klein.  However, the movie editing was not up to par, and it wasn't just the movie theatre I was in.  There are several rough, obvious cuts and, at times, the audio is a little off.  However, keep an eye open for the little cameos such as Pink (not sure what the point was of having her in it) and Iowa's own Slipknot.  If you are looking for an action flick, go for Rollerball.  If you are big into the technical aspects of film, skip it. I, honestly liked it.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Blech",
      "review": "Ok, so this movie is terrible.  There is no doubt of that.  However, there is one scene worth mentioning.  The action/chase scene towards the end of the movie that was filmed totally with night vision - now that was cool.It would have been your standard chase scene in almost every action movie, however it was fresh and new in that it was done with the night vision.  It actually grabbed your attention and held it through the whole portrayal of the chase - and in fact it even built some tension because it helped give the eerie almost unnerving feeling of racing in the dark.So 99% of the population should avoid this movie at all costs, but if you're an action film junkie, it's worth one measely pass to check out how that sequence was done, IMO.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not for nothing, but I sense there was once a story here.",
      "review": "Before you groan, let me just say (quickly) that there was a story here that I just don't think ever made it to screen (and I read the Ebert review after coming to this decision).I was intrigued by the semi-civilization that existed in what turns out to be the \"New Europe\" (thank you, Rummy). There was a vague lawlessness that I would have really enjoyed learning more about ... people \"disappearing,\" the criminal economy, the lack of respect for human life on the part of the Reno character ... I wanted more details.Sure, Chris Klein was completely miscast, the dialog stunk and even the game itself was convoluted, but there was untapped potential in the story.As a wrestling fan, I got a kick out of seeing Paul Heyman as the American announcer. However, if Rollerball the sport had no North American cable deal, why did \"Rollerball\" the movie have an American play-by-play announcer?",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Its not Hamlet but its not Eraserhead either.",
      "review": "I've read the reviews and comments posted about this movie. I also bought the DVD having never before seen the movie. And you know, I'm not sorry I did. Is it a great movie? No, certainly not. Is it even a good movie? I suppose its depends on your point of view. Here's mine:When the original Rollerball made its debut here in the 70's, I was in line on the first evening. Its been one of my favorites ever since. not because its a great movie or had some stellar acting (James Caan, at the time, couldn't act his way out of a wet paper bag even if he had a sword). It was, however, entertaining. It allowed me to set aside the day's BS and just watch the carnage.This new movie is very similar in that respect. I enjoyed it. I wasn't looking for a message. I wasn't looking for King Lear or Hamlet. After reading some of the reviews on this site, I was half expecting Eraserhead or Plan 9 from Outer Space. I was pleasently surprised.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Don't watse your time",
      "review": "Bad acting, bad scripting and bad direction comprises most of Rollerball a remake of the 70's hit by the same name. First of all Chris Klien can not act at all. He is worse than Keanu Reeves. The movie revolves around a pointlessly confusing sport called rollerball, a violent game that mixes hockey with lacrosse. Klien is the star player of the game but he finds that things begin to smell funny and starts to uncover a conspiracy (think Running Man meets Snake Eyes). This movie tryes to be a ultra cool, sleek romp that should be lots of fun and highly entertaining. But what it turns out to be is a huge confusing mess that is suprisingly violent and with a suprsingly high amount of nudity. I don't know what John McTiernan was thinking when he through in an escape scene that was comptly shot in night vision green. Not only is this effect to stupid for words it doesn't work with the film at all. Steer way clear of this stinker if you what an entertaining good time pick up the original.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Yuck",
      "review": "In the 70s, James Caan starred in the original version of this movie. That movie packed a punch with action and commentary about the social aspects of the action/violence as to how it affected society.  Chris Klein (American Pie series) stars in this remake and to paraphrase...\"Chrs Klein, you are no James Caan!\" Klein is a out of work hockey player recruited into the newest sports attraction by his long time buddy, played by LL Cool J.  The sport is played in the former soviet countries and is becoming a major force on television. Klein discovers that the owners are creating accidents on the field specifically to pump the ratings and tries to get out of the game. Unfortunately for Klein he is discovered and the owners begin an attempt to take out the biggest star in the game for the big ratings pay day. This movie, to put it bluntly, blew chucks.  On the whole the acting was atrocious but that could be blamed to the incredibly poor writing of the story.  The took a movie which was multi-layered and slammed it down into a MTV-like video and destroyed it.  John McTiernan, the director, has down some incredible movies (Die Hard) but here all he should be doing is apologizing for the trash that he made of this movie. The only two performances that were at all decent in this movie came from Shane McMahon (yes the son of the WWE owner) who played an American Media Mogul who didn't say anything and from Paul Heyman (yes the guy who appears on WWE shows as either a manager or commentator) who acted as a play-by-play announcer.  Granted he has had a lot of experience doing that before but he actually did some good here.   Outside of those two I can think of nothing good to say about this movie.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "worst movie EVER!!!! spoiler (like it matters)",
      "review": "IF anybody tells me otherwise I will slap them. First of all, no plot. These people are in a sport ( which is kind of cool) and for some reason they suddenly are trying to leave the country because they are going to be killed if they don't play this rigged game. why won't they play, because accidents are staged. there is a big chase scene with nightvision so the entire scene is green. then at the end the players attack the producers and kill them all. RIGHT.... totally believable. On top of this there are parts when they would be talking and the actors face would move instantly across the screen. Baaaaad editing. the music sucks, the visuals are terrible, and there is no real explanation of why they do things. they just do it. One of the main characters die for no reason, and the others are left alive. Should anyone see this movie. NO. It is not worth the effort of keeping your eyes open.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "3 good things I have to say about Rollerball",
      "review": "1. Rebecca Romijn-Stamos.She was the reason I stayed awake throughout the film (here in Mexico the movie was rated \"C\", kinda R in USA, so I thought there would be a lot of nudity, compliments from Rebecca... dream on!).2. Jean Reno.An actor from head to toe, great in his performance, he urgently needs a nomination for an Oscar... obviously not for this movie.3. The night vision scene.I love all kinds of experiments in filming, that's why I love Blair Witch Project, so I thought this type of camera gives an eerie, but great feeling to movies. This scene in Rollerball was ok, I personally think it was the best of the film.That's it. I think I should've listened to my other friend and go see The Musketeer... but that's in the past. I went to see Rollerball, and there's nothing I can do. Wait, another thing. Slipknot was part of the soundtrack and they appeared in the film. THAT WAS GREAT!!!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Why are movie companies doing this to me?",
      "review": "First off, the fact that it took so long for this movie to come out should have been a clue, but after Planet of the Apes I had to give Rollerball a try too.Let me sum up this movie in a single word for those who want to go see it...DON'T.If you want to see it that bad go rent it for a dollar at Blockbuster (Rollerball '75 with James Caan) but don't waste your time with the new version unless you're having problems going to sleep at night cause this one will put you out like a light.Why can't movie companies learn, the point of a REMAKE is to make it better than the original, NOT worse. So if the director and actors set out to make a vile piece of crap for a movie then they accomplished their mission in life.But it's the devoted movie-goers that have lost in this situation.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Long way down (one bad thing)",
      "review": "For a primer in everything that's wrong with Hollywood movies,enjoy this 95-minute seminar from onetime action-movie maestroJohn McTiernan, who may not top his LAST ACTION HERO workhere, but comes close to a tie with TOMB RAIDER for most vapidbig-budget blockbuster of recent times.There's a granule of a good idea at work here: a WWF-style circuserected in the ruins of a post-Soviet Second World economy inSomethingorotheristan. The Vince McMahon of this scavengerecosystem is Jean Reno, whose accent totters from the Slavonianto the West Gauloise: Chris Klein is ze pretty-boy Americain whodiscovers that the x-treme game of Rollerball is really a front forcorporately sponsored murders of star athletes for highratings--and guess who's next!With LL Cool J as an unbelievably retro Black Friend Who RelaysPlot Information and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, wearing a gnarlyscar on her face as if to justify her rampant toplessness, themovie, especially in its first third, plays as if it were directed by acomputer-assembled focus group comprised of twelve-year-oldboys addicted to Do The Dew commercials. In the most obnoxious, most grotesquely produced, and most interestingsection of the movie, McTiernan tries to set up a circus ofbloodsport grotesquerie that's part manly-man cable show, partOliver Stone wigout and part \"A.I.\" Flesh Fair. Once the moviesettles into its (absurd) plot, the bad acting of Chris Klein, whosuggests a smile painted on a broomstick, and the hideousinternational-coproduction-ness of it all (Jean Reno laughing--laughing fiendishly!) overwhelms one's sense of humor.This is not a good-bad movie. Kirk Kerkorian, heal thyself.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Rollerball is worth watching",
      "review": "Rollerball wasn't all that great but the skating was pretty cool, and the crazy skating death rinks were worth watching. Ok so the plot line was pretty cheesy but hey its worth watching when you're bored. I totally recommend watching Rollerball when you want a good laugh (for those of you that can laugh at lameness), or some decent action shots. I got if off ppv, and it wasn't that bad.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "If you want to see a movie, rent the original, if you want to waste your time, see this!",
      "review": "The rumours of the test screenings were bad enough. This film only thinly resembles the original in the actual game. From there, it takes a hard left turn and continues to spiral downward.The remake was bad enough with a lifeless Chris Klein, who's stunningly lame work in \"Say It Isn't So\" must have been some inspiration for this turn in his lackluster career. Also, there has got to be some law passed preventing ex-rappers from becoming actors. It's worse than Elvis being shoved in front of a camera.However, knowing that this was once an R rated movie, and in order to recover what must have been stunning prospects of losses at the box office, neutered down to a PG-13 rating with bad digital shadows to cover up Rebecca Romin-Stamos' nudity, doesn't make it an easier pill to swallow.Add to that some of the worse editing during the actual matches that leave you with your eyes hurting from cuts away from the action, this turns into one turkey of a movie. Not so bad as to be un-intentionally funny, but bad enough to be an insult.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!",
      "review": "I can't belive all this stuff about this movie being Crap.IT's not sure its not the best movie ever made and the editing is a litle off.But its good fun.i saw this then i went out and got the original and i have to say i hated the original its boring and its old.Out of my time frame.Well im going to watch Rollerball again.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "This movie is stupendous!",
      "review": "Last night, I had the privilege of seeing \"Rollerball\" and it was stupendous! Imagine three of the worst movies you can think of from the past few years -- say, \"Battlefield Earth,\" \"3000 Miles to Graceland\" and \"Password: Swordfish\" -- roll them all up, multiply by ten and you might start to approach the mind-numbing stupidity of \"Rollerball.\" This movie does not disapoint!* It is tell-your-grandchildren-about-it bad. \"Rollerball\" is so dreadful, I will have to see it at least two more times to absorb the full weight of its idiocy. *NOTE: If this were a film review, the studio would pull the \"does not disappoint!\" quote for trailers and posters.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "A Brilliant Action-Packed Thriller.",
      "review": "*** SPOILERS***I just saw Rollerball today on the day it opened, and it was a really cool movie!!! The movie is about Jonathan (Chris Klein) and his buddy Marcus Ridley (LL Cool J), who participate in the popular sport, Rollerball, which contains a small metal ball, and hitting domes to score points. In the game you skate on rollerblades, and sometimes you ride motorcylces. Jonathan and Marcus have made a lot of money, and now they find that the sport coaches and players are trying to kill or hurt the players on the team to get better ratings for the sport on television.This movie was ***really*** entertaining and kept me on the edge of my seat. This movie was truly not boring at all, and the director was great at the directing. Also, the whole story itself was written greatly. This was a brilliant action movie. Chris Klein, LL Cool J, Jean Reno, Rebecca Romjin-Stamos, and Pink were brilliant and great!!! I highly recommend this movie!!! I give Rollerball a 10 out of 10!!!!!! :)",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Doesn't really have anything going for it",
      "review": "I don't know whether Chris Klein can act or not, but he's not even trying here. He has absolutely no charisma or screen presence, and that's not a good thing considering he's the lead.The movie is centered around a game you basically know nothing about, therefore you can never really understand what's going on in the Rollerball arena. That's not a good thing, considering that the game takes up half of the movie.Rebecca Romijn looks like a vampire from some horror flick. That's not a good thing, considering she's beautiful and sexy without horrible wigs and scars.The movie lacks jokes or funny moments, which is not a good thing considering that the plot is boring and makes little to no sense.Okay, some of the 'gaming' scenes are rather fun to watch, but still confusing. And Rebecca Romijn is not that bad looking in it, either. But when a movie was voted for by 4000 people, and has no entries under \"memorable quotes\", well... It figures.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Chris Klein, worst lead actor ever?",
      "review": "No wonder this movie was such a box office bomb. They have a clean cut, moma's boy, Chris Klein, playing a tough, hardknocking, supposedly best Rollerball player in Europe.  The lead actor was so miscast.  And that is only the beginning of what is wrong with this movie.  The start of the movie with the luge scenes in the streets  of San Fran were awful and so unbelievable.  If anyone did that, they wouldn't be alive for very long. Plus, in the end, Jonathan's friend, LL Cool J(Marcus), just happens to show up to give him a ride.  It was so stupid because Jonathan is supposed to be this good hockey player hoping to make it in the NHL, but is risking death or permanent injury by rolling on a board dodging traffic.Now, on to Europe. The game of Rollerball looked really boring to begin with.  Then we have these actors with awful accents.  And a lot of it was just stupid. Like Marcus apparently gets killed, but there is no conclusion to that chase scene. I guess Jonathan just gave up. We just don't know.  And the ending was just silly. The players rebel and Jonathan actually kills the owners and stuff.  I mean, afterwards he would be looking at life imprisionment in jail.  He was certainly no hero or anyone the audience could like. And that is one of the big problems with this movie in the first place.FINAL VERDICT: Weak acting, weak story, weak lead actor.  Overall a very bad movie, so please don't watch this.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "I feel 10 times dumber after watching this movie.",
      "review": "This has to be THE worst movie EVER. Right now i feel speechless after viewing 90 minutes of rollerball. It had terrible acting, no plot, no common sense, excessive violence, and a story line that im still trying to figure out. Everything about the movie was done wrong. The sound was terrible, the lighting was terrible, the game was terrible. And what was the point of all that fighting at the end? It just was dumb. Well, at least the ending was parallel to the rest of the movie. Just plain DUMB.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Not That Bad",
      "review": "First off, let me explain why I hate reviews.  THEY ARE FREAKING OPINIONS! Dont let somebody else ruin what could be a good experience for you.  I personally hate jackasses like Roger Ebert, because they brainwash people into hating movies before they see it.  Example: When reviewers bashed Battlefield Earth and said that it would brainwash the audience into joining Scientology, everybody but about 10 people boycotted the movie, and 9 of the 10 who saw it, hated it.  I was # 10.But this review is about Rollerball, an intense yet somewhat dull ride through a fake sport, that happens to be a remake of a horrible, boring, dull movie.  This movie is a lot better then some of the other crap that has come out this year, like Spiderman.  Another case of the reviewers brainwashing everybody.  The movie got such great reviews, that we have wasted millions of dollars on the trash.A little tip for the future, what gets good reviews, will SUCK, what is said to be bad, is usually pretty enjoyable.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Good action, But weak acting",
      "review": "I did not know where this story was going. The only good parts where in the game called RollerBall. But the rest of this story was bland. And the acting was pretty weak. Chris Klein needs to get some acting lessons. These days he is just a pretty boy. Here On Earth was an embarsement. He bounced back with American Pie 2. But RollerBall with Chris Klein did slightly okay. But he is still young.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "experience the cinematic diarrhoea that is... ROLLERBALL",
      "review": "Some films you watch Other films you experienceThe last film that I experienced was Requiem For A Dream. Well Rollerball is also an experience.Imagine standing with your feet about 1 metre apart,and then having about 458 people kick you in the groin.That is Rollerball.I saw Rollerball at a movie marathon and fortunately I cannot remember what happened,partly because I fell asleep about 6 times.But here is what I do remember - the movie starts with that guy from American Pie skateboarding down a hill or something like that.I was having trouble opening my M&Ms so I looked down for a few seconds.However when I looked up,the same guy was rollerblading around an arena with a bunch of other guys wearing Power Ranger masks.HMMMM WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?I remember a couple of guys falling off motorbikes and then when I woke up some guy was smashing through a windowI saw the original Rollerball when I was about 8 and all I remember was a couple of guys shooting trees,so I cant really compare it to this remake. If you suffer from epilepsy,I advise you not to see this as there is an average of about 27 cuts per second",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "In the future, small-eyed blockheads with no charisma rule the most violent and totally uninteresting sport in history.",
      "review": "This is, by far, the worst movie I have ever seen.  This film is so heavily edited, it's a marvel it manages to remain even the least bit cohesive. The writing and the cinematography are lazy.  The movie's rife with massive plot holes and random confusing images.  The characters mean nothing.  In some instances, hilarious Hanna Barbera sound effects are used in lieu of foley. I'm serious. \"They're gaining on us!  Punch it!\" Zoink! I was rolling in the aisles.  Was the editor drunk?  Maybe he was just a raving loon.  The movie originally had much more cursing, not to mention boobs.  But the studio wanted a PG-13.  Unfortunately they had no money to reshoot, so they just dubbed over the curse words.  It was like watching Die Hard on USA. \"I don't give (AN EGGPLANT) what you think, (BASKET WEAVER)!\" See this movie only if you are desperate for a laugh; and even then, rent the R rated version so at least you'll be treated to boobs.",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "This movie is stupendous!",
      "review": "John Cusack was wrong when he said kickboxing was the sport of the future; it's clearly rollerball, which is apparently bigger than god in Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East, where he film is set. I guess the foreign locales are a good excuse for the actors' incomprehensible accents (think Boris and Natasha from \"Rocky & Bullwinkle\"). Accent-free Chris Klein (he's so dreamy...) plays American Jonathan Cross who has been playing the sport for a whopping four months but is already \"the greatest player that ever lived!\" As dreamy as he is, he just can't pull off words like \"bauble.\" The action scenes are lame, rife with canted, film-student angles and weak coverage that they try to hide by either a) cutting really quick and playing really loud music or b) cutting away from the action to a CG model of the gameSome special moments... -- Chris Klein gives up a first-round draft spot in the NHL for the glory of playing rollerball in Kazhakstan. -- Late one night after a grueling match, Chris Klein (he's so dreamy...) walks into the locker room to find Rebecca Romijn-Stamos lifting weights -- topless, of course. -- There seem to be several computers conveniently installed in the locker room and even more conveniently, hooked up to the 5-camera video feed of the match that happened three hours prior. -- An entire 10-minute chase scene is filmed in glowing, night vision green -- probably the worst directorial choice I've seen in years. -- The film's version of a conscience is a one-minute montage of foreign homeless people and street vendors, set to a pounding industrial/thrash beat. Thank goodness we don't have inequality like this in our own country! This \"harsh reality\" really makes Chris Klein \"think\" about his pampered, Porsche-driving lifestyle. And not a moment too soon because the Evil Bad Guys have a widespread plot to hide poverty and suffering (which he would never see back home) from our American hero, lest he develop a conscience. PS - For those who love \"Rollerball\" as much as I do, I highly recommend \"Lambada: The Forbidden Dance\" and \"8 mm.\"",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "Awful retake on the 1975 James Cahn film. Misogynist rubbish centered about a fictional extreme game where the media moguls kill the participants for ratings. No Flys Out of Five",
      "review": "If you're into very fast cars, ultra violence, female nudity and women who are nothing more than meat then Rollerball might be just for you. But then only if you're male and under 16. And even most of them will reckon Rollerball is lousy.Rollerball is I supposed aimed at the above but it's such a mess that I'd say that it ended up having  no direction at all. Apparently the makers had this thing made in mid 2000 but after test screenings have edited it for over six months trying to recover the situation. They failed.Those of us old enough to remember that excellent B & W TV sports show called Rollerball would perhaps be interested to see if Ronnie Raines and his buddies has been reincarnated in the 21st  century. Come to think of it I would have fitted the above snotty, nasty profile fairly well in the 1960's!A trawl of the cyber net has little mention of that marvelous television entertainment but we do find links to the 1975 James Cahn sci fi action/weepie called Rollerball. There also is or has been a television game show of the same name as well as an all in wrestling event called Rollerball, all of which would be vastly superior to this 2002 movie release.Jean Reno (Blade Runner, The Deep Blue, Nikita, The Professional) couldn't save Rollerball, nor Chris Klein (American Pie). Even the director Johm McTiernan (Die Hard, Last Action Hero) had this one spiral out of control.It's full of extremely fast edits, smirking baddies, pouting females, bad music, sports cars, roller blades, lost helmets and almost no nudity for those interested. And a plot that makes little sense.If you require anything more from your movie making than some half big body blows and relentless pointless rushing about give Rollerball a miss.No Flys Out Of Five",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "An eighty million dollar meltdown!",
      "review": "Wasn't it enough that Gus Van Sant destroyed whatever credibility he might claim to have had, remaking PSYCHO?  Apparently not. Tim Burton had yet to insult audiences worldwide with his wimpy, trash-talkin PLANET OF THE APES. Poor old Nicolas Cage at least \"tried\" as he stumbled through the God-awful remake of GONE IN 60 SECONDS. Now though we have the benchmark in psychotic movie re-working! McTiernan has single handedly destroyed the memory of Norman Jewison's sci-fi classic of '74 - an exciting multi-layered social commentary way ahead of its time and like Psycho - totally UN-REMAKEABLE!ROLLERBALL 2002 in totality has way less dignity and style than even the original POSTER for the James Caan epic. Set in what is now only a few years hence, ROLLERBALL is simply a corporation-hyped ratings winner. A gladiatorial roller rink with few rules, supercharged motorbikes and a healthy blood-lust. Once the viewer interest wanes, Jean Reno, in an embarrassing re-enactment of John Houseman's wonderfully understated corporate menace in the original, simply orders a spot of bovver to keep himself and his stooges cashed up, courtesy of the ramped-up audience participation!Chris Klein obviously running a Keanu Reeves line in MATRIX-styled scowling and non-acting, is way too young for the role of Jonathan, quite apart from the fact he has less charisma than the average day Manager at KFC! The script is near incoherent, evidenced early on from the savage cutting inflicted, after disastrous test-audience reaction. Filmed as little more than a 98 minute MTV clip the action sequences are so badly choreographed with low rent pyrotechnics, the makers have fallen on the last resort of a head-banging soundtrack. Even that is totally misplaced, laughably inappropriate and evidence that most everyone involved had written the thing off way before completion.This is a film should be compulsory viewing for everyone aspiring to any gainful employment within the film production industry. Not a solitary aspect of the movie, from direction, editing, script, acting even the production department come out looking half professional. It is also a sad legacy for a lost generation of attention-deficient young audiences who need headphones to replace constructive thought.To say the film sucks is way too kind. This is without argument one of the greatest duds ever put up as entertainment Do yourself a favor and go rent the original, which offers style and thought-provoking brilliance from the memorable opening scene to the very last frame!",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    },
    {
      "title": "An underestimated movie",
      "review": "I finished watching this movie a quarter of an hour ago, and frankly I enjoyed it,well maybe because I wanted to have fun. LL Cool J acts very well and Rebecca Romjin Stamos used this tough movie to train herself for the upcoming X-men sequel. I agree with those who say that it reminds of the Fast and the Furious and in fact I liked that movie too. Jean Reno 's blameworthy, I must admit it and I don' t know why he starred in this movie. (I must be true:I watched this movie dubbed in Italian, and our dubbers are great, so this may have improved this movie)Hey,  please , don' t misunderstand me I'm not overrating the Italian dubbers, Mel Gibson 's a good friend of his Italian voice Claudio Sorrentino and 2 years ago when Jack Lemmon died, I found out that he had of congratulated his Italian voice Pino Rinaldi (see Ciak: Italian movie magazine) As for nudes , well I don' think they're important in the story and the director doesn't insist on showing Rebecca Romijin Stamos' slender body and nice breasts",
      "rating": "[No Rating]"
    }
  ]
}