Directed by John McTiernan
Originally Written by William Harrison
Rewritten by Larry Ferguson and John Pogue
Starring
– Chris Klein as Jonathan Cross
– Jean Reno as Petrovich
– LL Cool J as Marcus Ridley
– Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as The Head of Mensa
Erich doesn’t even mention the original
No offense to Ron Jeremy,
especially with him now being part of team Ruthless, but even he’s
never been in a movie with this much sucking in it. The acting sucks in
Roller Ball, which pretty much goes without saying if you look at the cast. If you listen to the commentary track on Election
you’ll learn that Chris Klein was just some kid in Omaha who got a
supremely luck break. I’m glad for him and he did the smart thing by
grabbing some cash in medium budget flicks like this one, but I think
he’s going to be co-staring with Brian Bozworth in the near future.
Also, LL Cool J is in the film.
The story, such as there is, sucks. There are smaller points of
suckiness. Here’s a short list. They wanted to have women rollerballers
because they look sexy. Instead of making special positions for women
on the teams, the filmmakers just pretend that women and men had the
same athletic abilities. The ratings of a game are monitored as it
happens and fluctuate by a factor of four or five depending on what’s
happening in the game. Think about that one for a moment. When the bad
guys are trying to get two good guys on a motorcycle, they use a
mortar. A shell hits the bike – by some stroke of luck, both men are
ok. Then
the evil ones pull out the precision sniper rifle that’s been sitting
there the whole time and finishs one of the good guys off. The two men
on the run are wealthy, American celebrities trying to get out of an
Eastern European country by racing for the boarder at night rather than
just heading for the American consulate. Maybe there isn’t an American
consulate you say? Well, I know there is because they mention it during
the chase. They don’t talk about why they can’t go there, they just
mention it. There’s just tons of shit like that. If everyone else on
the set was so oblivious, they should have just given the craft service
guy, or the fluffer or someone an extra $20 bucks every time he pointed
out a glaring absurdity to McTieran (Director). Granted, it would have
cost like a hundred grand, but it would have been worth it.
The broader plot sucks. People run around for an hour or so, then Keanu
Jr. (Klein) beats up the evil Rollerball boss, which inspires a
revolution. No kidding.
The direction sucks. When Klein beats up the rollerboss, he jumps
through the glass separating the players from the audience and smashes
into the boss. There are two bodyguards. One reaches for his piece as
though he had advanced Parkinson’s and Klein throws the ball at him,
which puts him out of commission. While this is happening, the other
guard, who is about 15 feet away from Klein has been going for his
piece as though he has advanced rigor mortis. Still, it looks pretty
clear that he’s going to get it out in time to cap Klein. Then, I swear
to god, there is a cut in the film and Klein is on top of the bodyguard
but the bodyguard hasn’t moved.
The cinematography isn’t good, although it actually blows more than
sucks and the music is pretty weak, although Slipknot are in the film
and they are better than most bands that wind up in films. Which isn’t
to say I own any of their albums or anything, they’re just better than Blink-182.
The only thing good about this film was the probably catering. I’ve
been on sets for some really, really low budget films and even those
are catered like mafia weddings.
DVD Extra
This and that. There is a Rob Zombie video. If that isn’t enough make
you happy, someone from the studio will come to your house and fart in
your face.
Ruthless Ratings
Note: The “Ruthless Hacking Penalty”
has been enacted where as all scores are one full point lower because a
talentless rapper has once again stolen a role from a decent hard
working black actor. Like Eddie Griffin or Orlando Jones. . . My God,
we’re all doomed!
- Overall: .5
- Direction: 1
- Acting: 2
- Story: 0
- DVD Extras: 3
- Re-watchability: No