Main cast: Chris Klein (Jonathan Cross), Jean Reno (Alexi Petrovich), LL Cool J (Marcus Ridley), Rebecca Romijn (Aurora), Naveen Andrews (Sanjay), Mike Dopud (Michael), Kata Dobó (Katya Dobolakova), Lucia Rijker (Lucia Ryjker), Oleg Taktarov (Oleg Denekin), Paul Heyman (Sports Announcer), Janet Wright (Coach Olga)
Director: John McTiernan
Chris Klein. What a bore. He makes Keanu Reeves look like Ian McKellan, and watching him in Rollerball is like undergoing mass hypnosis conducted by some Japanese suicide cult leader. He speaks his lines as if through a giant metal ball lodged in his throat, and he reacts with all the liveliness of a skunk on the road after peak hour traffic was done with it. With no charisma, no screen presence, and not even gratuitous nudity factor (then again, I bet if he’s naked, he has nothing there but a smooth bump, because Mr Klein is nothing but an overgrown Ken doll), he makes watching this movie as fun as pulling shards of broken glass out of my bum.
A garish and incoherent remake of the 1975 cornball movie of same name, this movie is so badly edited that half the time – okay, two-thirds of the time – I have no idea what is going on. Set in 2005 in some ex-Russian country, our villain Petrovich runs a violent game where people wear roller-blades and bash each other up. No, I’m not talking about the WWE, why do you ask? Our hero, fleeing the workers from the factory that wanted to recall defective robots – okay, he did something bad and he is now wanted by the law – joins his buddy in this Rollerball game, Rebecca Romjin periodically saunters around the screen topless (probably to placate the audience who must be wondering what the hell is going on), and gratuitous violence happens. Apparently the game is fixed, and people are getting hurt in the name of ratings. Boy, Vince McMahon must be proud.
Our Robot Bohunk and his Token Black Buddy and that Topless Bimbo soon try to fight their way out. I think. Chase scenes happen without rhyme or reason, people break out in scuffles at the drop of the hat, and I don’t even know how exactly the Rollerball game is played. Dazzlingly fast editing renders everything undecipherable, but that’s okay. I could just sit back and enjoy the gratuitous violence, if I’m not subjected to Mr Klein’s fugly face and Ms Romjin’s atrocious accent in every scene of that freaking movie. Jean Reno is not bad, hammy and fun even, but seriously, someone kick Mr Klein back to obscurity where he belongs. That guy, man, just sucks. Period.
