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A "re-imagined" Rollerball reveals just how brainless modern sci-fi action movies have become
by Coury Turczyn
Thirty years ago, the future looked bleak. Things were going straight to hell: Our natural resources were polluted, our government was untrustworthy, our energy sources were waning, and leisure suits were unaccountably popular. It's no wonder that in this BSW age (Before Star Wars), science fiction films of the '70s were mostly about how we were all going to suffer miserable deaths very, very soon.
Here's what we had to look forward to: Overpopulation so rampant that the government must resort to processing human flesh in order to feed the masses (Soylent Green). Pollution so destructive that the world's remaining trees and plants must be catapulted into outer space to survive (Silent Running). Self-contained cities so limited that all people must be executed at age 30 to make room (Logan's Run). Then there's the subterranean drone world of THX 1138, the post-nuclear-war wasteland of A Boy and His Dog, and the mechanically assisted orgasms of Sleeper. It was enough to make you want to watch the latest episode of The Brady Bunch and hug the TV for dear life.
These days, modern geek sophisticates roll their eyes when spotting these titles at the local Blockbuster (Sleeper excepted). So accustomed are we to the digital excesses and whiplash pacing of current s.f. films, that those cautionary tales seem like fusty relics from a lost age of paranoia. But while they may seem campy now, those movies have something most science-fiction epics of today lack: ideas. Even the worst of them at least try to say something about society, whereas most contemporary s.f. directors have but one thing on their minds: blow shit up real good.
This is most painfully evident in comparing director John McTiernan's utterly mindless remake of Rollerball with the 1975 original by Norman Jewison. While Jewison's Rollerball might be described as a somewhat prescient statement about the future we live in now, McTiernan's creation only speaks volumes about Hollywood's state of creative-bankruptcy-as-usual. It's a disaster in itself.
Of all the doom 'n' gloom '70s movies, you'd think that Rollerball would be the easiest to update, with themes that are still relevant to our own time. In the original movie, nations no longer exist, nor politics or war—corporations rule the world. They provide for your every need as long as you keep in line and don't ask questions. The game of Rollerball is devised to provide violent release for the masses. But when one player (James Caan) dominates the game so thoroughly that he begins to show signs of individuality, the corporate execs decide he must retire. He chooses not to.
Plenty of parallels to the new millennium still intact, right? Lots of material for a screenwriter to really clamp onto and come up with a dark satire ladled with brutal action. One problem: Studios no longer equate action movies with storytelling, and scriptwriters of the Syd Field School of Screenwriting Mediocrity no longer know how to write them. Why confuse the audience with such details as allegories or metaphors when, geez, people just want to see shit blown up real good? Thus, with Rollerball 2002, you can easily trace McTiernan's every creative decision to one impulse: dumb it down.
This is most readily apparent in the new, improved plot that's been stripped of any science-fiction residue: Set in the present day, Chris Klein plays Jonathan Cross, an extreme sports goofball from San Francisco who joins a Rollerball team in a former Soviet republic. (That one story detail instantly neuters any possibility of a point being made about American sports fanaticism since Rollerball can now only happen in uncivilized parts of the world.) He soon becomes a star in third-world countries while skating around a Mousetrap-style track and flinging a metal ball at giant pie tins. But he discovers an astonishing secret that is so horrible, so despicable, that he must flee for his very life: The team's corrupt owner (Jean Reno) sometimes rigs the game to juice the ratings!
This shocking turn of events leads us to Rollerball's great revelation about society today, a sobering message brought to us by fearless screenwriters Larry Ferguson and John Pogue: Viewers actually enjoy onscreen violence...and TV programmers will capitalize on that fact.
Dear God! No!
Whereas the original Rollerball was about the conformity of the masses and its pacification through violent spectacle, the new version embodies conformity and pacification via mindless violence. As for what it's actually about, that would be not a damn thing.
This bottomless well of stupidity ought to be enough to vault the new Rollerball into Bad Movie Valhalla, but there's even more inanity to enjoy. First, there's the casting of Chris Klein, who resembles no one more than the sweet, sleepy boy behind the counter at your local True Value Hardware. He's not really the sort of guy who can convincingly kill someone with his bare hands in front of millions of viewers on live TV. (James Caan? Now there's your man.) Second, there's the simple fact that the game of Rollerball is nonsensical as depicted by McTiernan's flurry of quick-cuts; it's just a jumble of unconnected images. Third, there's the players' cut-rate Jean-Paul Gaultier costume designs—do brutish badasses really wear gold lamé girdles and pink tutus? Nooooo. Fourth, there's the multi-culti trackside metal band that's supposed to be super-cool but looks completely bogus. Fifth, there's the mysterious video-screen appearances of pop singer Pink who seems to be silently singing for no apparent reason.
Now, you may be asking: What the hell were they thinking? And I'll tell you. They thought this is what people want to see. That's because they think you're a really, really stupid lot who are willing to buy anything. Don't conform to their expectations.
February 14, 2001 * Vol. 12, No. 7
© 2000 Metro Pulse
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