Rollerball Blu-ray features mediocre video and decent audio, but overall it's a poor Blu-ray release
Jonathan Cross is an all-American hotshot, the most popular player in the fastest and most
extreme sport of all time: Rollerball. Along with teammates Marcus Ridley and Aurora,
Jonathan is living the high life -- fame, money, incredible cars -- all for giving viewers what
they want: a dangerous game packed with visceral thrills, breakneck speed and head-
slamming action. Things go wrong when Rollerball's creator, Petrovich, realizes that serious
on-court accidents bring higher viewer ratings. Soon Jonathan and his friends are playing for
their lives. The teammates find themselves trapped in intrigue, pawns in a new game without
any rules.
I remember sitting down to watch Rollerball when it was originally released to DVD back in 2002. Knowing it was directed by John McTiernan (Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October), I was willing to give the film a fair shake despite the ruthless critical reception it had received upon its theatrical release. Unfortunately, everything I'd heard was 100% correct, and I came away hoping my path would never cross with Rollerball again. As you can see, my wish didn't come true, but at least this review provided an opportunity to give the film a second chance.
That's probably the angriest face Chris Klein has ever mustered.
This 2002 version of Rollerball is a remake of the 1975 classic starring James Caan (though the setting of the plot offers some subtle differences from the original). Jonathan Cross (Chris Klein) is a thrill-seeker who's recruited by his friend Marcus (LL Cool J) into playing an upstart sport called Rollerball. Originating in the republics of the former Soviet Union, Rollerball is a game that consists of two teams that skate or ride motorcycles , trying to throw a metal ball at a large metal bowl on the side of the rink. Although there are some minor rules and occasional penalties, the sport is known for its propensity toward violence, which appears to be the main draw for the spectators that attend the matches. This attribute doesn't escape the entrepreneurial eye of the games founder, a vicious businessman named Alexis Petrovich (Jean Reno), who hopes to bring Rollerball international recognition through rigged displays of violent carnage. With the help of a local Kazakhstanian player named Oleg Denekin (Oleg Taktarov), a beautiful teammate named Aurora (Rebecca Romijn), and his long-time friend Marcus, Jonathan sets out to reveal the twisted ambitions of Petrovich before any additional players are hurt or killed.
The story of Rollerball offers nothing new to the violent sport genre and it's impossible not to draw comparisons to the superior 1975 classic, or even The Running Man. The story certainly has potential, with political and corporate undertones mixed in with the the natural human attraction to carnage, but the entire affair is executed so carelessly that any opportunity for something profound is lost along the way. We can all associate with the money-grubbing tendencies of a corporate system, so those themes don't seem foreign to anyone living in post-Enron America, but the film needed to focus more on behind-the-scenes politics and corporate maneuvering in order to generate more interest in that aspect of the plot. Since it never approaches those topics in a meaningful way, all we're left with is a series of Rollerball matches that have disasterous results. Which leads me into my next complaint about the film. Early on, the announcer provides a commentary on the rules of Rollerball that's so incomprehensible, the matches ultimately fail to excite. When you watch a sports film, it helps if you have a basic idea of what is going on in the game, otherwise there's nothing interesting about a team scoring points. It's no surprise that the filmmakers don't show scores during the matches, since they seem content with simply focusing on punches and tackles that cause players to fly 20 feet across the rink. I know we're supposed to care more about the violence taking place, but this is still a sports film at its core and I never felt invested in the sport aspect.
The acting in the film is equally to blame for the dismal entertainment value. The casting of Chris "golly-gee" Klein in the starring role may have looked good on paper given his success in two American Pie films, but the guy lacks any hint of action star quality. I could imagine any number of stars tackling this role with some measure of success, but as it stands, Chris Klein is not the glue that holds this film together. The supporting players don't help matters much either, with Rebecca Romijn offering a healthy degree of eye-candy for the teenage boys in the audience, while sporting an awful accent that I'm guessing was supposed to be Russian. LL Cool J appears uninterested in offering anything more than a basic reading of the script (almost as if he could tell how bad the movie was turning out to be), and Jean Reno does his best impression of maniacle insanity, with several laughable outbursts. Lastly, I have to touch on the annoying commentary provided during the initial match of the film by Paul Heyman. Whoever completed the script for the film must have a hatred for sports commentators, since the guy offers running dialogue that will make your ears bleed (ok, not literally). After watching the film on two occasions now, I'm not entirely sure it would have been better with different casting choices, but it couldn't have been much worse.
Presented in 1080p utilizing the MPEG-2 codec (at a bitrate that wavers from 12Mbps to 28Mbps), Rollerball is a problematic transfer. As with my recent reviews of Road House and Out of Time, Rollerball demonstrates wild shifts in clarity, with some scenes appearing nice and distinct and others appearing hazy or blurred. I've suspected the use of MPEG-2 as the main culprit behind problem, and this film tends to confirm my belief. After all, Rollerball is only seven years old and I've seen plenty of films on Blu-ray that are three or four times that age, but still offer a better level of clarity. Detail issues aside, I was also a bit disappointed in the muted color spectrum and the overall bland look. The neon colors of the Rollerball rink never pop off the screen, robbing the viewer of what could have been the only reason to watch the film in the first place. Adding to the problems, contrast suffers in a number of sequences (especially a stairway scene at the 41 minute mark), creating a serious loss of shadow detail from time to time.
On a side note, I wanted to mention three items that collectively downgraded my perception of the visual experience beyond the problems noted above. First, there an odd slow-down in the video that occurs at the 50:36 mark when Jonathan is talking to Marcus. Suddenly the video jumps ahead several frames to catch up with his movement and dialogue as if the slowdown never took place (the whole effect is a bit jarring). Second, at the 54 minute mark, there's a brief two or three second shot of the English announcer that looks downright awful, with the image almost appearing as if it were superimposed on top of the same frame, but slightly off to the side. Third, (and this is a source issue), the entire motorcycle chase sequence around the 59 minute mark is completed using nightvision equipment of some sort, creating a green, obscured, artifact heavy picture. I can't fathom how the filmmakers thought it was a good idea, especially after watching the final footage.
The primary audio offering is a DTS-HD MA 5.1 track in the native language of English. Performing marginally better than the video transfer, the overall audio experience is still somewhat disappointing for a recent action film. The volume of the dialogue presented some issues along the way, as I found myself straining to make out what the characters were saying. The special effects demonstrated subtle use of the the rear surrounds, but it wasn't nearly as dynamic as I was expecting from a film that features bone-crunching hits, a metal ball bouncing around, and the rumble of a motorcycle engine. Speaking of rumble, I was a little disappointed in the shortcomings of the LFE track. There were numerous opportunities for my subwoofer to shine, but the track never realized that potential. In the end, I came away from the audio experience with the opinion that it wasn't bad for a mediocre action track, but won't measure up next to the wealth of better offerings on the format.
Though it's hardly worth mentioning, there appears to be an audio blip in the track around the 32:06 mark, where several elements in the audio track (including the music) cut out for a split second. It's not as jarring as the video problem mentioned above, but will still be noticeable to audiophiles.
Rollerball is one of several recent Blu-ray releases from MGM that contain a copy of the DVD release in addition to the Blu-ray. This appears to be a strategic move to provide special features without actually adding them to the Blu-ray disc itself. In general, I wouldn't consider this practice ideal (especially for anyone with an interest in director's commentaries) but it may partially account for the reasonable retail price of this Blu-ray release.
Having said that, I'm reviewing a single-disc rental copy of the Rollerball Blu-ray, so I'm not able to comment on the DVD special features included within the retail package. The only special feature included on the Blu-ray disc is a collection of four high-definition trailers (Rollerball, Terminator, Windtalkers and Species).
If you've never seen Rollerball, you should have no trouble continuing to pass on the opportunity with this newly-released Blu-ray offering. I'm willing to give director John McTiernan a break since everyone has a minor misstep every now and again, but Rollerball is simply a case of shoddy filmmaking at its finest. From a technical standpoint, the presentation is certainly a marginal improvement over the DVD counterpart, but never rises to the potential we'd expect from a glossy action production. In the end, I'm not recommending this release to anyone and I'd go so far as to say it isn't even worthy of a rental.
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