Product: Rollerball (2002)
Rating: 5.0
A very insightful "Episode I" of the Rollerball Murders
This remake could better be understood and appreciated if one looks at it as a "prequel" rather than a "remake". The original Rollerball is set in the far future in a 1984ish society, were as the "remake" is set only 3 years in the future (more or less it is happening right now), were the keystones of corporate society are just beginning to be set by globalization. And as you know in the "real world," two of the main players of globalization in the Middle East and Central Asia is the Red Mafia and Islamdom, which of coarse are dependent on Rollerball in the "remake" for their wealth. Yes, there are differences in the two versions. Rollerball in the "remake/prequel" is like most novelty sports (XFL, WWF, NWO, X-Games); the players are social rejects (criminals, psychotics, Goths, thrill seekers, or athletes from mainstream sports that play too rough), it is a coed sport (so much in this sport, that the leader of the Istanbul Hawks is a woman, despite representing an Islamic State: note continual footage of the woman with the sunglasses), heavy rock music being played, uniforms that represent individual personalities, it serves as a front for gambling and other criminal enterprises, and is (officially) non-lethal. Rollerball in the "original," is played by respected and law-abiding individuals, it is for men only, the music played is classical or at least contemporary classical, uniforms are well....uniformed, the sport replaces war as the chief vehicle of socially acceptable violence in an "One-Nation World", and there is no denying that the game's lethality is the whole point of the game! The key is you need to see where two movie overlap outside of having the same title. At the start of the film, you have Global leaders visiting Petrovich, with an interest in expanding this Islamo-Soviet sport ; are these people the founders of Energy Inc? The game, in the prequel, for the first time, changes its rules; in the original film, the Houston coach mentioned that the game has had numerous changes, but was still the same game (obviously two of those rule changes did away with female players and personalized outfits,). So is Jonathan E actually Jonathan Cross? Is Jonathan E.'s estranged wife Aurora? In a Special Edition Version of Jewison's Rollerball, will you have La Guillotine digitally added to Team New York (another rule change, no team nicknames), to add to the mayhem? Will Chopin and Stravinsky replace Rob Zombie and Pink as Rollerball musicians? Probably no, no, no, and yes. But could it be true that an unknown Pay-Per-View Sport becomes society's answer to it's ills 100 years from now, yes.