Though it doesn't have the Star Wars/E.T. clout that would rate a re-release rather than a remake, Norman Jewison's glum, violent, but memorable 1975 science fiction picture 'Rollerball' hardly deserves to be further dragged down by association with this busy, inept and annoying retread.
With a plot that has been trimmed to near-incomprehensibility, and action scenes over-edited well beyond that point, the John McTiernan edition of 'Rollerball' has the feel of a film no-one was especially happy with.
The original was a kind of Orwellian lone-man-against-evil-corporate-future tale, with James Caan's Jonathan E. standing up to a whole society. This, however, is just a goodies vs. baddies melodrama in which a few caricatured nasties, headed by rotten Russkie Jean Reno, are responsible for the corruption of a popular spectacle, and everyone sides with Chris Klein's boyish but uncommitted superstar when he gets off the rollerball rink to attack the owners' box.
It's a faster film this time round, sacrificing storytelling (and even explanation of what's exactly happening in the game) to keep the action non-stop. However, some indecision about the gore level means that the supposedly 'violent' version of rollerball seen in the climax seems no different from the 'acceptable' sport played earlier.
The mixed-race, mixed-sex cast balances white-bread Klein with LL Cool J and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, but the players are uniformly stuffed into leathers and helmets so that stuntmen can take the heavy slams. They also get no help from the snarled, all-cliched script. McTiernan makes odd choices (filming one chase in grainy, green, night-cam vision), but strangest of all is following up 'The Thomas Crown Affair' with another Jewison remake. What's next - 'Jesus Christ Superstar', 'A Soldier's Story', 'The Hurricane'?