Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
I like John McTiernan. It's a fact. He's made some movies that give me the willies when I think of them (MEDICINE MAN in particular), but when he gets hold of a piece of material he knows what to do with, he puts a smile on my face like few other directors in the world of action. If you don't enjoy the final robbery sequence in THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR just as a piece of wonderful editing, there's something wrong with you. Still, the idea of a remake of ROLLERBALL has scared me from the start. Our own Henchman Mongo reviewed the script, we've had tons of concerned reports rolling in, and the teaser trailer was, to say the least, underwhelming. Now comes the first word from a test screening of the film, and LAUGHING MAN IN THE DEVIL MASK was there to take it all in. It's actually a positive picture he paints, too. Boy, I hope McT pulled it off. Some bone-crunching Rollerball action sure would round out the summer nicely...
Hiya Harry and Moriarty!!!
Call me "Laughing Man in the Devil Mask". Just got home a few hours ago from what was apparently the first test-screening of the "RollerBall" remake!
Where to start... well, I'll begin with the plot. Jonathan Cross (played by Chris Klein), is an aspiring Hockey player who earns some extra cash by luge-racing down busy city streets! An old buddy, Ridley (played by L.L. Cool Jay) saves him from police capture and tells him about the glories of "Rollerball", a Central-Asian t.v phenomenon where tough men and women on roller blades and motorcycles race around a track trying to score with a heavy steel ball. Jonathan says no at first, but certain circumstances change his mind, and suddenly thrust him right into the midst of the sport as a big-time star! And from here it goes on, match after match. The show's producer Petrovich(played well by Jean Reno), is a likeable, amicable sort who pretends he cares about the players.
However, shady sorts sponsor the game, and profit from the tons of gambling revenue it brings in, as it tours all of Asia. These "shady" guys are never really explained... Anyway, Jonathan meets up with a Russian babe played by Rebecca-Romijn Stamos, who even gets naked for the flick in a brief love scene. Suddenly, Petrovich decides the show's ratings could use a little bit of the "old ultraviolence", so he starts upping the ante, changing the rules, arranging accidents... Much carnage ensues, as the "game" gets more and more dangerous, and Jonathan begins to seriously question the morality of it all.
All in all, I liked the film. To be fair, the plot is almost non-existent for the first half of the movie. The action, however, rocks! I haven't seen this much direct brutality in a movie since re-watching "The Road Warrior" and "Robocop 2" recently, and I appreciated it, sicko that I am! It's nice to see someone could make a film about a violent subject without toning it down unless it involves history or senstionalism. The blood flies, and you can almost feel the pain with every blow.
The acting is good, Klein does with this part what Keanu Reeves would have done, but a bit better. L.L Cool Jay is good, but doesn't have much to do. Rebecca Stamos is hot, but doesn't seem to constantly maintain the accent. Jean Reno is great! The costuming is weird, a cross between hockey gear, biker gear, and strange yet cool individualized helmets that look like something out of a comic-book. The soundtrack they used was great, I hope they keep it. My biggest problem was the scenes with Pink singing... She looked hot, but the timing of these scenes was really odd, and her voice blew. Watch for strange scenes of foreign programming or something that come off as awfully surreal.
All in all, it was ok. Great violence. No real message, thin plot. Decent performances. We'll see what they do to it after this screening, which didn't seem super-positive.
Thanks for reading, Guys! Later!:)
