Crap Films My Housemates Own #2 : Rollerball

Now, before you start thinking to yourself "hang on there skippy, Rollerball was a 70s scifi classic and Sonny Corleone is awesome in it as a rollerskating, ass kicking mafia badass!" I want to make this clear - I don't give a crap what you think.

Also, I'm talking about the 2002 remake. So there motherfuckers!

On the face of it, this shouldn't be a load of big hairy balls. It's directed by John McTiernan who's credits include Die Hard, The Hunt For Red October, The 13th Warrior & The Thomas Crown Affair remake (which I prefer to the Steve McQueen version). It stars the coolest frenchman known to man (Jean Reno) and let's face it, the original was a pretty good movie. But then it starts to all go wrong. It's got LL Cool J in it. It's got Chris Klein in it (one of the guys from the American Pie movies who didn't fuck a pie). It's got a character in it called Aurora (I don't know why, but I don't think I've ever seen a film where a character called Aurora is anything but appallingly acted).

So anyway. This film now appears to be about an ice hockey player who goes to play rollerskating deathmatch in Kazakstan or something. I don't really understand the plot as - well there isn't really one apart from the fact that Jean Reno's supposed to be some sort of gangster badass and quite plainly can't really be bothered to act. Rebecca Romjin Stamos is also in this as a moody Kazak beauty. I unfortunately think someone told her that they wanted her part to be that of a moody Kazak fencepost, as that's about as exciting as her character is.

At the end of the day, this is just bad. The wirework's obvious, the directing is lazy and the plot is so bad that I am considering writing a letter to the CIA implicating the writers in a terrorist plot as their work is so shoddy they probably do deserve to spend five years in Guantanemo Bay. Couple all of this with a cast who quite clearly have realised that they've signed up to a big floating turd of a movie, and you've got Rollerball the remake.

My housemates bought it so you wouldn't have to.