Popular reviews

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  Review by WraithApe ★★ 32

  This film raises more questions than it answers. Why is it whenever there's a TV screen must there be three smaller TV screens above it? Why is there only one typeface for the entire world (a rough approximation of Letraset's Countdown)? At what point in the game is a new ball launched? What are the motorbikes for? It just seems so random. Why exactly do the shadowy cabal that run Houston's all conquering Rollberball team want star player Jonathan E to quit?

  All of these questions and more are never really answered, though if you squint hard you can sort of read between the lines and deduce that the world has transitioned to some kind of ultra-regulated corporate-controlled future where…

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  Review by {Todd} ★★★★½

  "I forget which corporation is running which city" - Some Guy,

  Always fear the Moon Pie.

  I love 1970s futurism because quite frankly the 1970s style was badass so the version of the future is just badass plus. The opening few scenes of Rollerball are fantastic. You watch the set up and carrying out of a violent sport that draws raucous crowds and corporate interest groups. Rollerball is established as a sport that helps settle conflict between nations and is controlled by elites who probably don't have the public interest in mind since rich people suck. The stakes are established and the pressure for the main star to retire is set up. I love films that get you invested and…

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  Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 20

  In 1975 I was 16. At 16 and before, the name Jonathan was a rarity. I survived through grade school that had readers with little poems like Jonathan Blake ( who, apparently, ate too much cake ) and Jonathan Bing ( who, according to the rhyme had quite a problem with clothing ). My parents, well, my Mom, chose my name because she thought a single syllable name like ‘John’ sounded too plain paired with the incredibly plain single syllable last name of White. It wasn’t just the poems in the readers. One particular incident I remember well was in grade one when my school principal, Mr. Cartlidge ( a man who must have born his share of name teasing…

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  Review by comrade_yui ★★★★ 2

  a civilization which has developed to such complexity that its digital-corporate bureaucracy has segmented life into simplified utilitarian use-value -- the only act of rebellion which is possible is to accelerate the structural oppression of the system vs. the individual, to make the implicit violence into explicit violence -- what better avenue than sports to make your stand? rollerball feels like a poor man's kubrick film, wallowing in its hideous 70s aesthetics of everything being colored in brown or beige, but its refusal to delve into straight genre thrills makes it a curiously contemplative and melancholic movie -- james caan isn't a tough guy in this as much as he is a sad puppet of a society which has evolved beyond the need of its own self-understanding, so his only recourse is to re-introduce barbarism of tooth-and-claw into his sterile dystopia.

  70s directors sure loved their zoom lenses, didn't they?

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  Review by Sofa Sinema ★★★½ 2

  "The game was created to demonstrate the futility of individual effort"

  How very timely all of a sudden. A future world where corporate elites rule under a single soulless anthem and where comfort supersedes personal freedoms. The non-players are a pampered aristocracy of pharmaceutically dependent mannequins ruling with perverse pleasure by constantly changing the rules and keeping their masculine work horses off balance and demoralized, while also ensuring that the rest of the global citizenry are glued to "the game" via Multicast screens and capacity-filled megadomes.

  The uppermost controllers are from all parts of the globe. They agree during a secret virtual meeting to rig "the game" in order to unsettle and discourage the populace by turning the hero into…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  The "I" in "team".

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  Review by Jacob Knight ★★★★ 1

  This could’ve so easily been another cynical ‘70s dystopian melodrama, but it also layers on this thick melancholy and insight about used up athletes. Even without all the heavy handed corporate/sociological commentary, it’s still a damn good sports film first. The matches are just incredibly staged and viscerally brutal (even 40+ years later), and James Caan brings this real muted, weathered sense of worth to the central gladiator. Love all the Kubrickian classical drops, piped in so even the characters can hear the portentous soundtrack to their lives. This holds up better than most of the post-2001 studio sci-fi that became so popular during the early half of the decade.

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  Review by pirateneckbeard ★★★½ 8

  This feels like a quintessential visually of a 70's film replete with a sci-fi element. Rollerskating with a little touch of the ultraviolence. As much as it feels camp there is some solid rhetoric to today's day and age albeit in a distant past foil of the future. I can't say that the story gets to a truth that a gamer can break the game but it feels like a lot of sci-fi novels of the time to hold that potential that the written word can find truth and set you free. It's dry and very stylized and I think that's what I enjoyed about it as well as James Caan's performance but it is a little long. I do have to say I liked the fans T-shirts and the battle sequences. Totally worth watching for a vibe and a questioning of the computer age. So check it out before A.I. deletes this review;)

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  Review by anna nomaly ★★★½ 2

  The themes are 1984 levels of timeless, but the cynicism, the grit, the bloodlust, and the immaculate production design could only have hailed from the ‘70s. Caan was so beautiful.

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  Review by Willfarquaad ★★★½

  This was never meant to be a game

  The stakes are high from either side of the great divide

  There is no war

  Only
  Rollerball

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  Review by Cinematic Underdogs ★★★★

  Rollerball is a slippery, stylish, paranoid 70s thriller with a cool subversive energy. As protagonist Jonathan E., James Caan sports overgrown chest hair, bell bottoms, & a glib smirk befit for a porno movie. His smarmy countenance, however, grows increasingly quizzical and jaded as he investigates the totalitarian powers invisibly pulling levers behind the scenes. Turns out the ultraviolent, futuristic roller-derby game he’s devoted his life to may not be all it seems. This newfound disillusionment is punctuated by a dreamy interlude involving a group of teammates & their svelte ladies shooting flares at a row of trees (while carousing at a swanky, swingers-style party). The surrealistic image of towering pines engulfed in flames unnervingly contrasts with the brutality in the roller rink —…

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  Review by russman ★★½

  Safer than the NFL