It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

How sad is this?

Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The game of rollerball is a super-violent form of roller derby. The idea is to skate around and through a group of skaters and plant a steel ball into a tiny receptacle. James Caan's Jonathan E. is the best. He is admired by all and afforded sex and other favors for his successes. However, this sport is a microcosm of the society that has created it. For at some point, Jonathan E. will be passé and a new, more interesting person will take his place. Of course, he will need to be killed. There is no retirement from this sport or withdrawal from the culture. These athletes are owned by the bosses. It's almost like a street gang mentality. This is a film about what transpires when Jonathan begins to see the implications of his actions and realizing that the state is in control of his life.

While I may have watched this when I was younger, I don't remember much about it except that I can't help but giggle at people on roller skates—it's hard to look graceful on them and that's why I won't wear them. Well, that reason and I'll spend more time falling and picking myself off the ground than actually rolling. Anyway, I finally sat down and watched this uninterrupted…it was okay.I really liked the sequences showing the game of Rollerball (even though I still laughed at the skates and people looking like they are on the verge of having the skates come out from under them at any moment) and I felt the story was fairly decent with its themes and such. However, the film definitely feels dated and I wasn't really that into James Caan's performance. In the end though, it's not a bad Sci-Fi film from a decade that gave us some pretty timeless Sci-Fi epics.

I can see what this movie was trying to accomplish, I really can, but it doesn't come through at all. All I knew going in was that Roller Ball is a violent game controlled by the government that is used as a means of exercising control over society, and it's technically true, but that's all there is, and it's barely there at all. Despite watching three matches and a practice, no rules are laid out at all. We know a ball goes into a goal to score a point, and the game consists of three twenty-minute periods, and there are motorcycles on the track, but otherwise, we know nothing. Penalties are disallowed for the final two games, but we don't know what constitutes a penalty. Death is established as a risk in normal games, so where is the line drawn for penalties? In the last game, there's no time limit, yet the clock is still counting down. Are they literally just playing to the last man? Is that the only criterion for ending the game? No one seems interested in scoring, just slaughter, yet at one point New York's coach screams at Houston for their brutality. We do get a few speeches about how society has changed and corporations are in control, but we never really see society. We only see Jonathan E. and his friends. He moans about being controlled, but the only sign of control is that the Energy corporation is firmly suggesting that he retire after 10 years as a star player. He thinks they stole his wife, but then we find out that she left on her own, so we have no proof that the corporation is evil except that evil music plays when we see the executives and they make evil facial expressions. At one point, one of the executives spells out that Roller Ball is used to demonstrate that individual effort is fruitless, one man cannot succeed alone, and therefore one man cannot challenge the system and win. Jonathan E. is a threat because he's been successful for 10 years and he's surpassing his team in glory. The only symptom we see of this is that the fans chant his name instead of his team. There's no subversion. There's no discontent. We never see him as the face of a rebellion. There's never any indication that anyone in society is even thinking of rebelling, regardless of what Jonathan E. does. And yet, despite being evil and threatened by Jonathan E., the corporation does nothing but politely insist that he retire and vaguely threaten him. When he time and again refuses, the executive just looks angry and acts as if his hands are tied. Removing the time limit seems to be the only card they have to play. They do say they don't want to kill him, for some unspecified reason, but that doesn't mean they have no other options. There are people he cares about: his ex-wife, his friend Moon Pie (yes, that's his name), his old trainer. They're expendable. Even when Moon Pie is injured, it isn't because of anything the corporation did, and they don't then tell Jonathan E. "You'll be next." It seems more incidental than anything. There are good concepts in there- a corrupt government exercising control over its people through forced participation in a blood sport where death or glory are the only options, and even if you survive you're still their pawn for the rest of your life- but they weren't put to anything resembling good use in this movie. Suzanne Collins handled it better in The Hunger Games. Even as much as I disliked that series, it left me asking serious questions, not "What is in those magic future drug mints?" or "Why haven't they just killed this guy already?"

In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes (James Caan) is out to defy those who want him out of the game.So, the film is known for its stunts and being the first film to give credit to the stunt performers in the credits. This film is also known for its classical music -- an idea borrowed from Kubrick's "2001" and "Clockwork Orange", which allegedly stops the film from dating. (This concept does seem to be true -- the lack of 1970s music does make it harder to pinpoint as a 1970s film.) There is some social commentary here about corporations, the violence of certain sports and more. How seriously we should take any of this is unclear because it really does just end up being a lot of fun, and one could actually see a game like this being invented (is it really all that different from roller derby?).