Written by Old Bluffer 27th Jul 2006

This execrable film failed to entertain on almost every level.
I was hoping for an over-the-top Rollerball movie featuring a sport more like the classic Speedball computer game.
Instead, I had to endure endless scenes of some kind of crappy version of Quidditch on skateboards.
This "sport" is so poor, we should probably take some time to analyse it,
Apparently it was invented by Obike Fixx (Wesley Snipes, who has a ridiculous rastafarian accent during the film by the way) as a means for street gangs to resolve differences without bloodshed.
The game field consists of pretty much a skateboard halfpipe, and both teams slowly skate from end to end trying to score by throwing the ball into the goal. Quite why they bother skating is a mystery though, as the goal consists of a circular hole bordered by a massive cone, so even if you miss (which nobody ever does by the way), the ball would still be deflected in for a goal. To give you some idea, it would be like playing basketball with a massive funnel above each basket.
[speaking of basketball, "futuresport" apparently rapidly eclipsed basketball in popularity, which in terms of the rest of the plot, is only mildly implausible]
Anyway, this exciting game soon became mainstream, which means it gets played in a large "velodrome" type arena and instead of skateboards the players get futuristic hoverboards. In practical terms this just means the film cost more to make, as the special effects department had to digitally remove the wheels from every shot.
There are also some players that wear inline skates instead of using boards and some also wield metal poles to bash other players with (I call these the bludgers, obviously), but the action was too dull for me to work out the nuances of these roles.

Anyway, the entire plot of the film is a confusing mish mash of ridiculous proportions. However, I can sum it up in a few words:
Futuresport star "Tremaine 'Tre' Ramzey" is worried about war between America and an alliance of foreign powers (including Hawaiian terrorists and Singapore for some reason). He is worried because In War, People Die (this is belaboured quite a bit). He therefore announces on International TV that the issue should be decided by a single game of Futuresport (hence the awful tagline for the film, "In 2025, a revolutionary sport is the only way to stop a revolution")
Note he makes this announcement without any preparation whatsoever. His confidence is entirely founded though, when his own government belatedly gives him authorisation to broker this deal and the Hawaiian terrorists also agree.
After a few pointless encounters there is an extended Futuresport sequence (with lots of reused footage as far as I could tell) and America eventually wins, to general apathy from the audience.

I imagine this plot was written by a fifteen year old geek that thinks nothing can be cooler than a skateboarding film set in the future. The reason I say this is that even though the plot is utterly ludicrous, the scriptwriter obviously takes it incredibly seriously, as there is an amazing amount of dialogue trying to explain the various different factions involved and their motives. I would bet money he has also designed a crushingly dull role playing game set in the same metaverse as his damn stupid sport.

Oh yes, there is actually only one death of significance in this entire film, Surprising, considering the supposedly brutal nature of the sport.
Once the foreigners and America agree to settle their war with a single game, Hawaii tries to scupper their opponent's chances by assassinating their coach. They do this by means of a remotely controlled robotic spider, previously used to spy on people. The spider is found on the back of the dead coach's neck, having injected him with something nasty.
The coach was actually in the gym at this time, so the spider (which is about the size of a dinner plate) would have had to crawl up his back in order to bite him on the neck. Anyone that could let a dinner-plate-sized robotic spider do this to them deserves to die in my opinion.
Regardless, it makes little difference to the plot of the film. This coach was hardly "Mickey from Rocky" material.