This just writes it's self.
I've been on a tear with Rollerblading again, even bought a pair recently to skate at work around the brewery. I've mentioned how I skated in the past, even got myself in a couple of magazines in the 90's.. so discovering more inline cinema cheese is going to be right up my alley. Science fiction? Check. Bad effects? Check. D List celebs? Super check. This is 100% something I would have watched as a 15 year old with nothing to do on a Friday and a 12 pack of Surge.
My backpack's got jets
This movie is either the leftovers from Prayer of the Rollerboys pitch meeting (which I covered here), or a poor re-write. I see a lot of inspiration from that movie, Robocop 2, and the movie Hackers. All movies that are guilty pleasures of mine, and really know how to channel the 90's energy. This is an obvious TV movie to series launchpad for the network, and just never really worked out, was believable in anyway, and didn't have enough star power to keep it moving. This is a piece of TV was locked in time, at the end of decade when the popularity of something started to fade away, but alas it was too late, and the money was spent and script was written.
Channeling Bladerunner?
The movie opens up to the busy streets of New York city, the smog and pollution in the distance- highly populated, congested, and fraught with overwhelming amounts of TV PG petty crime. The only solution for this distressed city is to police it with a crack team of inline skating 20-somethings with jetpacks on. David Bowie's "I'm Afraid of Americans" plays over the crime montage, which in this version, has been removed due to copywrite issues. I love this song and it the whole Nine-inch Nails thing he was going through at time. I remember seeing Howard Stern's birthday party on the E-channel, and watching him perform live thinking how cool he was, and questioned what time period he belonged in. I know now, that time is obviously the mid-to-late 90's,. Duh.
High Tech.
They are being monitored back at home base with cameras that are not attached to the suits they are wearing, and are just moving around randomly, and makes no sense. They were trying to go for an Aliens thing with how that worked, and really just missed the mask. We get a really good example of what the team can do, jumping over trash cans and on to the backs of small time crooks. Ironically the city does not look that overwhelmed with people/cars in these scenes and montages, so a motorcycle would be more appropriate in 90% of these situations. I'm sure I'm going to mention this a few times, but I'm having a hard time wondering why we need to have rollerblades on for most of the movie. Speaking of...
24:40 is when this goes down.
You really have to suspend disbelief here. This huge chase culminates in an abandoned warehouse that has super long stretches of open area. After a quick unnecessary grind down some stairs, and a wrist activated pulse of the jet-pack, our Blade Squad was easily able to overtake a sport bike on full throttle, and stop it just in time from hitting a wall. This is pretty much the theme for the rest of the movie. Really outlandish jump takes, jet-pack pulsing, and very little of the severe congestion and highly populated streets to navigate, which was kind of the reason this team was put together in the first place. I like the off-camera executions from the villain who looks like 1 part bully from Christmas Story, two parts Budnick.
I can't believe it's over.
Wow. Really strange how this did not make it into a TV series. (cough) I see what they were going for, I really do. However, the show set up the premise and the rules right at the beginning, and violated them. It was explained very early on why the team was deemed necessary from the jump, then broke the mold and made exceptions right away. Shannon Elizabeth was a good casting choice for obvious reasons, and the main cast was not.. horrible. If they went a more sci-fi route, doubled down on the tech part, it may have had a chance to be a 90's cheese cult classic. This whole last paragraph was me trying my best to write a serious review about Rollerblading Cops... I appreciate you hanging in there with me on this one.
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