Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 56% based on reviews from 112 critics, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The site's consensus reads: "Its dystopia vision is presented with striking brutality and visual splendor, but Rollerball is often undermined by shallow characterizations and a script that delivers social critique without much conviction." On Metacritic the film has a score of 56 out of 100 based on reviews from 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Most major critics were negative about the film upon its original release. Vincent Canby of The New York Times was unimpressed:
All science-fiction can be roughly divided into two types of nightmares. In the first the world has gone through a nuclear holocaust and civilization has reverted to a neo-stone Age. In the second, of which "Rollerball" is an elaborate and very silly example, all of mankind's problems have been solved but at the terrible price of individual freedom. ... The only way science-fiction of this sort makes sense is as a comment on the society for which it's intended, and the only way "Rollerball" would have made sense in a satire of our national preoccupation with televised professional sports, particularly weekend football. Yet "Rollerball" isn't a satire. It's not funny at all and, not being funny, it becomes, instead, frivolous.
Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2 stars out of 4 and called it "a movie in love with itself" and "vapid, pretentious, and arrogant. Not even John Houseman's fine performance as a villainous corporate director is sufficient to make Rollerball tolerable. The only way to enjoy it, I suppose, is to cheer at the rollerball game's mayhem." Arthur D. Murphy of Variety, wrote that it "packs an emotional and intellectual wallop" and that James Caan gave an "excellent performance". Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was also positive, calling it "a fresh, unusual and stimulating movie. In its portraying of the vast and essentially stateless multinational corporations, Rollerball plays off developments which have come since Huxley's and Orwell's time." The Hollywood Reporter claimed that it was “the most original, and imaginative and technically proficient peek into our future since 2001: A Space Odyssey.” Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Monthly Film Bulletin panned Rollerball as "A classic demonstration of how several millions of dollars can be unenjoyably wasted ... this glib fable seems to be aiming at a simplified version of A Clockwork Orange without any intimations of wit or satire to carry the vague moralistic message."
James Monaco wrote that Rollerball "like most paranoid fantasies offers no hope: If James Caan can't beat the system, who can?"
TV Guide gave the film three out of four stars; it said "the performances of Caan and Richardson are excellent, and the rollerball sequences are fast-paced and interesting." Jay Cocks of Time said Caan looked "unconvinced and uncomfortable" as Jonathan E.
Filmink said the film "launched the dystopian sports movie genre and a series of rip-offs (Death Race 2000, etc) – most of which, to be frank, were a lot more fun than Rollerball, which could have stood to be a little less important and a little trashier."
In 1977, Caan himself rated the film 8 out of 10, saying he "couldn't do much with the character."
