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Rollercoaster (1977)
Rate:
7
Viewed:
9/21
9/21:
It's hard to believe, but riding on a roller coaster is more fun than watching Rollercoaster.
There are two chief problems. The first is direction. It's quite mundane; probably thirty minutes is spent on going
through the process before there's some action. The second is George Segal who's miscast. His mere presence dates the movie
a lot. Switch him with Richard Widmark, and there's a very good chance that Rollercoaster would've been
more exciting. Adding Charlton Heston to the mix will be a good idea, too.
A career first to play a villain, Timothy Bottoms is an interesting choice, but his character isn't given much to work with and
has a weak death scene which indicates a lazy wrap-up for the film. He should've planted more bombs around the track just in
case or gone for a bigger bang.
Henry Fonda may be billed, but he's only in the film for a minute total. I didn't recognize the daughter until the closing screen
credits, but it's the thirteen-year-old Helen Hunt in her feature film debut. Who knew she would win an Oscar one
day? And yep, that's Steve Guttenberg, also in his first movie, as the messenger near the end.
A lot of people place Rollercoaster in the disaster genre. It's completely incorrect. The premise
is based on terrorism; therefore, it's a suspense thriller. To qualify for a disaster picture, something bad
has to happen naturally such as an earthquake, a volcano eruption, a sinking ship, etc. Sometimes, it can be dealing
with the aftermath that's caused by others for nefarious purposes such as
Airport and Daylight.
By the way, the Revolution at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, California, is the first ever to showcase a
complete 360-degree vertical loop which occurred in 1976. That's the main ride toward the end in Rollercoaster
which understandably had a lot of people going crazy, hence the golden tickets. It's now a common feature in many roller
coaster rides. They're never circular in loop but rather clothoid in order to lessen the intensity of the G-forces. The first attempt
was actually made in 1901 at Coney Island, but nobody wanted to go on the ride and I don't blame them.
All in all, Rollercoaster is a good remake candidate given the enormous potential.