The Running Man Review – The future is Now
Powerful media companies controlling public opinion with tech, fake news stories and Reality shows designed to humiliate the contestants for cash/notoriety and keep the public distracted from real issues? According to the Running Man, science fiction has already become fact
In 1972, a young Stephen King started writing a novel about the year 2025. A time when society is in shambles, air pollution is killing children, medicine is unaffordable, and the government distract the public with reality TV shows where people sacrifice their dignity and risk their lives to earn money and fame. All I have to say is, how did 25-year-old Stephen King get it so right?!
The Running Man is a dystopian sci-fi thriller from Director Edgar Wright (Baby Driver/ Shaun of the Dead series) starring Glen Powell in the role of protagonist Ben Richards. It’s based on the original book by Stephen King, which he published in 1982 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman
Ben Richards has a sick daughter and can’t afford the medication, as he has been blacklisted from any meaningful work due to his constant conflict with employers. He’s unable to sit by and let his colleagues suffer or get ill in subpar working conditions. And with his wife working as a hostess in a questionable establishment, he is left with no option but to join the long line of society’s most desperate on a dangerous reality show.
While there are many options to choose from in this long line of car crash TV, The Running Man is the most lucrative and also the most dangerous. Contestants must survive 30 days while being pursued by hunters out to kill them. They receive $1,000 each day they survive, plus a bonus if they manage to kill any hunters. There is also a cash incentive provided for regular citizens to provide relevant information that leads to the capture or elimination of the target.
If you are of a certain age or particular generation, you would have grown up considering the Arnold Schwarnegger 1987 movie a classic. So your first question would be why would they remake it, closely followed by how does it compare to the original. I’ll try to answer both questions. Firstly, having watched this new version, I support the remake. Not because there was anything wrong with the Arnie version. But I can imagine, as a creative, Stephen King would want a cinematic version that actually bore more resemblance to his book.
While the ideas and themes are similar and some characters bare the same name, the 1987 movie does really feel like a different story to the one King was telling, right down to the lead. Arnie’s musclebound, almost super soldier-like Ben Richards (who is betrayed for trying to do the right thing) is very different to the Ben Richards in the book, a desperate ‘everyman’, trying to look after his family. So from that point of view, I feel this remake has a different story to tell.
Glen Powell, who appears to currently be competing with Pedro Pascal for the title of ‘Hardest working man in Hollywood’, does a decent job as the lead, remaining at the epicentre of all the action and mayhem, which is tough as the camera is hardly off him for the whole film. Some might find it hard to buy him as an ‘everyman’ as I am told he is ‘too good looking’, which was further confirmed by the gasps in the cinema at the sight of him hanging half naked from a hotel window in one scene!
Personally, I wasn’t sold on the way the character seemed to float constantly between caring devoted dad/family man and the angriest man in the city. Most of the citizens in the city are dealing with just as difficult, if not harsher, conditions than his family. It’s never really made clear why he is so much angrier than everyone else.
Speaking of the other citizens, there was a slight feeling of disappointment with the way the world felt. Taking the events out of the enclosed space of the original film into the open world would have given a real opportunity to show what the society was like. With everyone so desperate and experiencing hardships, I would have expected people at every turn to be trying to find him for the reward money. The disguises he used were pretty basic (fake moustaches, hats, glasses). They are living in a time that has tech advanced enough to manipulate real events, but cameras appear easily fooled by a fake moustache!?
The original book was set in 2025, but this is careful not to date events, instead opting for ‘the near future’. Seeing how close events are to our current time, it would have been nice to see some more commentary around how people are dealing with the fake news and video manipulations. Are they aware it’s happening, and if so, how do they believe anything they see? These are questions relevant to us right now as the emergence of image and video manipulation with AI ramps up all around us, so it would have been interesting to see some of those questions at last posed or debated by regular people
The action here is slick, fast and fun, with hand to hand combat, vehicle chases, gun fights and explosive set pieces. All handled very capably, but also nothing we haven’t seen before. Of special note is Michael Cera’s house invasion scene, which plays out like a scene from Home Alone, as he takes out swarms of hunters with some amusingly devilish traps. Speaking of the Hunters, these are 6 highly trained masked mercenaries tasked with killing the contestants. This is the first main area where I preferred the original.
The Stalkers in the original film were characters with names like Buzzsaw and Cyclon; they were fan favourites, and each battle with Richards was like a computer game level where he had to use different skills to defeat them. And let’s not forget the cheesy one-liners each time he eliminated one of them. The Hunters in this film were a pale comparison and felt like a couple of generic ‘bros’ just doing a job for a paycheck, with no real investment.
As an adaptation of Stephen King’s work, Edgar Wright’s 2025 The Running Man is a more complete package with rounded performances, elaborate set pieces, and a storyline that is much more faithful to the source material. This is certainly an enjoyable action package. But at the same time, even though it opened up the world much more than Arnie’s more claustrophobic film, somehow the ‘Game’ didn’t feel enough like a game, the streets didn’t feel alive or really desperate, and the tech didn’t feel futuristic enough.
There’s something very middle of the road about the whole film, which, while it won’t offend, won’t win any points for being memorable. It seemed to lack any big, bold ideas. When I heard the Running Man would be out in the streets, I imagined Tom Cruise in Minority Report- facial augmentation, jet packs, sky motorways, live billboards and advertising that follows you around and a real threat that absolutely anyone could grab him or turn him in. Outside of one or two feeble attempts, there just wasn’t that sense of urgency here.
I enjoyed Glen Powell’s The Running Man, but I didn’t love it. When I consider how we’ll look back on these films, I imagine that despite its many flaws, Arnie’s film will still be remembered for its over the top action, corny one-liners from Schwarzenegger and a few cheesy performances, with the ambition to do something a bit bold and different.
It’s possible that in an attempt to ensure Stephen King finally saw his true vision on screen, Edgar Wright played it too safe, not pushing any of the boundaries that a film like this really could around politics, tech or social commentary, to make something unique or edgy, push boundaries with scenes that would have us still talking in 20 years. Unfortunately, I fear this may be forgotten a lot sooner, which, to me, feels like a real missed opportunity
The Running Man hits screens on November 14th
Responses