Running Man

Really wanted to love this. I'm a big Stephen King fan and was curious how they would carry out an updated version of the movie. They had me all the until the last quarter of the movie where it felt like they just didn't know how to end it. Scarf girl wasn't necessary and better use of Lee Pace could have made the ending better.

This is, for 90% of the film, entertaining stuff, but without spoilers, why oh why do so many films feel the need to make endings so poor? I appreciate that for a lot of viewers good v bad is a pure binary, and that an ending has to be clear - but it makes for poor story telling. I think I am part of the target audience for this film, but I wish the film makers would credit us with being able to deal with nuance and ambiguity. The ending felt ridiculously contrived and, almost, abbreviated - for me it undermined what was a rollicking, fun, action film.

Having said all of that, it worth saying I'd still recommend this movie, Glen Powell clearly has fun in the title role. I saw the original when it came out in the late 80's - and this version is nothing like the original, other than very superficially. This film does, however, have a number of references to the first version - not least the picture of Arnold on the currency.

This is well Directed, if somewhat predictable and cliched. The action is unrelenting, and enjoyable. The script doesn't get in the way. Inevitably, one can look at the current state of politics and transpose this dystopian story onto current events - there did appear to be a deliberate slant in this film.

An entertaining movie - mostly.

People might say that it's a good popcorn movie, but I gotta say that a good popcorn movie is still a good movie. Glen has done a great job on acting.

As you know, the story is from Stephen King so it has some sort of guarantee that the plot wasn't gonna be that bad. In fact, i view that it is quite good even though there is a lack of depth in some part. Still, for a two hour movie, it has done a pretty great job on capturing the story. Although in some scenes, it's quite prolonging.

This movie is surely fulfilling the criteria of whatever action movie should have. There's an excitement as it will make you rooting for the runners. Some scenes may be predictable, but it is not easy as it seems. So just go watch it, it won't disappoint you.

Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, who signs up for a TV show where contestants are hunted by killers; if they can survive for 30 days, they win a fortune in prize money. Josh Brolin is the villain of the piece -producer Dan Killian - who will go to any lengths to ensure the show's popularity and high ratings.

The 1987 adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man, starring everyone's favourite Austrian bodybuilder, is a lot of cheesy '80s action fun, but it's far from my favourite Schwarzenegger movie. That said, I'd rather rewatch Arnie dropping corny one-liners while battling cartoonish, colourful, over-the-top villains than sit through Edgar Wright's version for a second time. The tone of the new film feels all wrong - Wright attempts to combine satirical humour with hard hitting violence, but fails to pull off the trick: he's no Verhoeven. He should have either leaned into the campiness, as per the original film, or gone serious and super dark and ultra violent - in attempting to do both, he merely succeeds in making his film feel very uneven.

This new adaptation is also unnecessarily long (2 hrs and 13 mins), losing a lot of steam in the second half. I was willing to give the film a fair crack of the whip, 'cos when Wright is on form he is great, but I really found my mind wandering once the film passed the hour and a half mark. The action scenes fail to get the adrenaline pumping - I felt no jeopardy for Ben Richards whatsoever - and the humour doesn't land (only the Y/Why? Gag made me laugh). I really wanted this to be good, so it pains me to say that The Running Man is far from Wright's best work and will probably be forgotten about fairly quickly (unlike Arnie's film, which is a cult classic).

4.5/10, generously rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Absolutely baffling that Edgar Wright gets hold of a Stephen King novel and it comes out like his most studio-approved movie yet. Where is the edge? The style? The wit is filtered, the action diluted. Don't get me started on the ending - be bold you cowards!

A few of the sequences save the movie from being completely dull. Cursed Home Alone and the hotel stuff give the movie some of its life, the rest supplied by the actors in top form. Powell, Brolin, Domingo, Cera, and Brother Day (Pace) are excellent here.

It needed a tighter script, clever editing and any idiosyncrasies. Basically, it needed an Edgar Wright who still had things to prove. Maybe he was scared of another Ant-Man scenario? Who can say.

Perhaps it's unfair to judge the film with Hot Fuzz seared into the synapses, but an inherent injustice is thematically appropriate, and I am feeling mighty wronged.