Stephen King’s novel “The Running Man,” a dystopian tale about a world enthralled by a sadistic game show that literalizes the impossibility of class mobility, might have arrived on screen a little too early in 1987. It’s safe to say that in 2025, when the leader of the free world cut his teeth on the ethos of a televised reality show, a new adaptation might be too late to offer any novel insights into society. What was once prophetic now just feels passé in Edgar Wright’s spin on the material.
The British director neuters any political commentary that King’s text might have to offer. The film offers a mix of scrambled signals as it toys with revolution … but against what, “The Running Man” is never entirely sure. It almost feels like a cruel joke to hear the notes of Gil Scott-Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” here so soon after they graced the ending credits of Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another.” Wright dabbles in only the lightest of satirization and commentary, opting instead to blend a multitude of buzzwords about surveillance and propaganda into a contemporary paranoia.
In this near-future, an unholy alliance between the government, the police, and a propagandistic state media network renders power everywhere and nowhere. When Glen Powell’s working-class scrapper Ben Richards finally realizes what he’s up against in the fight to protect his family, it’s not entirely clear to him—or the viewer—where that rebellion ought to be directed. The sense of radicalization proves so amorphous that it’s practically encouraging the audience to kick back and not think too hard about any of this.
In an act of desperation to secure care for his sick infant daughter, Ben enlists as a contestant in the titular television show. This program is a true monocultural event in his world, which now might feel like the biggest stretch of reality. For 30 days, Ben must outwit professional assassins and citizen surveillance while cameras keep tabs on him so a captivated public can tune in for the fun. To last even one week on the show, according to producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), would vault his family into the top 1%.
The baseline level of entertainment provided by King’s strong scenario, which Wright adapted with co-writer Michael Bacall (“Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”), carries the film a long distance. A movie called “The Running Man” naturally lends itself to very kinetic action, which is a house specialty for Wright, having burst onto the early 2000s indie circuit. But signs of fatigue begin to manifest early and come to dominate a third act that paints Ben into multiple corners that can only be exited through explosions or an absurd reliance on deepfakes as plot points.
For each punch “The Running Man” packs in its solid action set pieces, it feels like the film pulls another one. It’s a film led by a director and actor who clearly understand their assignment. Yet Wright and Powell approach the task of updating the story with such dutiful care that they dilute their own core value propositions. Each artist understands their own commodity, and they knowingly dilute it down to fit inside the comfortable box of a genre.
After a remarkable ascent toward the A-list with scene-stealing roles in blockbusters like “Top Gun: Maverick” and co-headlining a disaster movie revival in “Twisters,” “The Running Man” presents Glen Powell with his first opportunity to lead a major studio project solo. It’s a shame that the role of Ben Richards fits him like a passed-down glove. It’s too much scowl and not enough smirk for the charismatic actor, and he never quite figures out how to sell the grizzled elements of his hot-headed character.
Powell comes alive when he gets to hit the streets once the game show kicks off and requires him to blend in for his own survival. Much like in “Hit Man,” Powell dons many different amusing disguises to conceal his own identity. The actor revels in this meta-exploration of his own craftsmanship. Paradoxically, he’s the most himself when ensuring the audience knows he’s playing someone else – the exact opposite of how most movie stars function.
Powell is incredibly capable of performing the action work the genre requires of him, and a sequence built around his escape in naught but a towel certainly proves he put in the time at the gym. But for a film built around Powell as hero, “The Running Man” rarely caters to his strengths. While Wright and Bacall’s script throws him some decent laugh lines, the dialogue still sounds too pitched to the terse register of the original leading man, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to feel natural coming from his mouth.
The right look means little when it’s in the service of a character that emanates from a less comfortable emotional register for the actor. Ben’s righteous, aggrieved anger and agitation stem from a place of raw rage that gradually shifts toward an enemy over the course of the film. Yet Powell struggles to lace the character’s maladjustment with the same magnetism that’s made him such a fan favorite. This, in turn, hampers the ability of “The Running Man” to sell the idea that Ben can drive sky-high ratings among a viewership that views him as a vessel for their own frustrations.
What one might charitably write off as growing pains for an emerging star cannot be extended to Edgar Wright, who fully surrenders his signature visual eccentricity to do boilerplate big-ticket action fare. The film’s alleged nine-figure budget marks a major milestone for the director, who called out “The Running Man” as the one film he’d be keen to remake on Twitter back in 2017. But it takes the emergence of Michael Cera, the headliner of Wright’s 2010 film “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” to prompt any reminder of out-of-the-box staging that put the director on the map.
The film ultimately feels like little more than hired hand work from Wright. What he lacks in compositional vision, he tries to make up for in clever casting (Colman Domingo, William H. Macy, and Lee Pace all deliver their best), as well as some simple gags. But like the people in Ben Richards’ fictional dystopia discover, amusing ourselves to death can only go so far. “The Running Man” settles for being good when, if the topline talent had leaned into their fortes, it could have been truly great. [C+]
“The Running Man” opens in theaters on Friday, November 14.
