The Running Man (2025)
Maybe we're the odd blogger out here, but we didn't enjoy this huge chunk 'o multiplex mayhem as much as we though we would.
Sure, it's noisy, non-stop, crammed to capacity with R-rated carnage, and smeared with a thin layer of social satire we're supposed to chuckle at, nodding our heads in agreement as we admire its cleverness.
Yeah right......whatever.
Steven King's novella about a literally killer game show was written under his non-horror pen name Richard Bachman.....and it famously hit the screen in 1987 as just another in the long line of Arnold Schwarzenegger slambangers......(and oh how audiences loved it when Ah-nuld once again got to spit out, "I'll be back!")
Little did we know that King/Bachman's bleak violent tale would encourage a whole new genre of futuristic dystopian gladiators, egged on by corporate greedmongers feeding raw meat to a bloodthirsty, easily pleased public.
And now, 38 years later, comes this higher-tech, fast 'n furious remake from that enthusiastic purveyor of pulp cinema Edgar Wright ("Baby Driver", "Shaun of the Dead", "Hot Fuzz", "Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World").
To Wright's credit, he wastes no time plunging into the plight of hot tempered yet empathetic workin' stiff Ben Richards (Hunk of the hour Glenn Powell, never more than adequate). Chronically unemployed and broke, with a loving wife and flu stricken baby desperately in need of meds he can't afford, he auditions for 'The Running Man'. It's TV's live hunt-'em-down-and-kill'em game, with contestants always hoping to win a billion bucks by being the last one alive and always wiped out by a team a team of the show's pro hunters. (So none of the sucker contestants ever get their mitts on the dollars, which feature Arnold Schwarzenegger on the face of each bill...nice joke.)
To the delight of slimy network honcho Dan Killian (Josh Brolin, coasting as if he already sensed the film's a waste of his time), Ben outwits, outfights and outlasts one catastrophic attempt on his life after another. Lotsa stuff blows up, lotsa cars crash, lotsa people die........but not Ben. Yay?
After a grueling, punishing 2 hours (for us as well as Ben) we come to an endless grand finale aboard a jet plane where Ben equally doles out and endures even more physical whup-ass versus a variety of assailants. In this one sequence, the film tosses in so many plot contrivances and reversals of fortune, it can barely get out of its own way to reach the end credits.
At long last, 'The Running Man' indulges itself in a typically 1980's supposedly satisfying ending, designed to make viewers sigh with sated contentment.
We left sighing with relief that whole chaotic mess was finally over. This movie looks like it could've been produced by Dan Killian himself as a tie-in franchise for his top-rated game show, coming from a guy who only holds his worldwide audience in contempt......1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2).
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