What a year it has been for Stephen King adaptations. This summer’s The Life of Chuck was a moving and life-affirming story of a man’s life told in reverse. The HBO series It: Welcome To Derry has proven to be a sizable hit, adapting elements of the classic novel that were left out of the two hit film adaptations. This past September also saw one of King’s earliest works, The Long Walk, adapted into a sobering and impactful dystopian drama. The next adaptation of King’s work comes from writer/director Edgar Wright. While Wright is not remaking the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film, his film is a more faithful adaptation of King 1982’s novel. Wright, whose kinetic sensibilities have made him one of this century’s most noteworthy pop filmmakers, aims to bring his stylings to a story that feels more and more prescient with every passing year. While Wright’s film hits on some of the themes that make King’s novel so notable, his latest film lacks bite and, most of all, a consistent degree of entertainment.
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Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a loyal and devoted working-class husband to his wife, Sheila (Jayme Lawson), living in a fascist surveillance state. Recently fired and blacklisted from all corporate working sites after complaining to a union rep about radiation exposure, Ben is broke and desperate to find medicine for his sick young daughter. Exhausting all options, Ben decides to enlist in the dangerous and popular television show “The Running Man”, after being persuaded by the show’s producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin). The show features three “runners”, who must survive for 30 days while being pursued by a group of “hunters”. For every day they survive, the “runners” will earn money with the possibility of earning $1 billion if they survive all 30 days. However, no contestant has ever survived the entire duration. Everyday citizens are encouraged to submit video footage of the “runners” if they are seen and will also get money for any helpful tip. Ben must use what little resources he has in order to fend off the “hunters” and survive all 30 days with the entire nation searching for him if he wants to see his family again.
Directed by Edgar Wright, The Running Man opens with an energetic and spirited first act that effectively lays the groundwork for a full-throttle action film. With hints of Verhoeven-esque political satire and a solid grasp on world-building, Wright has all the fundamentals down, but eventually loses his grasp on the immediacy of the material. There is an undercurrent of righteous anger throughout the film, but even that loses its edge by the halfway point. Wright has cemented himself as one of this centuries most idiosyncratic filmmakers, but his adaptation of The Running Man feels dishearteningly lacking in personality. While an occasional editing tick or comedic quirk appears every now and then, Wright’s stylistic flair is all but missing.
The Running Man also features Wright’s weakest action he has conceived thus far. For the man who brought together breathless car chase sequences in Baby Driver, fluidly-captured hand-to-hand drunken combat with robots in The World’s End and adrenaline-fueled shootouts in Hot Fuzz, there simply is not a great deal of dazzling set pieces here. One notable sequence involves Glen Powell hiding from a masked militia by hanging out of a hotel window in nothing but a towel. This sequence has the best display of suspense, humor and thrills the rest of the film greatly lacks. Choppy editing butchers a close-quarters fight in an airplane cockpit and other chase scenes lack the spatial awareness needed to properly build tension.
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As a newly-emerged movie star, Glen Powell is quite strong, exhibiting a palpable sense of rage. His everyman hero is far from the take that Arnold Schwarzenegger brought and more in line with the cocky, wise-cracking personality of a Bruce Willis character. Powell displays a sense of determination that does help make up for the lack of urgency in the pacing, but isn’t enough to fully overcome those obstacles. It is, amusingly, the third project in a row that requires Powell to undergo a series of silly disguises. Michael Cera significantly brightens up the picture as an ally who shelters Ben in an elaborately booty-trapped house. By far the best sequence in the film, Cera’s presence is like a Molotov cocktail thrown into the rather sleepy second act. Whether it’s using a squirt gun on an electric floor or using tripwires on an army of goons, Wright brings out his most creativity in this sequence that feels like a bloodier Home Alone movie.
Josh Brolin, sneering through a heavy set of veneers, is an effectively smarmy villain. Colman Domingo steals every frame he’s in as the game show’s flamboyant and entertaining host, Bobby T. Domingo nails the satirical approach the film desperately needs more of, getting nearly all of the film’s best laughs. Emilia Jones and Katy O’Brian are both vastly underutilized. Jones, who doesn’t enter the screen until nearly the 90-minute mark, has a character arc so rushed and half-assed, you’ll wonder if there was an assortment of deleted scenes left out.
The original 1987 film was a product of its time, laced with corny one-liners and wacky violence. However, that film had a strong entertainment factor, which is lacking in Wright’s version. Running — no pun intended — at 134 minutes, the film is bloated with too much narrative fat that sags the tension. Pacing suffers as a result, which proves to be detrimental to a film that is essentially one big, non-stop chase. Wright and co-writer Michael Bacall also struggle to pick a cohesive tone. For a film about the exploits of entertainment, it never chooses whether it’s condemning or celebrating its violence. The uneven approach to gore doesn’t help much as some kills are largely bloodless, while others are potent in their carnage. This creates a muddled sense of messaging that only worsens with an ending that strains to put an unearned and tidy bow on the film.
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The Running Man is a diverting enough action picture, but one that fails to live up to its full potential. Director Edgar Wright comes up short in providing nonstop thrills and lacks the kineticism one comes to expect from the filmmaker. For a film about entertainment, The Running Man struggles to consistently do so.
The Running Man is now playing in theaters.
I love this book, so I will likely see this at some point.
I feel like this is a remake nobody wanted.
I’m going to wait when it’s available streaming. But I know I’ll we be entertained.