Edgar Wright's take on Stephen King's 1982 novella drops in 2025, & while that might be down to a neat coincidence - it somehow feels more like yet another hard hitting indictment. Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, an out of work helicopter mechanic with a daughter who desperately needs some medicine he just can't scrape together to pay for. Ben is so desperate that he ends up signing up for "The Running Man" - a brutal live-streamed 'game' where contestants are hunted down by celebrity assassins for some cash and the odd good laugh on national TV. Survive thirty days & you're set to become a millionaire. Die on camera & you'll be remembered for all the wrong reasons - at best a fleeting meme, at worst a sickening spectacle.
This isnt some half-hearted remake of the 80s Arnie movie that we all love to poke fun at either - Wright has gone back to King's raw source material - no cheesy one liners, no glowing (or in this case - invisible) tactical gear for the poor contestants to wear, just drone swarms, burner phones and the fact that its not uncommon for viewers to actually tip off the hunters for a few scraps of cash - and that just makes it all the more sickening because it all feels a bit too familiar - its already been yesterday's news feed.
Powell drives the movie forward: his portrayal of Ben - all rage, fear & a realistic sense of normal life. So when he has a run-in with a casting director, or a desperate heart-to-heart with his sick kid on a dodgy phone screen - you feel the tension pumping away deep down in your chest. Jayme Lawson brings her wife Sheila to life with quiet strength, while Colman Domingo snarls with slick manipulation as the smooth-talking Bobby T, and Josh Brolin walks the fine line between sinister charm & dodgy intent in that tailored getup as Dan Killian. Lee Pace glides through the movie, masked and silent as the main man Hunter "Damon", moving with the smooth, predatory air of a pro at parkour.
Wright shows fine direction skills. The chases are beautifully put together: a mad dash on the subway to some thumping synth beats, a rooftop leap that’s lit up like a hologram show in the flickering lights, and a midnight run through a deserted mall to the tune of Spencer Davis Group’s "Keep on Running". The world around them feels genuinely real: punk mags stuck to the walls, protest art hidden under a fresh coat of paint, and people staring at their phones like zombies even as the blood's splattering everywhere on screen. It's a real knockout: stunning, brutal, and often darkly f-ed-up funny.
Yet the sharper the style the more the blunt edges start to show. Kings novel was a Molotov cocktail thrown right at Reaganomics and the ugliness of the social network. Wright does a great job of lighting the fuse but then hesitates to actually throw the thing. The satire of influencers getting in on the action and the algorithm-fueled outrage is sharp for about 15 minutes - then its repeated and just doesn't get any better. The underground rebels turn up late, blurt out all the exposition they've got and then - Poof! gone like that. The final act then trades subversive intensity for something that feels like its been focus-grouped to death - all about pleasing the crowd and making people go "Yeah thats fine" instead of really making them uncomfortable.
At 133 minutes the film begins to sputter. The early dread and tension give way to a laundry-list of action beats - and the humour, which was usually Wrights secret ace in the hole starts to land all unevenly. I mean a joke about subscriber milestones while someone is choking feels like its been cut & pasted from a completely different film that just happened to be a bit more lighthearted.
Still - it's never a dull moment. Powell does a great job of carrying the weight of the whole film, the set pieces are still pretty impressive, and the central nightmare - the idea that we'd actually decide to monetise desperation and call it "content" for crying out loud - hits hard enough to leave a bruise. When the credits roll you're left feeling exhilarated and a little bit queasy - which is more than most blockbusters can even manage to muster up.
The Running Man isn't the gut-punch that it could have been. It's not a real prophecy of whats to come. It's more like a really enjoyable - but ultimately underwhelming - thrill ride that sometimes manages to take a bite out of the hand that fed it. If this had been a weaker year the film would probably have run the whole conversation by itself. But in this one, it's just one of the best disappointments of 2025 - fast, furious and just shy of being truly immortal.