By George & Josh Bate
Glen Powell sprints ever closer to confirming his status as this generation’s Tom Cruise in The Running Man, Edgar Wright’s exhilarating take on Stephen King’s 1982 novel.
Set in the near-future, The Running Man follows Ben Richards (Glen Powell), a man desperate to earn enough money to pay for medication to help his sick daughter. When he runs out of other options, Richards is convinced to participate on The Running Man, the top-rated show on television which tasks contestants with surviving for 30 days while being hunted by professional assassins.
Edgar Wright has helmed creative, witty, and entertaining films for over 20 years but none as grand and large-scale as The Running Man. Although Baby Driver saw the English director dabble in action more overtly than ever, Wright’s latest effort is unabashedly and undoubtedly a full-fledged action flick. A filmmaker of Wright’s ability confidently welcomes this challenge, filling his film with a slew of expertly crafted action sequences, brought to life with meticulous shot composition and dynamic camera movement. Viewers merely seeking a rollicking, throwback action film need to look no further as The Running Man checks every box for the most bloodthirsty of moviegoers.
Despite sporting plenty of impressive action, however, The Running Man lacks Wright’s distinctive style, in turn feeling like the least Edgar Wright-y movie Edgar Wright has ever made. Unlike the experiences of watching his previous efforts, including the more subversive Last Night in Soho, one wouldn’t know that The Running Man is an Edgar Wright movie if you didn’t know beforehand or weren’t paying attention to the credits. The film is almost entirely devoid of the punchy, dry wit of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, while also lacking in the frenetic editing and energy of those movies. Instead, it plays more so like a standard action movie – one that is more competently and artistically made than the average action movie, but a fairly nondescript action movie nonetheless.
The lack of Wright’s trademark flair aside, The Running Man proves to be an undeniably entertaining watch for much of its runtime. The first two acts in particular propel forward with a pace and energy that matches the physical limits Glen Powell’s Ben Richards is pushed to. The film adopts an interesting, almost vignette-like structure that sees Richards team-up with one character after another as he attempts to flee from those hunting him. The story hops from one team-up to the next, all of which vary in setting, character personalities, and, most importantly, the opportunities for action that they present. The downside, unfortunately, of this structure is that interesting characters, in particular Michael Cera’s zany revolutionary Elton, play disappointingly limited roles before being shelved in favor of another character for Richards to team-up with.
With a deft attention to tone, Edgar Wright and his co-writer Michael Bacall ensure that these team-ups and the overarching film that surrounds them remains as fun as possible. The dystopian future setting and desperation of Powell’s character could easily lend themselves to a film far darker and more solemn than what Wright eventually lands on. Evoking the very best of action movie performances by Tom Cruise, Powell plays the infallible Richards with remarkable sincerity and emotion, almost always fighting back tears whenever he thinks or speaks of his family he so desperately cares for. But the surrounding film, including Colman Domingo’s eccentric gameshow host and Josh Brolin’s network producer, is so lively and having so much fun with itself. The result is a film that unwaveringly retains its stakes and emotional weight, largely through Powell’s committed and, at times, bonkers performance, while never losing sight of the fun that it is to be had from this premise.
After two acts of such unrelenting entertainment, The Running Man frustratingly loses steam in a messy and prolonged third act. As the narrative nears its big climax, Wright and Bacall attempt so many twists and changes in characters’ motivations that the film leaves behind what made it so compelling in the first place. The once-streamlined narrative quickly becomes clunky with these changes and begins to drag, so much so that the previously engaging film devolves into dense and even uninteresting territory. This all culminates in an ending that similarly misses the mark and feels like a far cry from the sheer entertainment seeping through every moment of the film’s first two acts.
Despite stumbles near the finish line, The Running Man nonetheless represents a far more faithful adaptation of Stephen King’s story than Paul Michael Glaser’s film. Like King’s text, Wright’s film examines media manipulation, anti-authoritarianism, and, particularly timely for 2025, deep fake technology. It’s a piece of media critiquing our fixation with the media. It’s a violent movie critiquing our fascination with violence. There’s all kinds of meta-relevance to the film. Disappointingly, however, The Running Man never goes far enough with its commentary. All things considered, the film plays things fairly safe with its messaging, which, while aligned with King’s book, feels like a missed opportunity given the increasing relevance of its themes to modern America.
VERDICT: 6.5/10
The Running Man is an exhilarating, vibrant, and timely action movie that faithfully adapts Stephen King’s novel and represents a massive improvement over the 1987 film headlined by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Edgar Wright confidently takes on his largest-scale film yet with an array of meticulously crafted and dynamically shot action sequences that will satisfy action movie fanatics. The filmmaker’s signature style and flair, however, are largely absent here, making The Running Man the least Edgar Wright-y movie Edgar Wright has ever made. Featuring a true movie star performance from Glen Powell, the film enthralls throughout its first two acts before losing steam in a messy third act and poor conclusion. Themes of media manipulation and anti-authoritarianism inherent to the source material are more timely than ever and are admirable inclusions in a big-budget project like this, although the film never goes far or risky enough with its commentary. The Running Man may not be worth running to theaters to watch as many expected, but there is still plenty of fun to be had watching Edgar Wright operate outside of his wheelhouse and Glen Powell near ever closer to affirming his status as this generation’s Tom Cruise.