Reblogged from: https://thecollectiveexamplesofnerdery.wordpress.com/2025/11/14/movie-review-the-running-man/
MOVIE REVIEW!
The Running Man (2025)
Starring: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Jayme Lawson, Coleman Domingo, Lee Pace, Emilia Jones
Directed By: Edgar Wright
2025 has been the unofficial year of Stephen King adaptations, and it all comes to a head with The Running Man, a new adaptation of the original story King wrote under his Richard Bachman identity. While adapted before in name only in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger, this take also happens to be the latest film from Edgar Wright. The acclaimed director of The Cornetto trilogy has been stretching his skills for some time now, with the heist movie Baby Driver, the supernatural thriller Last Night In Soho, and documentary The Sparks Brothers, but Running Man finds Wright returning to the adaptation game, breathing new life into the unintentionally prophetic novel about a futuristic dystopian game show where ordinary people try to escape their fellow man in hopes of winning a billion dollar prize. King’s story is full of anger and disdain for the way entertainment brings out the worst in us, and Wright (with new Hollywood “it boy” Glen Powell), brings us another fantastic King adaptation in a year full of some really great ones. But it comes with a price: his signature style.
Following the original story far more than the 1987 film, Running Man finds Ben Richards (Powell), as a lowly out of work government construction worker trying to feed his family. After being blacklisted from every job in town, he’s desperate for money to help care for his ailing daughter. Begrudgingly, and against his wife’s (Jayme Lawson) wishes, he heads to The Freevee Network, which controls all media, to partake in one of their game shows. After witnessing his rage in the lobby, executive Dan Killian (a wonderfully smarmy Josh Brolin) convinces him to take part in The Running Man, their highest rated show with the biggest prize payout. In order to win a billion dollars, Richards has to survive 30 days on the run from the network’s hunters and ordinary citizens, who get cash prizes for turning him in or sending in tips on his whereabouts. With no options left and his family on the line, Richards reluctantly agrees, and the game is on.
As a Stephen King adaptation, The Running Man is easily one of the most faithful to the original novel. In fact, the story is so straightforward that up until the finale that I was honestly expecting them to actually do the novel’s original ending, which would have been a majorly controversial avenue to take. Wright obviously updates aspects of the story that need it, but for the most part this is the same story King wrote over forty years ago. The depictions of reality TV in that story were almost prophetic at this point, and the skewering of our modern landscape insane contests and inane reality shows are where Edgar Wright is really having the most fun, with really great parody commercials of shows like “Speed The Wheel” and a pretty biting take off of the Kardashians. But as good as those are, it is really difficult to parody reality TV when the actual reality TV shows we have are already pretty absurd. Running Man consistently runs into issues where the jokes it is making about modern TV are tame compared to the ACTUAL things it’s poking fun of. And while this is a movie that shares the original text’s anger about the state of the haves and the have nots, I was hoping that it would be a little more biting. Glen Powell’s able to showcase Ben Richards’ rage really well, but the rage the film contains comes and goes, with fleeting glimpses of Richards’ fantasies of bashing in people’s heads who are higher up than he is.
Speaking of Powell, he continues his ascent to leading man status with aplomb here. Essentially carrying the narrative for the entire film, he walks a fine line of being filled with righteous anger over the hand he’s been dealt with in life, while also being extremely charismatic and fun to watch. Unlike other up and coming stars, Powell is ready to meet the moment here with Running Man, and provided it turns out to be a hit, he’ll be on the up and up for another leading role in no time. If anything, he might be TOO “leading man” in this role, as when he has the inevitable shirtless scene you are instantly like “oh yeah of course this dude is gonna go the distance”.
Powell is also surrounded by an extremely great supporting cast. Josh Brolin’s dark menace as Killian has already been mentioned, and he brings a charm to corporate greed that hasn’t really been felt since Gordon Gecko in Wall Street. His desire for ratings no matter the cost makes him the type of villain that you love to hate, and his wide evil grin is always fun to see when he shows it off (and shows just how well CGI captured it back in the MCU glory days). Colman Domingo has a blast as Bobby T, the showboating host of the Running Man game show. As much has I was hoping for Wright to cast an actual TV host like Ryan Seacrest for the role, Domingo is so fun to watch as his vamps for the audience and helps push the Network’s agenda that I couldn’t help but smile every time he was on the screen. Really the only one lacking in the film is Lee Pace as the main hunter McCone. Hidden behind a mask for 90% of the runtime, it’s a thankless role that makes you wonder if he was even there half the time they were filming.
The big area where Running Man stumbles a bit is in the direction. That’s not to say it’s directed poorly, but it’s lacking the style you expect when you see the name “Edgar Wright” on a poster. Unlike his last adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which allowed Wright to put his style on an existing work, there isn’t a lot of that in Running Man. It starts out with some fun flourishes from Wright (my favorite being a fun sight gag with Richards unintentionally mimicking the movements of a moving wanted poster behind him), but as the film goes on, a lot of Wright’s flourishes tend to go away. I’m not sure if he just didn’t want to distract from the story or he wanted to try some new things, but as someone who has followed him since Shaun of the Dead, it was a bit of a bummer to see him get a big budget movie and let it basically take over. One of the things I love about Wright is that he’s constantly trying new genres, and after doing everything from documentaries to thrillers to action comedies, “big budget action movie” would be the logical next thing he’d want to try. But for some reason the Wright style isn’t here at all, like an inverse of Sam Raimi going big blockbuster with Spider-Man. This is easily the biggest movie Wright’s done in his career, but I get the feeling there isn’t enough here to get newcomers to go back and check out his prior works.
The Running Man is an interesting movie for someone like me who’s a massive fan of BOTH Stephen King and Edgar Wright. I went into it expecting it to be either a great Stephen King adaptation or a great Edgar Wright movie, and I will admit that, selfishly, I was hoping for both so I could have the best of both worlds. That didn’t end up being the case, but at the very least I’m glad it’s here and as fun as it is. It’s a far better take on the source material than the previous one, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t left wanting more from it.
VERDICT: B
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