The Running Man Review - Glen Powell Shines In Dystopian Thriller That Could've Been Something Special

Glen Powell brings much-needed charisma to this Stephen King adaptation, but with Edgar Wright directing, could the final product have been even better?

Theatrical Release Poster for The Running Man. Photo: Paramount

It's been a surprisingly good year for adaptations of Stephen King novels. The Monkey may have been tonally inconsistent and in desperate need to fully lean into the absurdity and cynicism to make it stand out more, but critics enjoyed it, and the film was commercially successful. The Long Walk was unapologetically bleak but had enough brief moments of hopeful optimism to make it stand out, in addition to featuring both Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson delivering outstanding performances. Now, enter The Running Man, a second attempt to adapt Stephen King's 1982 novel, following the 1987 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell in the lead role, this new take on The Running Man is an entertaining one. However, like the previous adaptation, it should be better than what it ultimately is, especially with someone as critically acclaimed as Edgar Wright as director.

Glen Powell plays Ben Richards, a black-listed blue-collar worker trying to financially support his wife and influenza-ridden infant daughter, living in a near-future version of the United States that has become a dystopian police state primarily ruled by corporate media networks. His need to afford medicine for his daughter results in him attempting to try out for the network's game shows, ultimately getting selected for The Running Man. Ben must survive thirty days avoiding death at the hands of the network's Hunters and ordinary civilians for a chance to win $1 billion and to see his family again.

It should be noted that the cast of The Running Man is expertly selected. Glen Powell may be the closest a human will ever come to looking like a capybara, and your mileage may vary as to how much you feel he fits the role of someone meant to be angry all the time. Regardless, he is displaying a perfect amount of kooky, campy, crackhead energy and charisma to bring to this role, and the film would be worse off without him. Colman Domingo is having a great time hamming it up as the show's presenter, in a similar vein to Richard Dawson's performance in the original, and Michael Cera, reuniting with Edgar Wright 15 years after Scott Pilgrim vs The World, is a scene-stealer in his all too brief appearance. Katy O'Brian, as a fellow Running Man contestant, and Josh Brolin, as the lifeless producer of the show whose teeth are a character in their own right, are also fun, although a little more screen time dedicated to both wouldn't have gone amiss.

However, when it comes to the driving force behind the film, acclaimed director Edgar Wright, the results are a little more interesting. When in form, this man can showcase some of the most brilliant stylistic flair and editing choices you can see in film, but with The Running Man, it doesn't fully feel like an Edgar Wright film, as much as his work on The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, Scott Pilgrim, or Baby Driver. Not all of his style is completely neutered. The day an Edgar Wright film doesn't deliver expertly timed needle drops on the soundtrack is the day that all hope in the world is lost, and the tracks Wright uses in The Running Man, ranging from The Rolling Stones to Tom Jones to Sly and The Family Stone, are all note-perfect. Yet, the film is sorely lacking in the kinetic energy prevalent in Wright's previous work for the most part. There are still some moments where it's blatantly obvious who's in the director's chair, namely a few one-takes and some quirky videos posted by Daniel Ezra's character, but for the most part, this film feels quite subdued from Edgar Wright. In part, it feels more like a bog-standard studio blockbuster than something he truly wanted to make, even if judging from his enthusiasm about the novel on which the film is based, that likely isn't the case.

This also leads nicely to how, despite both adaptations of The Running Man being wildly different from one another, both should be a lot better than their respective final products. The 1987 version with Arnold Schwarzenegger (who has given his film his full blessing and also makes a photographic cameo as the face of the film $100 bill) at the wheel has some classic one-liners, a deliciously campy villainous performance from Richard Dawson, and some pretty decent themes. It also has shoddy production design and poor acting from most of the cast, resulting in a film that, whilst fun, entertaining and campy, never reaches the heights it should be reaching. As mentioned, this new version of The Running Man aims a lot closer to Stephen King's source material, although with a completely new ending in place of the book's ending, which isn't awfully surprising in a post 9/11 world, but still a bit disappointing that Wright and screenwriter Michael Bacall didn't want to attempt going that far. As a result, by sticking so close to the source material, there's less room for Edgar Wright to get creatively bonkers, despite some decent action sequences, especially the one involving Michael Cera and his Home Alone house of horrors.

At the end of the day, a weaker Edgar Wright film is still ultimately better than many directors' best efforts. Even if this film could've and should've been better with someone as talented as him in the director's chair, The Running Man is still a fun time to be had at the cinema in 2025. Even if his style is less prevalent here, there's still enough fun action sequences and enough enjoyment to be had with Glen Powell's performance to make this film worthwhile and watchable to most people.