I finally got to see The Running Man 2025 and man this thing should have been a home run all the way through, you got Edgar Wright directing who made some of most memorable action movies like Baby Driver, you got Glenn Powell who has basically become one of the biggest action stars out there because the guy has talent and has that Tom Cruise vibe going on and you got this insane Stephen King story that feels very nostalgic in 2025 for anyone who has seen the original Arnold movie. The movie delivers on a lot of levels, the action is sick, the world feels gritty and real instead of some flashy sci fi bullshit and Powell absolutely kills it as Ben Richards, he nails both the desperate dad trying to save his daughter and the badass who has nothing left to lose, but the truth is that the movie runs over two hours and it really did not need to be that long, there are chunks in the middle where Ben keeps meeting new people and having these conversations that slow everything down when the movie should be moving like a bullet with constant non stop action scenes and I do not understand why they did not go with this concept, Running Man, never stops running, never stops fighting. I would assume that Edgar Wright wanted to include a lot from the book and make Stephen King happy but sometimes less is more and trimming like 20 minutes would have made this thing way tighter and more exciting from start to finish. I also felt like the script is not as sharp as his other movies either, it does not have that same effect as The Worlds End did, some of the jokes land but others just fall flat. Luckily Powell does so much heavy lifting with his performance and the action sequences that are so well done that it saves the movie from feeling generic, plus the supporting cast is stacked with Josh Brolin being perfectly slimy as the producer Dan Killian and Coleman Domingo bringing all his charisma as the host Bobby Thompson. I really enjoy how the movie does not just make it about Ben versus the hunters, its Ben versus the entire system that painted him as a criminal for reporting dangerous workplace conditions, the game is rigged from the start and watching him try to flip the script is what makes it more than just another action remake.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14107334/
- Platform: PRIME VIDEO
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The setup is pretty straightforward even if its depressing, its some year in the future and America is completely screwed, the economy is totaled and poor people are super poor while rich people are super rich, its basically a nightmare version of our world turned up to eleven. Ben Richards is this regular working guy who reported his boss for unsafe working conditions at his job and instead of getting thanked for it he gets blacklisted and painted as a criminal by the system, now he cannot get work anywhere and his daughter Cathy is sick with this flu thing and he cannot even afford real medicine so he has to buy fake stuff that just makes her feel better temporarily. The whole beginning really hammers down how messed up this world is and how people like Ben are just completely screwed no matter what they do, I know it might sound very much as it is nowadays but the movie tries to paint it way worse, so when he signs up for The Running Man game show where contestants have to survive thirty days while hunters try to kill them you totally understand why he would do something that crazy, its literally his only option left. The show is run by this super slimy producer character Dan Killian played by Josh Brolin who is perfectly cast as this evil corporate guy who will do anything for ratings and does not care about human life at all, Coleman Domingo shows up as Bobby Thompson the host of the show and he got tons of charisma like always but the movie does not give him enough to do which feels like a wasted opportunity considering how good he is. The rules are simple, you have to film yourself every twelve hours and drop off the footage at specific locations so they can keep the show live, if you survive you get money and if you make it thirty days you win, Ben gets money for his family if he wins and his family gets taken care of so its literally life or death for him and everyone he loves.
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Glenn Powell is the main reason to watch this movie and he does such a great job that its because of his performance that he basically saves this movie from being completely forgettable in parts, he brings this intensity and desperation to Ben Richards that makes you root for him even when the script is letting him down with repetitive side characters. The way Powell plays both sides of the character, the loving father who is willing to do anything for his family and the killer who has to become dangerous to survive really works and you can tell he gave it everything he got physically and emotionally, every scene where he talks about his daughter or thinks about his family hits hard because you believe that this guy really would burn down the entire world to protect the people he loves. The action scenes are where the movie really shines and you can tell Edgar Wright still knows how to shoot exciting set pieces, there is this insane sequence on a plane towards the end where Ben has to fight off multiple hunters in this tiny space and its shot so well with all these clever camera angles and brutal fight choreography that makes you wince, problem is we saw most of this stuff in the trailers already so it does not have quite the same impact when you finally see it in context. There is also this part earlier on where Ben meets this character Elton played by Michael Cera who is this activist guy with all this equipment and booby traps in his place and its got that booby trap vibe but way more violent and creative, the Michael Cera character is supposed to be this tech genius with all this equipment in his place who just happens to help Ben at the perfect time which feels super convenient. What really frustrates me is that the movie sets up all these interesting ideas about how the game works and how society is falling apart but then it never really follows through on any of them in a satisfying way, like there is this whole thing about citizens being able to report Ben for money but it only matters in like two scenes and then gets dropped completely, instead of feeling basically claustrophobic just like when John Wick had that contract on him and all cellphones start to ring.
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The hunters who are supposed to be these badass killers chasing Ben down are completely generic and boring with zero personality or charisma, in the original Arnold Schwarzenegger Running Man from the 80s you had these memorable gladiator type characters with crazy costumes and one liners that made them fun to watch even when they were the bad guys but here you just get these blank masked dudes who show up shoot some guns and then disappear without leaving any impression at all. There is this one hunter played by Lee Pace who is supposed to be this big reveal at the end when he takes off his mask but the movie never builds him up properly so when the twist happens you just kind of shrug and move on, it feels like they had this whole backstory planned for him about how he was a previous winner who got turned into a hunter but they cut most of it out in editing which is a shame. The movie also has this weird pacing issue where Ben keeps stumbling into these convenient situations that help him survive, like he just happens to run into this underground radio host Bradley who has all this equipment and information that Ben needs at that exact moment, then he meets this rich girl Amelia who is driving down the highway in her fancy car right when he needs a ride and she just happens to have access to the private plane that becomes important later that you are like come on. Its like the universe is constantly bending over backwards to help him out instead of making him really work for his survival, I know movies require some coincidences to move the plot forward but this one goes way overboard to the point where you stop believing that any of this could actually happen in a realistic way.
The ending is where things get really messy because it tries to wrap everything up but also leave things open, Ben manages to outsmart the producer and turns the game around on them but it all happens so fast that it does not feel earned or satisfying at all after sitting through over two hours of build up. There is this whole sequence where he threatens to crash the plane into the studio headquarters just like in the original Stephen King book but then at the last minute he changes his mind and does something different. The movie also introduces this character Bradley played by William H Macy way too late, like he was suddenly super important in the last fifteen minutes when we have barely seen him before that point, it makes the emotional beats fall flat because we have not spent enough time with him to care about his relationship with Ben or why he matters to the overall story at all. I do appreciate is how the movie makes it clear that Ben is not just fighting against the hunters he is fighting against the entire corrupt system that set him up and ruined his life, the game is rigged from the start and everyone in power wants him to fail so they can prove that poor people deserve to be poor and that speaking out against the system will get you killed. One thing that makes it very relatable to nowadays is the kind of tech they use as in how the producer Dan Killian manipulates everything behind the scenes and the way he uses deep fake technology to make Ben say horrible things on camera that turn the audience against him feels very much like our current world and it would not be strange that once AI gets a real grip to real like video generation we will have stuff like this, the movie has something to say about media manipulation and how those in power control everything to keep people divided and distracted. Im not going to say its a bad movie, its a good movie, maybe even a great one in some parts but it could have been even better if they tightened up the script and cut some of the fat, still worth watching though especially if you are into action movies that actually have something to say about the world we live in right now, I give it a 7 out of 10.
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