The Running Man

Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, who signs up for a TV show where contestants are hunted by killers; if they can survive for 30 days, they win a fortune in prize money. Josh Brolin is the villain of the piece -producer Dan Killian - who will go to any lengths to ensure the show's popularity and high ratings.

The 1987 adaptation of Stephen King's The Running Man, starring everyone's favourite Austrian bodybuilder, is a lot of cheesy '80s action fun, but it's far from my favourite Schwarzenegger movie. That said, I'd rather rewatch Arnie dropping corny one-liners while battling cartoonish, colourful, over-the-top villains than sit through Edgar Wright's version for a second time. The tone of the new film feels all wrong - Wright attempts to combine satirical humour with hard hitting violence, but fails to pull off the trick: he's no Verhoeven. He should have either leaned into the campiness, as per the original film, or gone serious and super dark and ultra violent - in attempting to do both, he merely succeeds in making his film feel very uneven.

This new adaptation is also unnecessarily long (2 hrs and 13 mins), losing a lot of steam in the second half. I was willing to give the film a fair crack of the whip, 'cos when Wright is on form he is great, but I really found my mind wandering once the film passed the hour and a half mark. The action scenes fail to get the adrenaline pumping - I felt no jeopardy for Ben Richards whatsoever - and the humour doesn't land (only the Y/Why? Gag made me laugh). I really wanted this to be good, so it pains me to say that The Running Man is far from Wright's best work and will probably be forgotten about fairly quickly (unlike Arnie's film, which is a cult classic).

4.5/10, generously rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Really wanted to love this. I'm a big Stephen King fan and was curious how they would carry out an updated version of the movie. They had me all the until the last quarter of the movie where it felt like they just didn't know how to end it. Scarf girl wasn't necessary and better use of Lee Pace could have made the ending better.

I've never read The Running Man novel, and I thought the 1987 Schwarzenegger film was a fun but forgettable piece of cheesy sci-fi. That's why I was genuinely excited for a new take-especially with Edgar Wright directing. I adore Baby Driver and Hot Fuzz, and I've never disliked anything he's made. While his 2025 version doesn't break that streak, it's easily my least favourite of his films, though still an enjoyable watch overall.

Glen Powell steps in as Ben Richards, a desperate father who agrees to compete on the deadly TV show The Running Man to save his seriously ill child. The month-long hunt for a billion-dollar prize sets up plenty of opportunities for standout supporting roles, and the cameos are a lot of fun. My favourite stretch involves Michael Cera, whose scenes with Powell have great energy and chemistry.

Where the film let me down was in its pacing and surprisingly heavy exposition. For a director known for sharp, kinetic action, Wright delivers a film that feels a bit low-energy and light on set-pieces, especially for a 2-hour-13-minute runtime. The action that is there works, but the storytelling feels too spread out, and the script over-explains things instead of trusting the audience. It also lacks the usual Edgar Wright stylistic punch, which made something feel slightly off.

Even so, Powell gives a committed performance, and the supporting cast-especially Coleman Domingo-brings a lot to the table. The action is fun when it arrives, and despite some characters needing more screen time, everyone makes their moments count. The 2025 Running Man is a great film delivered in an average way, but it's still entertaining and absolutely worth a look, even if it falls short of greatness.

I think that most of us have probably all seen the 80s cult classic Running Man starring Arnold and when I heard that this version was going to be closer to the book which I haven't read. I was intrigued, would it be good? Another remake of an Arnold film like Total Recall, is it necessary?

For me personally it delivered and was the 80s action throwback that I was looking for.

Glen Powell stars as Ben Richards, a down and out rebel working pay check to pay check to provide for his family who gets blacklisted and has no other choice but to enter The Running Man due to his child needing medication.

Colman Domingo is great as Bobby T, the host of The Running Man TV Show, hamming it up all the way and working alongside Josh Brolin's Dan Killian (a shady network producer).

The film was well acted, decent special effects and action scenes and you really felt the weight of Powell's character as he tries to evade the hunters on his trail, lead by their illustrious masked leader (played by Lee Pace).

There seems to be a lot of mixed reviews of this and some outright hating it (Nerdrotic, The Critical Drinker). I think where this stems from is it isn't the usual flare from Edgar Wright that we are used to, does that make it a bad film? No, by no means.

All I really wanted was to switch my brain off and be entertained by some cheesy manly action, did I get that, yes.

There was also some political commentary which I found very welcoming about society, the government, deepfakes etc.

I would highly recommend you give this a shot yourself and don't rely on the critics to decide for you if you'd enjoy it or not.

This is, for 90% of the film, entertaining stuff, but without spoilers, why oh why do so many films feel the need to make endings so poor? I appreciate that for a lot of viewers good v bad is a pure binary, and that an ending has to be clear - but it makes for poor story telling. I think I am part of the target audience for this film, but I wish the film makers would credit us with being able to deal with nuance and ambiguity. The ending felt ridiculously contrived and, almost, abbreviated - for me it undermined what was a rollicking, fun, action film.

Having said all of that, it worth saying I'd still recommend this movie, Glen Powell clearly has fun in the title role. I saw the original when it came out in the late 80's - and this version is nothing like the original, other than very superficially. This film does, however, have a number of references to the first version - not least the picture of Arnold on the currency.

This is well Directed, if somewhat predictable and cliched. The action is unrelenting, and enjoyable. The script doesn't get in the way. Inevitably, one can look at the current state of politics and transpose this dystopian story onto current events - there did appear to be a deliberate slant in this film.

An entertaining movie - mostly.