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Glen Powell gets his running shoes on in Edgar Wright's remake - although really a re-adaptation of the Stephen King book - that has very little in common with the Schwarzenegger film. On purpose.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Projector, and on this episode, Glenn Powell is racing to survive
00:04in Edgar Wright's remake of Stephen King's The Running Man.
00:08Set in an alternate near future, Ben Richards, player Glenn Powell, has just lost his job,
00:30and he can't afford the money to save his sick daughter from the flu.
00:34Blacklisted and out of options, Richards applies to compete on a show for the network,
00:38which is more powerful than the government, and is selected for The Running Man,
00:42where contestants have to survive for 30 days, pursued by hunters.
00:46No one has ever survived, but Richards is determined to stay alive,
00:51becoming a face of revolution in the process.
00:54First published in 1982, The Running Man is one of the books that Stephen King first released
00:59under his Richard Bachman pseudonym, which you could basically describe as his angry young man persona.
01:04The Bachman books are notoriously bleak and nihilistic, even for him,
01:08with major elements of political commentary.
01:11Only a few months ago, we had another one of King's Bachman works adapted as a film in The Long Walk,
01:16and it's striking how a story that was originally a commentary on Vietnam and the draft
01:21is eerily prescient in our deeply unsettled current moment.
01:25But that has nothing on The Running Man, where the first edition had a cover with a tagline that read,
01:30and let me use my best movie trailer voice here,
01:33Welcome to America in 2025, when the best men don't run for president, they run for their lives.
01:42Yeah, that's a little bit unsettling to say the least.
01:46King's book was rather ahead of its time when it came to its commentary on media control and manipulation
01:51and violent sensationalism to placate the masses,
01:54things that feel especially relevant in the actual 2025,
01:58with media consolidation and politically motivated takeovers.
02:02Even reality television has caught up with the concept,
02:05with the Channel 4 show, Hunted, basically being The Running Man, but without the death part.
02:11Of course, it's probably better known to many people for the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie,
02:16which is based on the book, but only extremely loosely.
02:20One major difference is that instead of a global manhunt,
02:23it's more of a gladiatorial contest in a contained game zone,
02:27something which was largely down to budget concerns.
02:30I know there's a lot of people who have fondness for the Arnie flick growing up with it,
02:34and I'm one of them, and I cracked out my Blu-ray to revisit it for the first time in many years.
02:39And yeah, it is a flawed movie, and it was so when it came out,
02:43and it does look very dated now with its 80s game show aesthetics.
02:48But it is still quite an entertaining bit of cheese too,
02:50and manages to have some of the commentary of the source material
02:53in ways that feel very forward-thinking for 1987,
02:57like the sequence where the producers use what we would now call an AI deepfake
03:01to construct the death of Ben Richards for the television audience.
03:05But let's be honest, it is one of Arnie's weaker outings
03:09in what was his golden period in the late 80s and early 90s.
03:13Hell, it came out the same year as Preator,
03:15which also had Arnold and Jesse Venturer,
03:18and that movie is a stone-cold classic.
03:21King was not a fan of the 87 film,
03:23and thought that Arnold was nothing like the everyman he envisioned as Ben Richards,
03:27which explains why he was credited under his pseudonym,
03:29even though his identity was known by then.
03:32Another person who wasn't a fan of it is Arnie himself,
03:36who has been quite critical of it over the years.
03:39He's been openly supportive of the remake,
03:41which even has a fun nod to the earlier film
03:43by making Schwarzenegger the face of the $100 bill scene.
03:47A lot of the classic Arnold movies have had later sequels and inferior remakes.
03:51I'm looking at you, Total Recall.
03:54But when I heard that The Running Man might be getting a do-over,
03:57I thought that was a prime candidate to be improved upon.
04:01You know who else thought that?
04:03Edgar Wright.
04:04Wright was a big fan of the book,
04:06having read it in his teens,
04:07and was disappointed by the previous adaptation.
04:10And this is a film that can be traced back to a tweet.
04:13In 2017, someone asked Wright if there was a film he would ever want to remake,
04:18and he answered,
04:19The Running Man.
04:20Apparently, a few years later,
04:22producer Simon Kinberg saw this,
04:24rang up Wright and said,
04:25I've got the rights to the book,
04:27do you want to direct this?
04:28And Wright also co-writes the script with Michael Bacall,
04:31who he previously worked with on adapting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,
04:35and their film is much closer to the source material,
04:38pretty much hitting all the major plot beats of the book.
04:41That's why it's not really fair to compare the films too much,
04:44because despite being based on the same source material,
04:47they're wildly different from each other.
04:49It's like apples and oranges.
04:51Aside from some character names,
04:53the basic premise,
04:54and some themes,
04:55they have little in common.
04:57If you like the Arnie film,
04:59mostly cast it aside,
05:01and think of the 2025 film as a companion piece.
05:05Stepping into the running shoes is Glenn Powell,
05:07and I will fully admit that I've been on the Glenn Powell train ever since Hitman,
05:11where he was so charismatic and charming,
05:13and had absolutely dynamite comic timing.
05:16I imported this from Germany,
05:17hence the different title.
05:18He clearly has got the chops to be a big start,
05:21and The Running Man is certainly a showcase for that,
05:23as he has to pretty much carry the film in virtually every single scene.
05:27Richards is a bit more the everyman he was supposed to be in the book,
05:31who is stuck in poverty like many others.
05:33He's just trying to provide for his family,
05:36but struggles to hold down a job,
05:38even ones working in dangerously radioactive environments.
05:42We in fact first meet him getting fired for trying to unionize,
05:46and he's constantly trying to help and save those around him,
05:49even if it's usually at the cost to himself getting branded insubordinate or beaten up.
05:55It's a little wonder why he has a temper,
05:57and Powell plays Richards with a barely suppressed rage,
06:01a fury at a cruelly unjust world that seems to conspire against him.
06:06When he takes an assessment for the network,
06:08he snarks his way through with contempt.
06:11Anarchy? When?
06:13Justice? Hilarious.
06:15He doesn't want to be on the show,
06:18but that's what he gets picked for,
06:20but he's a desperate man who knows he's been effectively handed a death sentence,
06:25and his resolve to get back to his family and destroy the network are what drives him.
06:31And if you dare insult his wife and kid,
06:34he will kill you.
06:36Powell is immensely watchable,
06:38but the role does ask him to veer between that volatile intensity to more comic scenes,
06:43and sometimes that can make his performance a little inconsistent.
06:48And ever since Hitman,
06:49Powell's taken several roles that require him to wear disguises,
06:52like the show Chad Powers,
06:54which kind of makes it seem like he picks roles on the basis of,
06:58do I wear a fine disguise?
06:59Then yes.
07:01And Powell is amusing wearing an outrageous disguise,
07:04like a bit where he hides as a blind priest,
07:06but that broad comedy can fit uneasily with Richard's characterisation at points.
07:12I also think the 2025 film comes out of the blocks a little slower than expected in the first act,
07:17mostly because there's a lot to set up early on,
07:20as you've got Richard's home life,
07:22getting his place on the show,
07:23set up Killian and the other contestants,
07:25and the rules of the running man.
07:27And even when Richard's is released out of the studio,
07:30he's got a 12-hour head start,
07:32so the game doesn't really start until that point.
07:36That's a lot of ground to cover,
07:38even with Wright trying to make it as pacey as possible.
07:42Because of that,
07:43some elements don't get enough room to breathe as they could.
07:47Richard's daughter and his wife Sheila,
07:49played by Jamie Lawson,
07:50are his motivation,
07:51but they're only really in a couple of scenes together
07:54before Richard's goes out on the show.
07:56In fact,
07:57the whole point is that Ben doesn't actually know what has happened to them,
08:01and whether Killian has actually kept to his word about keeping them safe.
08:05But it does mean that they don't get a lot of characterisation,
08:09despite their importance.
08:12Wright and McCool's script sticks to King's book
08:14by keeping the film very much from the perspective of Richard,
08:17so we see things how he sees them,
08:19and he increasingly doesn't know which way it is up,
08:22as most of his updates come from the manipulations of the show.
08:26We need to experience that paranoia and distrust
08:29as part of the film's tension,
08:31but the downside is that Richard's
08:33is the only really developed character in the entire film.
08:37The other supporting cast members are mostly transitory,
08:40largely in for a stretch,
08:42and then back out again.
08:43There's a road movie aspect to this version,
08:46massively opening up the scale,
08:48as Richard's runs from one location to the next,
08:51and UK viewers can do the Leo point
08:53when they recognise London landmarks like Wembley
08:55or bits of Glasgow doubling for dilapidated American cities.
08:59That said, Wright and McCool do limit things a bit more than the book.
09:04It was global there,
09:05whereas the film just keeps it to America,
09:07with Richard's trying to cross into Canada being a plot point later on,
09:11and let's be honest,
09:13America's plenty big enough already.
09:16You could definitely make the argument
09:17that the more contained approach of the 87 film
09:20made for a more focused story,
09:22even if it lacked in scope,
09:23but the 2025 film is sprawling and ambitious,
09:27that it rarely sticks around too long,
09:30keeps things fresh,
09:31despite the drawbacks.
09:32Wright knows that he has to make the episodic structure work
09:35by filling the film top to bottom
09:37with lots of recognisable character actors in his usual style,
09:40some better utilised than others.
09:42For example,
09:43William H. Macy is largely squandered as a friend of Richard's,
09:47running an underground shop
09:48that provides him with his disguises.
09:50Katie O'Brien and Please Don't Destroy's Martin Hurley
09:53play Richard's fellow contestants,
09:55who are a wild card and comically hopeless respectively,
09:58but they're mostly only briefly glimpsed on the show.
10:02On the other hand,
10:03Scott Pilgrim himself,
10:04Michael Cera pops up as Revolutionary Elton,
10:07who gives Richard's a safe house,
10:09and Sarah absolutely steals this film
10:12in his roughly 10 minutes of screen time.
10:14That whole sequence is by far its biggest standout,
10:17from a crazed Sandra Dickinson as his brainwashed mother
10:20to the Home Alone style booby traps of A&The Bad Guys,
10:24and Sarah's playing this
10:25like he's completely out of his mind,
10:27getting a morgue about his dad's hot dog cart.
10:30He's absolutely hilarious,
10:33and it has the invention that we've come to expect from Wright.
10:36In fact, I'd say the film really comes to life
10:38during the action sequences,
10:40and it's around the time of the long set piece in the YWA,
10:43about 40 minutes or so in,
10:45where the film started to click for me.
10:48Those are the parts of the film
10:49where you can really feel Wright's presence,
10:51from a continuous shot running through the halls,
10:53a clever gag with a broken lift,
10:55the Y gag.
10:57They're all reminders of just how good Wright is at staging action,
11:01but mixing in a bit of comedy.
11:04Pow even gets to have a bona fide die-hard moment
11:07sneaking around the hunters
11:08and skating down the building in a towel,
11:10and John McClane thought he had it rough in bare feet,
11:13all of which gives Pow plenty to prove himself
11:16as an action hero with rippling abs.
11:18So you've got something for everyone there.
11:21And luckily, those action moments are fairly frequent,
11:23because they remind you you're watching an Edgar Wright film,
11:26because I did feel that this sometimes lacked his usual flair.
11:30I'm not sure why.
11:32Maybe Wright just toned himself down
11:33because he didn't want to get in the way of King's story.
11:36Maybe it's because it's his biggest studio film to date,
11:40or maybe also because this was made very fast
11:43for a film of its size,
11:45going from filming to completion in just a year.
11:47I know he's more in the hyperkinetic energy of the Cornetto films,
11:51but Last Night in Soho still felt like a Wright film,
11:54despite being a departure.
11:56You go to an Edgar Wright film
11:57because he has such a distinctive voice in his direction,
12:00and it is still here.
12:02I just wished it was a little bit more on display.
12:06But maybe his voice is more in the way
12:08that it adapts the material.
12:10Wright and McCool's script tries to faithfully bring to the screen
12:12King's brutal dystopia,
12:14but also mixes in a bit of action comedy to bring a bit of levity
12:18because this is a Friday night popcorn movie after all.
12:21As I said earlier,
12:22this does lead to a bit of an uneasy balance at times
12:25when it comes to the film's tone,
12:27as it can shift back and forth quite quickly.
12:30But I think Wright really connects with the satire,
12:33especially when it comes to the running man show itself
12:35and the manipulation of media,
12:38particularly the way it can be weaponized
12:40to turn people against each other.
12:41Josh Brolin plays the show's producer Killian,
12:44and I've tried to avoid comparing,
12:46but it's hard not to think of Family Feud host
12:49Richard Dawson's performance in the 1987 film
12:51deliciously playing an evil version of himself
12:54that easily steals the film from Arnold.
12:57Brolin doesn't scale those heights,
12:59but he's not supposed to.
13:01This incarnation of Killian
13:02is much more of a behind-the-scenes figure,
13:05preferring to keep out of the cameras,
13:07but he's always pulling the strings
13:09from the safety of his office,
13:10sometimes appearing by video message.
13:13We might not see Killian as much here,
13:15but his presence is often felt.
13:18Brolin makes the most out of his screen time,
13:20particularly in a lengthy first interview with Richard
13:23and his veneered teeth,
13:24making him a truly vile, soulless executive
13:27who is all business and believes he's untouchable.
13:31You really want Richard to make good on his threat
13:33to fuck him up and get his comeuppance.
13:37But the Dawson role from the earlier film
13:39merged several characters from the book together,
13:41so this brings in host Bobby Thompson,
13:44or Bobby T as he goes by here,
13:46from King Sauce,
13:47who is the public face of the show.
13:50Coleman Domingo is clearly having a way of a time
13:53getting to toast the hammer up for the crowd
13:55as a host who is keenly aware he's complicit
13:58in the lies and deceit,
13:59but hey, that's show business, baby.
14:02Gotta give the crowd what they want,
14:03and as long as he gets paid, that's just fine.
14:07Lee Pace is the lead hunter, Evan McCone,
14:09and Pace manages to make him a memorable figure
14:11despite spending almost the entire time
14:13with his face covered in a mask and sunglasses.
14:16In fact, the mask has little holes for the sunnies to sit in,
14:20which is a nice touch.
14:21But even though he's effectively faceless,
14:24he still cuts an intimidating presence,
14:27mostly performing with his physicality and gestures.
14:29And again, I know I keep saying that I won't do comparisons,
14:34but there was definitely a part of me
14:36that did miss how the stalkers,
14:38as they were called in the 87 flick,
14:40were memorably over-the-top caricatures,
14:43clearly inspired by professional wrestling.
14:45McCone in the 2025 film is largely the figurehead,
14:49and the others are mostly literal goon squads here,
14:52but I get it,
14:53because there's already a lot of characters.
14:56Still kind of miss them though,
14:58But Wright really sinks his teeth into the satire
15:01on class division, media suppression,
15:03and surveillance culture.
15:04This is a game where the public is actively encouraged
15:07to find and report the contestants,
15:09and even actively try to hunt them down.
15:12Although there's even class division there,
15:14because Killian wants the show's featured hunters
15:16to get the kills.
15:18The idea of people pulling out their phones
15:20to film strangers in public,
15:22judging and policing their behaviour,
15:24is something we're already seeing.
15:26And dystopian sci-fi is meant to be a funhouse mirror
15:29at the times they were made in,
15:30and it speaks to the perceptiveness of the source material
15:33that it wasn't too far off the mark already,
15:36and Wright only makes it more relevant.
15:39There's definitely a Verhoeven-like edge to the material,
15:42particularly in the way the show is presented,
15:43and the in-universe product placements,
15:46or the stabs at reality television.
15:48There's a recurring gag about a show called The Americanos,
15:52which is clearly a send-up of the Kardashians and Real Housewives,
15:56made even funnier by the fact
15:58that it's not even that much of an exaggeration.
16:01It's only marred by having some actual product placements mixed in,
16:05like Liquid Death, Monster, and Puma,
16:08despite the overall anti-capitalist message.
16:11There was already some of that satire in the 87 film,
16:14and that came out in the same era as Robocop,
16:16and those very much reflect the mood of the late 80s Reagan era that they came out in.
16:22I think it's telling that we're getting all these Bachman adaptations
16:25or other recent movies with revolutionary fervour,
16:28like one battle after another,
16:30they hit the spot for the political mood right now.
16:34But Rice and Bacall really run with commentary on AI in particular,
16:38pun completely intended there,
16:40something which was already a theme in the book,
16:42but is especially contemporary now.
16:44Killian is constantly altering the narrative
16:47to make everything more sensational
16:48and to whip up the bloodlust of his viewers,
16:51to turn them against their fellow citizens
16:53and keep them controlled.
16:55It creates a landscape which is hard to work out
16:57what the truth even is
16:59because everything is so distorted by the network.
17:02And the film isn't subtle about this stuff,
17:05but you know what?
17:06These are unsubtle times,
17:08so I don't really care.
17:10Occasionally our sophistication with these ideas
17:12does mean that the plotting retained from the book,
17:15where this was more speculative,
17:16can work against it.
17:18Like Rich is recording a message about a cover-up with pollution
17:21and then being surprised that he's not just censored,
17:24but he's now saying inflammatory remarks
17:26that he never said in the first place.
17:28Him just expecting them to play out his expose on the air uncut
17:32just makes him look very naive.
17:35Speaking of that though,
17:36Rice and Bacall,
17:37because they're playing with an alternate timeline,
17:39rather than updating all the agronistic elements of a book
17:43that was published in the 80s,
17:44have chosen to keep some of them in.
17:46Specifically that Richards has to record
17:48what is basically a 10-minute vlog every day
17:51and then physically post it to the studio
17:53and try not to get caught doing it.
17:56Otherwise, he forfeits the prize money.
17:58And he records these not with a phone,
18:01but with a portable camera on tape.
18:03This is all clearly done on purpose,
18:06so there isn't a specific time or setting,
18:08but also it kind of contributes
18:10to a bit of an analogue versus digital theme
18:12running through it.
18:14Killian and the network control
18:15all this increasingly advanced technology,
18:17whereas the Resistance use a lot of traditional media
18:20to keep underground,
18:22like Elton publishing a zine called The Truth,
18:25or Sly Projectors,
18:26all these kind of lo-fi solutions.
18:29Daniel Ezra plays Bradley,
18:30who lets Richards stay at his place,
18:32where he's making what are basically send-ups
18:34of obsessive YouTube essays,
18:36exposing the lies of the network,
18:38trying to make these exposition dumps into gags,
18:41but he's circulating them on tapes
18:43like they're MST3K bootlegs.
18:46The movie has to take Richards
18:47from public enemy number one
18:48to the face of a revolution in two hours,
18:51but he reluctantly starts to accept
18:53that his survival gives people the hope to fight back.
18:57It's something that mostly lands,
18:59better than Arnie's movie,
19:00where it happens in just a night,
19:02but it is still a little rushed.
19:04Amelia Jones turns up in the film's third act
19:06as Amelia,
19:07a consumerist Americanos fan
19:09that Richards takes hostage,
19:11whose own worldview is challenged
19:12now that she's involved in the game
19:14and sees the distortions for herself.
19:17Amelia is meant to represent the change in Richards
19:19among the people,
19:20but it still feels a little bit weird
19:22to have a major character pop up so late
19:24and then play a significant role in the film's climax.
19:28But hey,
19:28that is exactly how it is in the book as well.
19:31Ironically,
19:31like many King books,
19:33the scale of it means that it probably needed
19:35the runtime of television
19:37to give the material the space that it truly needs.
19:40Speaking of which,
19:41the ending is one area
19:43where it massively differs from the book,
19:45namely because the book's ending
19:46is completely unadaptable after September 11th.
19:49Even now,
19:51that ain't gonna fly.
19:52Let's just put it that way.
19:54Wright and Bakul get as close as they can to it,
19:57but then they have to do their own wrap-up.
19:59It's a conclusion that ties up the loose ends
20:02and gives people a crowd-pleasing ending,
20:04but it feels quite rushed into the last few minutes,
20:07not helped by a Bradley exposition dump,
20:10which is trying to be playful,
20:12but just comes across as clumsy.
20:15If you had to invent a new ending,
20:17it's not a bad one,
20:18but it just needed more room
20:20for the catharsis to land.
20:23I know this review has been quite mixed,
20:25so I want to be clear.
20:26I really liked the 2025 Running Man
20:29and had a lot of fun with it.
20:30It's a better adaptation
20:31and it's a better made film than its pre-assessor,
20:35in my opinion,
20:36but it isn't a perfect film.
20:38And I know for certain
20:39that some people will prefer the Arnie movie,
20:41and hey, that's fine too.
20:43I like both for different reasons.
20:46I will admit that my expectations for this were quite high,
20:49so that's probably why I'm a bit nitpicky.
20:52And this is a big, enjoyable blockbuster,
20:54but I also think that it's so big
20:56from what it's trying to adapt
20:57that it almost threatens to overwhelm, right?
21:01That said, this gets a lot right,
21:03and that so much of the commentary
21:04from the book has survived into the film especially,
21:07even if I do think the long walk
21:09is the superior of the two.
21:11And yes, the irony hasn't escaped me
21:13that this is being released
21:14by Paramount of all companies,
21:16and their new owners at Skydance
21:18and the Ellisons,
21:19who have made headlines this year
21:21for being exactly the kind of media company
21:23that this is trying to send up.
21:26I do think this is Edgar Wright's weakest film today.
21:28I know Last Night in Soho was divisive,
21:30but I still enjoyed that film quite a bit,
21:33and he hasn't made a film yet
21:34that I haven't liked.
21:36But I would like to see Wright
21:37maybe doing something a bit smaller
21:39or back to basics next time,
21:41because his direct-to-all voice
21:43is too important to lose to the network,
21:46if you know what I mean.
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22:09Until next time,
22:10I'm Matthew Buck,
22:12feeding out.
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