Edgar Wright’s “The Running Man” is a mess, a laconic, pseudo-revolutionary screed that I hope was chopped to pieces by studio notes because the final result, unsure if it wants to be a romp or a rallying cry, settles smack in the tepid, tapioca-bland center of sound and fury signifying nothing. This is a shame, because Edgar Wright is one of the most exciting filmmakers of his generation, writing and directing “Shaun of the Dead”, “Hot Fuzz”, and “Scott Pilgrim VS. The World”. Even his most recent output, the London-based time travel murder mystery “Last Night in Soho”, while a bit baffling to many, was at least interesting and gave Wright, a known visual and aural stylist, the opportunity to be flashy in the swinging sixties. When it was announced that he would be directing a remake of the Stephen King, by way of Richard Bachman, novel, “The Running Man”, previously adapted into the 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle of the same name, a return to form seemed in order. This story had everything you’d imagine Wright would excel at: high-energy chases (See “Baby Driver”), a lone man raging against an abusive ruling class (See “Hot Fuzz”), and sci-fi silliness (See “The World’s End”). This was Wright getting a budget, a stacked cast with some of the most charismatic actors available, and the jumping-off point of adapting a novel from the King himself. The stage was set for, at the very least, a showcase of Wright’s panache and star Glen Powell’s movie star chops. What we got instead is, sadly, a bafflingly inert piece of overcooked popcorn that can barely make it past the starting line.
Ben Richards (Powell) is a good man with integrity, but integrity doesn’t go very far in the not-so-distant future. He’s lost several jobs for saving the lives of his co-workers in ways that cost the companies money, and is left blacklisted. Beyond living in the “slum-side” of a sprawling metropolitan city seemingly run by the totalitarian “Network”, a TV conglomerate keeping the proletariat under it’s thumb with “Kardashian” style drek and demeaning game shows, Ben has a child at home with an unending fever, a wife (Jayme Lawson of “Sinners” in a fairly thankless role) who has to work at a shady club to make ends meet. Left with few other options, he signs up to audition for The Network’s slate of game shows, hoping to at least get enough money to treat his kid out of her deathbed. But Ben, being an angry man (you can tell because of the silly vein perma-pulsing on Powell’s forehead), catches the eye of an Exec, Josh Brolin, who coerces him into joining “The Running Man”, the most deadly and profitable of The Network’s shows. The premise is simple-ish: survive 30 days without being killed by designated “Hunters” while the entire country can win cash prizes for turning you in. There are some confusing sub-rules that seemingly pop up when convenient, but that’s the gist. Needless to say, once Ben begins his run, the rules go out the window as this regular man inadvertently morphs from hated contestant to counter-cultural hero and unravels The Network’s hold on the populace.
It’s not unfair to equate “The Running Man” as the original “Hunger Games”, a premise that this year’s other Bachman adaptation, the monumentally superior “The Long Walk”, also clearly inspired. We are living in quite the boon year for King adaptations; with “The Monkey”, “The Life of Chuck”, and the aforementioned “Walk” each easily making my top of the year list; each heartfelt and pointed in their storytelling. “The Running Man” feels like it would be a lay-up in comparison, but from the opening frames, there is a sense that Wright, in an effort to give the audience what they wanted, overthought his approach. Ben Richards, as we meet him, is not a compelling hero, an everyman, sure, but certainly not one of particular interest. He’s said by others to be “the angriest man in the world”, which WOULD be something of note if the movie had any interest in exploring that further. Actually, it would be nice if the movie had any interest in exploring…anything. Wright trades the admittedly goofy, yet memorable in its own way, gaudy aesthetic of the Schwarzenegger film for one of bland grey concrete amid a bank of LCD screens and anonymously black leather-clad assassins. There are plenty of allegorical connections drawn to America’s obsession with reality TV, how that has overwhelmed free thought, and has incepted itself into the highest levels of our political system, yet the movie never, ironically, runs with it. Instead, we watch Ben traverse from set piece to set piece, many of which have been spoiled by the trailer, which has more personality in its opening five seconds than the film does in its entire run time. When Edgar Wright is cooking, you can feel it. Nobody has a greater command of editing and music; no filmmaker of his generation has a greater knack for taking genre tropes and amping them to their delightful breaking point. Perhaps Wright was hoping to side-step his usual bag of tricks, but in doing so, he has tied both hands behind his back and crafted a movie that feels Edgar Wright-ish at best and sleepwalky at worst. And, impossibly, the soundtrack is forgettable. God, I wanted to like this thing, it’s just a real bummer that it’s dead on arrival.
“The Running Man” wants to be a populist good time, yet somewhere on its journey, from novel to schlocky 80’s movie to modern remake, it lost whatever made it special. Maybe when the story of a murder game show has been run, reworked, and regurgitated for audiences again and again over the course of decades, its legs will eventually give out. The last thirty minutes of the movie, mostly set aboard a luxury jetliner, somehow eek a minuscule amount of juice from the pallid stone of a lame duck story, climaxing in a zero-gravity gun fight and a final confrontation between a bloodied Powell and Brolin, facing off in front of two billion viewers at home. A tense confrontation, sure, but one done infinitely better several months ago in “The Long Walk,” a movie actually assuaging revolutionary ideas with style, empathy, and power. Once again, “The Running Man” is getting lapped before it even laces up its sneakers.
If you’re of a mind to venture to theaters this week, “Die My Love” is an incredibly intense movie star showcase for Jennifer Lawrence, her best in years, and “Predator: Badlands” returns director Dan Trachtenberg to the world he dipped into with the incredible “Prey” to tell a story on the hostile home world of the Predator aliens. Del Toro’s Frankenstein is still playing on the big screen! Either way, you can save “The Running Man” for another day.
You’ll be glad you did.
“The Running Man” is playing at The Broad Theater and Prytania Theatres at Canal Place.
