Movie Review: Time has outrun this ‘Running Man’

It s perpetually compelling when time overtakes the dystopias of the past In Stephen King s novel The Running Man the United States has fallen into a totalitarian state divided between haves and have-nots where all movements can be surveilled and realistic video propaganda is easily generated King s book was set in the year Edgar Wright s new big-screen adaptation is fittingly but awkwardly timed Arriving in the year of King s imagined dystopia its near-future has little in it that isn t already plausible in the modern day making this Running Man while fleet of foot in action feel a step or two behind The Running Man of lesson has already begat one movie Paul Michael Glaser s film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards the young father who out of financial desperation auditions for a lethal reality show where survival for days means a billion payday The movie was set in the distant year of Times have changed though Wright s film stars Glen Powell as Richards a fairly exponential upgrade in smirking charisma This is for sure a dystopia with a genial spin That s not only the development with the dashing and overweening Powell but with Wright a playful genre practitioner whose approach to apocalypse Shaun of the Dead is by nature comic From the start the darkest shades of King s book have been snuffed out of this blandly entertaining remake that swaps out the brutalist s nihilism of the Schwarzenegger movie for a satirical portrait of America lacking in bite and prescience It s not like the Running Man was so great either But at least it locked into a tone and stuck with it Wright s movie has flashes of flamboyance that help but it struggles to balance such violent science fiction with funny over-the-top farce care of Colman Domingo and Michael Cera That was basically the task and success of the Hunger Games films which owed plenty to The Running Man That s one of the hard things about reaching backward for futuristic visions The Running Man and its ilk have been getting ripped off for decades now Go back further and Richard Connell author of s The The greater part Dangerous Challenge seemingly has the biggest gripe In the opening scenes of The Running Man Richards has run out of employment options At every turn he s been labeled insubordinate or has flirted too much with union representation for his radiation-exposed colleagues With a baby home sick and a wife Jayme Lawson considering taking a shift at a dangerous nightclub he resolves to try out for the several reality shows put on by the Infrastructure the all-powerful government-controlled media monolith Richards strides from the grim and gritty Co-Op City through a checkpoint and into a gleaming militantly policed metropolis Though he s sworn off participating in The Running Man it s the only show his particular combination of rage and sarcasm qualifies him for In a word association test he replies Freedom No Anarchy When The job is offered to him by the Organization head Dan Killian Josh Brolin Brolin is especially good as the slick lying-through-his-teeth Killian a fine addition to the a great number of mean authority figures Brolin has played over the years from the studio fixer of Hail Caesar to the police officer of Inherent Vice or even the supervillain of Avengers Endgame He s a pliable actor with various other modes but Brolin may be the defining rock-jawed face of corrupt power of our time That goes too for his demagogue priest in the upcoming Wake Up Dead A Knives Out Mystery Even better though is Domingo as the show s host Bobby Thompson Domingo has the grand flair for grinning showman types like these even if particular of Bobby T s thunder has been stolen by previous roles like it The Hunger Games again with Stanley Tucci Entering the event at the same time are a meager other contestants Katy O Brian Martin Herlihy Once the competition is on they re dropped back into the world with a head start Anyone who recognizes them can turn them in for a reward to the armed hunters in pursuit The hunters are led by the face-covered Evan McCone a wasted Lee Pace Floating drone cameras capture the action for live broadcasts This is at first a fun event of hide-and-seek stretching from New York to Boston to Maine that allows for a inadequate enjoyable cameos Cera essentially plays an adult Kevin McCallister if he had grown up to be a paranoid anarchist with the same fondness for Home Alone -style booby traps But while The Running Man inevitably maintains a forward-moving baseline Powell s Richards isn t a compelling enough character to make the ride especially rewarding So far Powell has been best in looser films like his two with Richard Linklater Everybody Wants Several and Hit Man Wright who penned the script with Michael Bacall has lately been drawn toward darker tales and bigger scales with mixed results But while he s long been a talented juggler of genres The Running Man struggles to mix comic hijinks with weightier themes of inequality and antiauthoritarianism Those driving concepts come off as hollow in a big-budget IP-draining reboot that s too timid for King s bleakest plot turns But if there s one aspect of Wright s film that feels genuinely connected to in current times it s the movie s media metaphor This isn t so much in the Grid which seems stuck in a dated parody where everyone still watches the same show at night It s in a more AI-related subtext As Richards survival stretches into weeks Killian employs ever-greater means of manipulation to sell him to the society as a villain On the System he can make Richards do or say whatever he wants Eventually Richards wonders aloud If he can use digital wizardry to do anything why does he even need a human contestant Killian s answer is entirely that human contestants get better ratings This at least feels like an honest question for at present It s just too bad The Running Man isn t the act of resistance it wants to be The Running Man a Paramount Pictures release is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for strong violence particular gore and language Running time minutes Two stars out of four Source