An Orwellian fall: 'The Running Man' review

Exactly what we needed, another remake from the 80's. This one was confectioned by the eternally versatile, the lord of the Cornetto Trilogy, the spiritual father of Michael Cera, Edgar Howard Wright himself. Indeed, the English filmmaker returned to directing after four years, after creating some modern cult movies like Scott Pilgrim vs The World or Hot Fuzz.

His new project, adaptation of Stephen King's dystopian thriller novel The Running Man, was already adapted into a movie back in 1987 and starred the Terminator himself Arnold Schwarzenegger and had already enjoyed some success. This time, with a budget of 110 million dollars, fan’s expectations were as high as for an Avengers movie.

The best moments of the film arrive at the beginning of the first act. Set in a near future, Ben Richard is ready to do anything to feed his wife and daughter to the point of becoming the new toy of the powerful media that governs America. They push him to participate in The Running Man, a TV show where he must hide from the entire nation for a month.

The film showcase is provided by the very fresh Glen Powell, who, like a young Tom Cruise, manages to perfectly juggle between colorful stunts and dialogue scenes where he restrains his rage. The problem of the film comes later, in fact each second of the film makes the story more and more fragile until it collapses well before the end.

There are not a thousand words to describe the third act of the movie. It’s crystal clear, it’s more than obvious, it’s undeniable: the film gets lost in its story and regurgitates a final act that basically says “Boo Boo Dystopian Is Bad, Boo Boo Everybody Dies, DIES, Boo Boo!” After starting on a foundation worthy of George Orwell, The Running Man stumbles on its many characters and falls head first into a hole of nonsense which looks like it was written by an eight-year-old who has just seen The Hunger Games. It is such a shame that the movie just couldn't keep its ambitious promise until the end, despite all the efforts of Glen Powell and those of Edgar Wright who tries to find meaning in it.

It is a sad fate for one of the most anticipated films of the end of the year which disappointed many action fans but especially the producers after they saw the box-office figures of the first weekend. A film which made the mistake of seeing itself too big, which lost its message along the way and presents a bitter finale which gives the viewer the impression of having wasted their time watching a very bad episode of Black Mirror.