We take a look at what is being said about Edgar Wright’s latest film that is adapted directly from the original 1982 novel written by Stephen King under his “Richard Bachman” pen-name.
The Guardian: *** ” Wright accelerates to a sprint for some full-tilt chase sequences; there’s a nice punk aesthetic with protest ’zines being produced by underground rebels; and Wright always delivers those sugar-rush pop slams on the soundtrack, including, of course, the Spencer Davis Group’s Keep on Running. It’s a quirk of fate that The Running Man arrives in the same year as The Long Walk, also from a King book: a similar idea, only it’s walking not running.”
The Telegraph: ***** “Edgar Wright’s exhilarating adaptation of Stephen King’s novel could propel the Texan actor into the stratosphere”
The Independent: ** “The eerie prescience of Stephen King’s dystopian source material – written in 1972 and set, of all years, in 2025 – has been wiped from this bland reboot, which also seems to know it’s miscast its leading man.”
Empire: **** “And in Glen Powell’s Ben Richards, Wright finds the film’s grouchy, punchy, ill-tempered heart, a man with serious anger-management issues but, crucially, one who knows how to be both strong and kind. He may not be flashing his million-dollar smile as much here, but Powell makes another strong case for his leading-man, movie-star, action-hero credentials: he is, in effect, Wright’s new Lucas Lee.”
IGN.com: “If you’re trying to make a new adaptation of a Stephen King book that’s also a kind-of remake of a cult sci-fi classic from Arnold Schwarzenegger ’80s heyday, you might end up a kind-of child of two worlds. Edgar Wright’s version of The Running Man aims to do just that, but the trick with trying to hit the center of a Venn diagram is that you might accidentally end up in the middle of the road.”
Variety: “Released in 1987, “The Running Man” was a lumbering Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. You could say that Edgar Wright, the director of the new version, has made it into a decent Bruce Willis movie. The staging is crisp with sadistic timing, the human element rarely overshadows the rigorously staged mayhem, and Glen Powell, as a family man from the lower depths who becomes the survivor hero of a deadly competition show that’s like “The Most Dangerous Game” updated to the age of reality-TV insanity, uses his small darting eyes and buff bod and quick delivery to conjure the vicious spirit that is sometimes, according to the logic of a film like this one, decency’s only recourse.”
The Hollywood Reporter: “Here and there, you can see the director itching to have more fun with the material, for instance in a quick shot of the TV studio dancers that instantly evokes the Lycra-clad showgirls of the Arnie version with their obscene Paula Abdul choreography. But Wright seems almost constrained by a film that ends up neither as compelling nor as deep nor as wildly entertaining as it seems to believe. It does, however, have a cute cameo or two, including Schwarzenegger as the face on the $100 bill.”
Deadline: “Looking back at the original, Wright’s film often seems more like a restoration project than a remake, to the extent that the director has taken a bold step away from the quaint comedy that peppers his British movies. In its place is something a little more anarchic and, at times, even quite angry, and the timing for its U.S. release couldn’t be better. “
The Running Man will be released in cinemas on the 12th November.