Edgar Wright's 'The Running Man' limps into theaters too relevant to be any fun

Look astir lately and 20th period subject fabrication has go 21st period fact. Real beingness successful the twelvemonth 2025 — the day successful which Stephen King acceptable his 1982 caller “The Running Man” — involves technological surveillance, firm feudalism, infotainment propaganda and utmost inequality, each things that his communicative astir a grisly crippled amusement predicted. King, similar the large sci-fi authors Philip K. Dick and George Orwell earlier him, was penning a cautionary tale. But the decades since person seen radical instrumentality their bleak ideas arsenic a blueprint, similar erstwhile Elon Musk bragged connected X that the Tesla Cybertruck is “what Bladerunner would person driven,” missing the constituent that we don’t privation to unrecorded successful a dystopia (and that Bladerunner isn’t adjacent Harrison Ford’s sanction successful “Blade Runner”).

The timing couldn’t beryllium amended — and worse — for Edgar Wright to remake “The Running Man,” lone to enactment nary occurrence into it. He and his co-writer Michael Bacall person adapted a reasonably faithful mentation of the book, dissimilar the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger meathead extravaganza. (The lone mode to endure done that 1 is if you ideate it’s a parody of pun-driven testosterone flicks.) Tellingly, they’ve near disconnected the twelvemonth 2025 and lone lightly innovated the accumulation plan with spherical drones. But there’s small urgency oregon outrage. Instead of a funhouse reflector of what could be, it’s simply a smudged reflection of what is.

Glen Powell stars arsenic Ben Richards, a cash-strapped, employer-blacklisted begetter who begrudgingly agrees to beryllium a contestant connected a tv deed that nary 1 has survived. There’s lone 1 network, FreeVee, and its goals overlap capable with those of the authorities that the favoritism betwixt them isn’t worthy parsing. Every time Ben dodges a decease squad, he’ll gain wealth for his wife, Sheila (Jayme Lawson), and sick baby, up to a cardinal “new” dollars if helium tin past a month. (The updated bills person the Governator’s look printed connected them.)

But arsenic ever, the crippled is rigged. The network’s boss, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), and smarmy big Bobby T (Colman Domingo) rally viewers to crook Ben successful for a currency prize, fibbing that he’s a freeloader who refuses to get a job, the emblematic tax-leeching scapegoat trotted retired to crook the mediate people against the mediocre and the mediocre against themselves. One enraged FreeVee-addicted granny (Sandra Dickinson) genuinely believes Ben eats puppies. “She utilized to beryllium a kind, clever woman,” her lad says with resignation.

Clearly, Wright wants to marque a governmental satire that echoes the drivel of our ain existent news. The authorities are determination successful the armored vehicles rolling down metropolis streets and the masked militias retired to nab Ben for the bounty money. Yet we don’t consciousness the paranoia of eyeballs implicit the streets, adjacent though it turns retired that there’s nary mode to disguise Powell’s foxlike features nether a silly stick-on mustache. A hustler named Molie (William H. Macy) warns that the TVs themselves are watching people. It doesn’t truly consciousness similar they are. I’ve felt much uneasy successful a location with an Alexa.

As for the satire, this faintly cruder mentation of close present doesn’t person overmuch bite. Little we spot is surprising, stimulating oregon adjacent that futuristic. Screens blare commercials for a portion called Liquid Death (real) and a Kardashian-esque world amusement called “The Americanos” (essentially real). The film’s sole typical of upper-middle-class normality — a hostage named Amelia (Emilia Jones) — could commercialized places with immoderate Pilates instructor.

When an underground rebel, Bradley (Daniel Ezra), breaks down however the web chases ratings by flattening radical into archetypes, he’s not telling today’s assemblage thing it doesn’t already know. King wrote the quality arsenic an biology activist; here, he’s much of a TV critic. Likewise, Bradley’s crony Elton (Michael Cera) has mutated from a pathetic idealist to a Monster-chugging chaos cause — arsenic if “Home Alone’s” Kevin McCallister grew up to articulation Antifa. Elton’s motivations don’t marque sense, but astatine slightest Cera barges into the movie with truthful overmuch vigor that his series is simply a hoot. Chuckling that helium likes his “bacon other crispy” arsenic helium takes purpose astatine a constabulary squad, helium besides breaks the seal connected this remake’s usage of atrocious puns. From his scenes on, the publication crams successful arsenic galore groaners arsenic it can.

Wright has endowment for casting actors that pop. Domingo’s fatuous personage big is fantastic, adjacent doing the retro moving antheral creation with Kid ‘n Play aplomb. We spot conscionable capable of Ben’s chap competitors, played by Katy O’Brian and Martin Herlihy, to privation we had much clip with them. One of the hunters, Karl Glusman, has truthful overmuch strength that I’ll beryllium looking retired for what helium does next. Pity that the charismatic Lee Pace’s main villain has to walk astir of the movie covered by a shroud.

Meanwhile, Powell is being enactment done his ain trial of Hollywood survival. Everyone seems to hold that he’s the adjacent movie star, but helium hasn’t yet landed the close star-making vehicle. Here, arsenic ever, he’s being treated similar a Swiss Army weapon connected a operation site: Handy astatine a batch of things from wit to enactment to play to romance, but his quality lacks the oomph to genuinely showcase his skills. We’re told implicit and implicit that Ben is the angriest antheral successful the world, but Powell’s innate likability, that cocky-charming heroic twinkle successful his eye, makes him travel crossed peevish astatine worst. His champion moments are each comedy, similar erstwhile Ben slaps connected a heavy brogue to fell retired arsenic an Irish priest, oregon his snappy back-and-forth with a scientist who puts him done a word-association test. (Anarchy? “Win.” Justice? “Hilarious.”)

Still, I missed the genuinely misanthropic pb of King’s novella, a sour bigot radicalized to spot himself not conscionable arsenic a cog successful a instrumentality but arsenic a spoke successful a revolution. There’s articulator work to that thought here, but the movie doesn’t instrumentality itself earnestly capable to springiness america the chills. It’s not just to justice “The Running Man” by however intimately it hews to the publication — and if you retrieve King’s ending, past you cognize there’s nary mode Wright could person pulled that off, though his hole is beauteous clever. But tonally, there’s conscionable not capable rage, gore oregon fun.

Maybe Wright feels the aforesaid mode too. He’s been wanting to marque this movie since 2017 and had the lousy luck to bash it for Paramount successful the twelvemonth that the workplace embraced the authorities and sacrificed its employees for its ain billion-dollar reward. There’s nary bleaker satire than making it done “The Running Man’s” extremity credits, past images of a raised fist that reads “Together Against the Network,” to spot the past words connected screen: A Skydance Corporation. Or possibly determination is, if idiosyncratic makes a documentary astir what Edgar Wright whitethorn person had to cut.