Critic Reviews

It’s perhaps Wright’s first feature to feel, in a positive way, like the work of a director for hire: every flourish and trick here isn’t in service of a singular creative vision so much as a great, rumbling excitement machine.

The Brit who brought us such violent delights as “Shaun of the Dead” and “Baby Driver” has just the right mixture of empathy and impishness to turn King’s cautionary tale into a would-be blockbuster with integrity.

All of Wright's movies only get better and better on every rewatch, given the immense attention to detail, and revisits of The Running Man will undoubtedly garner more appreciation for a movie that's already one of the most crowd-pleasing pictures of the year.

Edgar Wright’s biggest film yet feels like something out of both the future and the 1980s: a scathing satire that’s also a lot of fizzy blockbuster fun.

For all of the multiplex-friendly fun Wright’s conjuring with this over-the-top spin on dystopian sci-fi blockbusters, the prevailing feeling here is dread. Most filmmakers would have diluted the grit and genuine sense of moral free-fall. Wright doubles the dosage. Every adrenaline rush comes with a chaser of low rage and simmering despair.

The Running Man does also offer a more anarchic message than we might be used to from our standard Hollywood blockbusters, but that message gets drowned out, leaving behind a loud violent romp that's almost a bit too on the nose for these loud violent times of ours.

Its ending might cop out of the novel’s most ghoulishly prescient detail, but that isn’t enough to completely neuter the rare Hollywood product that dares to stoke our anger rather than mollify it — that reminds us that our rage is a valuable resource worth a lot more than money, and one that we can’t afford to waste on each other.

A lively, satirical stab at modern-day reality TV, scary big-brother technology, cultural dissension and rampant income inequality, all slathered in blood-soaked ultraviolence and bonkers charm. And don’t worry, old-school Arnold lovers: It’s so insanely different from the original movie that you can adore one without losing any love for the other.

The Running Man is such an enjoyable race while you're running it, but once you make it past the finish line and start reflecting on the experience, it leaves too much to be desired.

Wright makes the argument that in such a dystopian, fascist state, there are only a few things that will save us: class solidarity, physical media and literacy. It’s a powerful and potent message that cuts through any and all of the bombastic busyness of The Running Man.