The Running Man review – Glen Powell sprints through fun update of Stephen King future-shock sci-fi satire

<p>Full-tilt chase sequences, a punk aesthetic and a sugar-rush soundtrack, means there is plenty of enjoyment to be had as Edgar Wright goes back to King’s original 1982 novel</p><p>Edgar Wright, that unstoppable force for good in cinema, has revived the sci-fi thriller satire last seen in 1987 with Arnold Schwarzenegger; it now stars Glen Powell and is adapted directly from the original 1982 novel written by Stephen King under his “Richard Bachman” pen-name, a futurist nightmare set in that impossibly distant year of 2025. The resulting film is never anything but likable and fun – though never actually disturbing in the way that it’s surely supposed to be and the ending is fudged and anticlimactic.</p><p>Yet there’s plenty of enjoyment to be had. 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 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cueuoz3IX0Q">Spencer Davis Group’s Keep on Running</a>. It’s a quirk of fate that The Running Man arrives in the same year as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/sep/10/the-long-walk-review-stephen-king">The Long Walk, </a>also from a King book: a similar idea, only it’s walking not running.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/11/the-running-man-review-glen-powell-edgar-wright-stephen-king-future-shock-sci-fi-satire">Continue reading...</a>