Nate At The Movies

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

I’ve been hyping up The Running Man since I added it to my watchlist at the beginning of the year and decided to read it for my Adaptation Appreciation adventure. I was even more excited once I finished the book, which was fantastically and horrifyingly written. I figured that Edgar Wright would do the story justice, and he was doing just that…for the first half.

As I’ve become a more avid reader, I’ve clearly come to appreciate film adaptations that adhere strongly to their source material, and the first hour of The Running Man did just that. Every major character was portrayed just as they were in the book, and the first moments of the actual competition were very accurate, too. Glen Powell was a huge asshole, much to my satisfaction, and the Network was just as dazzlingly evil as hoped for. I especially loved Colman Domingo’s Bobby T., who hammed it up every time he was on screen.

Wright’s artistic liberties eventually took over, though, and from Elton’s introduction to the end, the sheer number of changes (and the magnitude of those changes) soured me towards the second half of the film. The ending plane sequence was especially frustrating because it seemed to shirk the original themes and intentions of the scene in the book. Without giving too much away, a certain player shouldn’t be there at the end of the movie! The way that Wright altered the ending for the film was disappointing, and it made what had been a pretty solid movie up to that point a bit annoying.

I don’t mean to say that I didn’t enjoy the film simply due to the changed ending; so much of what preceded it was quite good. Many of the reviews I’ve seen said that Wright didn’t have “the sauce” here, and I simply disagree. The film had a clear and captivating visual language, and his adaptation of the actual game show in his visuals was so strong. There were a bunch of great shots and transitions, so the thought that Wright was off his game feels foolish. From a pure filmmaking standpoint, this was great.

The Running Man was on a great movie’s trajectory for its first hour, but its potential was somewhat squandered by its changed ending. There were certainly details in King’s original ending that wouldn’t work in 2025—if you’ve read the book, you know—but I think the essence of the book’s ending could’ve been preserved for the film with a couple smaller changes. The Running Man was a solid movie, no doubt, but it’s tough to know what it could’ve been after reading the book. You win again, literature.