Edgar Wright and Glen Powell Team Up for a Blunt and Brisk Re-Do of ‘The Running Man’

November 12, 2025

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What if his name were Rudolph, though? (CREDIT: Paramount Pictures)

Starring: Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Colman Domingo, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones, Daniel Ezra, Jayme Lawson, Sean Hayes, David Zayas, Katy O’Brian, Martin Herlihy, Karl Glusman

Director: Edgar Wright

Running Time: 133 Minutes

Rating: R for Officially Sanctioned Hardcore Violence and the Profanity That Tends to Accompany It

Release Date: November 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: It’s time for one of those dystopian futures where a select few are fabulously rich while everyone else scrapes and scrounges through daily desperation. Society is pretty much completely controlled by a TV network known simply as “The Network,” whose slate mostly consists of dangerous and demeaning game shows. The crown jewel of their lineup is The Running Man, in which a trio of contestants try to avoid being killed by either a group of professional hunters or ordinary citizens for 30 days in the hopes of winning a billion “New Dollars.” Nobody’s ever made it all the way to the very end, though Killian (Josh Brolin), the show’s producer, believes he may have just found a legitimate contender in the form of Ben Richards (Glen Powell). Ben initially insists that he would rather just make some quick bucks and then get home safely to his wife and sick young daughter. But fae is asking him to not only emerge victorious, but also spark a revolution. That is, unless of course The Network just fully manipulates the narrative to its own specifications.

What Made an Impression?: I’d Buy That for a New Dollar!: This Running Man is the second adaptation of the 1982 novel of the same name by Stephen King (under his pen name Richard Bachman), following the 1987 version starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. Interestingly enough, I wasn’t picking any of the typical King vibes (Save for a reference to Derry, Maine). Instead, this update directed by Edgar Wright feels more like a spiritual sequel to another 1987 movie: i.e., RoboCop. No wonder, as the dystopian-but-cool energy was strong in that era. And now I shall wrap up my initial point, as this paragraph has been a setup for me to say: I don’t want to live in a world in which The Running Man game show actually exists, though I do kind of want to live in the world where the MrBeast version exists.
That’s Ice Cold, Man: The official story propagated by The Network would have us believe that the Running Man contestants are unapologetically violent, depraved criminals, while their executors are true American criminals. But of course that’s a bunch of b.s., as Wright makes sure to show us the stark differences between Ben’s actual behavior and the Network’s fakery. I would like to tell you that the shameless lengths they go to are totally unrealistic, except that I’ve seen some of the propaganda perpetuated on my own TV by my own government. So I’ll instead say that these moments are occasionally a little too blunt for my taste, though I nevertheless appreciated the message.
Capitalism is Unavoidable: Occasionally The Running Man pulled me out of its invented reality with incursions by real life brands and stores. Yes indeed, there’s a lot of product placement in this movie, including a trip to a Shake Shack and a few other examples that I don’t remember specifically, but I can promise you that they were there. These moments are especially striking when juxtaposed with the fake products on display (like “Fun Twinks Cereal”) that feel more fitting in a fictional dystopia. I don’t know if this placement was a way to secure full financing for a perhaps risky blockbuster movie release, or if it was somehow part of the satire, or an attempted combination thereof. This is far from the most egregious example ever of this consumerist practice, but it did make me go “Hmm” much more than it made me go “You got ’em!”
One Last Hurrah: Before I conclude this review, I want to quickly say that overall, the cast is pretty commendable, especially Michael Cera, whose introduction is likely to catch you delightfully off-guard!

The Running Man is Recommended If You Lust For: The Golden Age of Dystopia

Grade: 3.5 Billion out of 5 Billion New Dollars

‘The Bikeriders’ Review: Looking for Whatever Comes Their Way

June 18, 2024

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Going whole hog (CREDIT: Kyle Kaplan/Focus Features. © 2024 Focus Features. All Rights Reserved.)

Starring: Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy, Mike Faist, Michael Shannon, Norman Reedus, Boyd Holbrook, Damon Herriman, Beau Knapp, Emory Cohen, Karl Glusman, Happy Anderson

Director: Jeff Nichols

Running Time: 116 Minutes

Rating: R for Fist Fights, Knife Fights, and a Few Guns

Release Date: June 14, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: In 1960s Chicago, a man named Johnny (Tom Hardy) starts hearing the Call of the Hog. He then founds the Vandals MC motorcycle club, and pretty soon his motley crew are devoting their entire social lives to the open road and brawl-filled picnics. Threatening to upend it all is a hothead named Benny (Austin Butler), who holds an irresistible pull over the outsider Kathy (Jodie Comer). Everyone tried to warn Kathy away from Benny, but they just can’t help but marry each other. The Bikeriders was inspired by a book of the same name by photojournalist Danny Lyon, so the movie is framed by Mike Faist as Danny interviewing the major players in this subculture.

What Made an Impression?: Just Something to Do: Strangely enough, Johnny never appears to be particularly enthralled by motorcycles. Instead, he seems to have been attracted by what they represent, and even that motivation is rather haphazard. One day, he just happened to be watching the 1953 biker flick The Wild One, which features Marlon Brando infamously uttering “Whaddya got?” when someone asks him what he’s rebelling against. Johnny doesn’t seem particularly constrained by his suburban life as a husband and father (from what little we see of him in that role), but he’s nevertheless inexplicably and unmistakably drawn to the siren song of rebellion. Meanwhile, Benny at least clearly relishes his time cruising down the street, but that love is surely too elemental for him to ever explain where it comes from. At least Michael Shannon as Zipco offers some sort of life philosophy in the form of resenting his “pinko” brother. But that characterization is just as mystifying when you realize that “pinko” to him doesn’t mean “Communist” so much as “attends college” and “doesn’t do enough hard labor.”
No Way to Fathom It: The contrast between Johnny and Benny had me thinking of the yin-yang dynamic between the Salvatore Brothers on The Vampire Diaries. If you’ve never seen that CW bloodsucker series, here’s what you need to know: Damon Salvatore is the dangerous Benny, while Stefan Salvatore is the less frightening Johnny. Eventually, though, in both TVD and The Bikeriders, our initial assumptions get flipped on our head. The analogue is far from a perfect one-to-one match, but the point is that The Bikeriders left me flummoxed by the seeming randomness of its characters’ fates. Some of the Vandals who are perpetually in Death’s crosshairs somehow survive, while others who are ostensibly impenetrable bite the dust, and yet others reform themselves out of nowhere or at least disappear. It’s all fairly believable, but too thoroughly matter-of-fact to leave much of an impression.

The Bikeriders is Recommended If You Like: Laconic conversations, Wild accent swings, Impulsiveness

Grade: 3 out of 5 Motorcycles

Who Watches ‘Watcher’? Should It Be You? Let’s Find Out!

June 2, 2022

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Watcher (CREDIT: IFC Midnight)

Starring: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman

Director: Chloe Okuno

Running Time: 96 Minutes

Rating: R for A Bit of Blood and a Tease of Sex

Release Date: June 3, 2022 (Theaters)

First she was being followed, now she’s being watched! And come to think of it, that watching also involves plenty of following. Maika Monroe just can’t catch a break! In the past decade, she’s kind of established herself as a go-to scream queen for creepy flicks that prey on our most elemental fears. As It Follows demonstrated, it’s no fun to be stalked, and now as Watcher makes abundantly clear, voyeurism isn’t so hot either. It’s also extra unnerving when you’re feeling kind of lonely in a new country where you don’t speak the native language, which is what Monroe’s character Julia experiences. This is a simple fear, and Watcher keeps it simple through and through.

When Julia arrives in her husband Francis’ (Karl Glusman) native Romania, you can tell she’s a little anxious, but the picture doesn’t look so bad at first. The passion is certainly there, if a hot and heavy living room makeout session that plays like the Skinemax version of Rear Window is any indication. That romantic interlude is undercut a bit by the fact that there’s a bit of a Peeping Tom named Daniel (Burn Gorman) in the vicinity, although his peeks into his neighbors’ lives appear to be relatively innocent at first. But soon enough, he seems to be lurking in Julia’s path at the grocery store, movie theater, and pretty much anywhere else she’s hanging out.

With his sunken eyes, oily hair, and slenderman-esque skin tone, Gorman is pretty much the perfect guy to play the local creep. It’s almost like oil is oozing out of every pore of his body. I hope that’s not coming off too harsh, because I also think that Gorman is handsome in a “modest English gentleman” sort of way. But I suspect that he knows the offputting stereotype he can tap into, thus (I imagine) why he accepted this part. Perhaps Julia has similar conflicting feelings about Daniel. After she reports his ostensibly threatening behavior to the police, he calls them in turn to report her for pretty much the exact same thing. Is this all just one big misunderstanding? Is Julia going loopy from spending so much time at home alone and having her mind become permanently lost in translation?

We get a pretty straightforward answer to those questions in the explosive climax, which is quite viscerally thrilling. Although, it all escalates rather abruptly and then peaces out just as quickly, so you don’t get a whole lot of time to process the worst of it. I’m thus tempted to ding Watcher for being a little bottom-heavy. But I’m not ready to definitively do that, as I’m writing this review less than 24 hours after my viewing. Maybe one day, I’ll find myself cooped up in some strange new home just like Julia and wonder who’s watching me…

Watcher is Recommended If You Like: It Follows, Rear Window, Lost in Translation, The thriller subgenre of women being told that they’re losing their minds

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Windows