I don’t typically like making posts where I just complain about something, but I don’t have anyone else to talk to about this movie and I wanted to write down my thoughts as a way of processing them. This post will be filled with spoilers for the new Running Man movie so don’t read it unless you’ve already seen the movie (or have no desire to watch it).

As I walked out of the theater, I couldn’t decide if I liked this movie or not. I didn’t love it, and yet I couldn’t point to any specific things I hated about it. After a couple days of thinking about it though, I realized it was the third act that I had problems with. The first two acts set up some interesting ideas, but all those ideas are either squandered or ignored in the third act.

I should mention that I’ve never read the Stephen King novel this movie is based on. I’ve only seen the 1987 Running Man with Schwarzenegger so that’s what I’ll be comparing it to. Also, I have a high threshold for pain when it comes to bad movies. I was raised on MST3k so I’m almost immune to bad acting and bad dialogue. Instead, I tend to focus more on story beats and overall plot. And that’s what I’ll be complaining about here.

The movie starts with Glen Powell as a bottle of rage trying not to beat up his boss. He even brings his 2 year old daughter with him to prevent himself from giving into his violent tendencies. When he gets back home, his wife mentions that she knows why he took their daughter with him, because she knows what type of person he is too. Later, when he’s about to join the Running Man TV show, Josh Brolin (the showrunner) says that his anger is his superpower and will keep him alive.

Yet throughout the movie he never really gives into his violence. He never really goes unhinged. For the entire second act he behaves as rationally as possible trying to win the game. There are multiple occasions where he has a chance to kill someone (and is encouraged to), and doesn’t. He even tries to save some of the people hunting him before a building explodes. It’s almost like in an initial draft of the script he was supposed to be mild-mannered and the game eventually drives him to unlock his rage. But that doesn’t happen either. In the third act, Josh Brolin lies to him and tells him his family is dead just to egg him on. He lets out a mind-breaking scream of rage and looks like he’s about to go all unhinged… then continues with your standard action-movie fight sequence. He doesn’t RIP AND TEAR UNTIL IT IS DONE, he continues fighting with his wits. He even takes control of a plane to gain the advantage during a fight. I thought the movie was setting him up to go full bloodlust where he blacks out and is covered in blood by the end of the fight, but that never happens. The setup of him being unhinged and violent in the first act never really amounts to anything.

When explaining the rules for the show, they say that each contestant must record a daily video to prove they’re still alive and just share their thoughts for the day. That video could also potentially give clues to their whereabouts. The video must be placed in a mailbox and sent to the studio each day. If a contestant misses a single day, they’ll forfeit any winnings but still be hunted down. With that very specific setup, I thought for sure there’d be a plot point where a mailbox would be guarded and time is running out to mail his next video and he has to find a way to mail it or else lose everything. But no, that never happens.

Making a daily video makes a lot of sense in-universe so I like the idea, but they spend so much time explaining this rule and it never really amounts to anything. Aside from a couple gags when mailing the video, this entire plot point could’ve been replaced with “upload the video to the internet each day” with the same effect. The physical act of mailing a video is never really used to increase tension.

In the 1987 Running Man, Schwarzenegger is accused of a crime he didn’t commit. The audience is initially against him (as they are for all contestants) but as he keeps winning the crowd starts turning in his favor. I mean, what audience could resist peak 80’s movie quipping like “here is Subzero! Now… plain zero!” Basically, the audience slowly learns who this guy really is and eventually roots for him to win.

This version of Running Man tries to do the same thing but I don’t think it works. In this one, everything the audience ever hears Glen Powell say is changed to make him appear psychotic. In one of his daily videos he tries exposing the lies of the network but they change his words so that he’s laughing about killing children. At no point does the audience ever hear him say anything reasonable. There’s even a scene where a family is sitting next to him, talking to him, liking him, and protecting him, yet when the tv show airs that faked footage of him wanting to kill children the family immediately kicks him out of the house. So we never see any member of the audience take his side or even like him. Nor are they ever given a reason to. Yet in the third act of the movie there’s a crowd of people cheering him on. It doesn’t feel earned. There was no turning point, no words of compassion that ever made it through the censors that would’ve changed their minds.

In the 1987 version of Running Man, Schwarzenegger isn’t doing the show for money. The producers want him dead and he’s fighting back. Plus the entire show takes place in a single evening and he eventually kills those producers so the money is irrelevant anyway.

In this version, Glen Powell is explicitly doing it for the money. He’s trying to earn enough money to give his daughter a good life, or at least be able to afford flu medicine. He needs the money, and more importantly, he needs the studio to pay out the money he wins. It doesn’t make sense for him to kill off the producers of the show in this version. Even if he did want to kill the Josh Brolin character, that would only prevent him from receiving his money, which is his sole goal the entire time.

At the end of the movie, Glen Powell again tries exposing the lies of the network but they fake his death instead (for a compelling season finale). Then we cut to some indeterminate time later where his family is shopping at a high-end grocery store. So evidently the show paid out the money despite his attempts to sabotage it. And they let him live, which is another odd point. Apparently there were no hard feelings. The movie could’ve ended here. It would’ve been underwhelming, but plot-wise this is the logical end to the story. He was just another contestant. But no, there was one more scene (and my next complaint).

In the 1987 version of the movie, Schwarzenegger’s primary objectives were to clear his name and get revenge on those who put him in Running Man. In this version, Glen Powell only needs the money. He doesn’t really care whether the show continues or not. He doesn’t really have a vendetta against Josh Brolin’s character; he voluntarily signed the papers in this version. He knew what the show was from the beginning and aside from Josh Brolin’s character egging him on to create more compelling tv, the show met his expectations.

Yet the final scene of the movie is (again) some indeterminate time later, where the next season of Running Man is having its season premiere. Apparently the entire audience is on Glen Powell’s side now and they decide to riot. Josh Brolin trips and falls on the floor, then Glen Powell slowly and calmly shoots him. Again, not filled with rage, no impulse control issues, just slow and calculated. It’s like they shot this scene before deciding how the characters would arrive at this moment. The riot feels unearned, killing the showrunner has no purpose, and the killing isn’t unhinged or violent at all. It’s like they had two versions of the movie and kept swapping back and forth between them.

To be clear, I don’t think the 1987 Running Man movie is flawless or anything. It’s just an easy comparison because they’re basically trying to tell the same story. And its plot is cohesive. It makes sense. Dumb as it may be, you can see the flow of logic through the entire movie. This version feels too scrambled. Like I said, I don’t think the movie does any single thing wrong, but it can’t decide what it wants to be. Is the main character unhinged or not? Can the audience see through the network’s lies or not? Does the main character want the show to end or not? The movie itself is never really sure.