The Running Man is 2025’s biggest surprise. Before I saw it, based on the trailers I was convinced that this was going to be a typical action movie with a lot of one-liners like ”I’ll be back” and ”Yippie ki-yay…” but I was wrong. And I’m happy I was wrong. The movie follows the book really well and you feel that Ben and his family live and the problems he and his family have. How they struggle to survive and get medicine for their daughter. Maybe Ben and his wife look a bit too good to be that poor, but I’ll go with that. We then see how Ben, unintentionally, ends up as a contestant in the Running Man show and since he sees no other way to save his family he agrees to enter, and the hunt is on.

Now there is action in the movie no question about that and yes there are scenes that are a bit over the top but when we also get the other stuff and we are spared the one-liners it all works really well. The only thing that is a little too much is the ending that goes on a bit too long and is a bit too exaggerated. Other than that, the movie works really well and does the book justice.

Glen Powell works as Ben and the same goes for Josh Brolin and Coleman Domingo who play Dan Kilian and Bobby T, the network’s boss and the host of the Running Man show. They, Bobby T especially, are a bit over the top but that is how they need to be in a show like this.

The only real mistakes I think that they have done are a) they didn’t stick to the book’s ending and b) they went in a totally wrong way when they did all the posters for the movie. The ending I can understand why they didn’t want to go with but that would have been so much better than what we got and the posters. They look more like they were done for a movie like The Naked Gun than The Running Man and are one big reason I was thinking that this would be a totally different type of movie than it is. Big mistake if you ask me…which no one did.

But do go and watch The Running Man. It’s a nice movie that follows the book and I was entertained for the entire 133 minutes it lasted!