**Release date:** 12 November 2025 (UK)
**Director:** Edgar Wright
**Producers:** Edgar Wright, Simon Kinberg, Nira Park, Audrey Chon
**Cinematography:** Chung-hoon Chung
**Art Director:** Joe Withers
**Starring:** Glen Powell, William H. Macy, Lee Pace, Michael Cera, Emilia Jones
**Running time:** 2h 13m
**Distributed by:** Paramount Pictures

It’s a bonus baby cinema day today, as we trek all the way to Dalston’s iconic Rio cinema (discovering along the way that it’s borderline easier to get to than our local Belsize Park Everyman). The sofas are less expansive, the heating is questionable, but the ticket’s half the price and it’s a mere 25 minutes on the overground. We are here for The Running Man - or, more specifically, for the art direction of The Running Man, which we’ve been told is particularly good.

Here we have a classic all guns blazing popcorn action film, complete with such pre kill one liners as ‘Karma delivery motherfucker!’ and ‘I like my bacon extra crispy!’ I have no idea who Glen Powell, our star, is and, to be honest, I don’t think I’d be able to pick him out again in a lineup, but he looks absolutely spot on for a film such as this, all chiselled jaw and total lack of personality. His performance - unlike those one liners - is instantly, utterly forgettable, but he looks good in a silly branded jumpsuit and he, well, runs pretty well.

We are in a depressing dystopian world where Glen Powell has been penalised for being Too Noble (a common trope of such films) and therefore has no job. His bright idea to fix it is to sign up for reality TV, and specifically for a show called The Running Man.

My main beef here is with Stephen King (unless this adaptation isn’t very faithful, in which case apologies), because this whole Running Man thing doesn’t really make a lot of sense. Three people who are desperate to make money volunteer to run away from basically everyone, including 5 assassin people, and try to survive for 30 days. What exactly is this show screening before its subjects are tracked down? Just a lot of random people wandering around looking for them? And what happens if they all get killed in the first couple of days? Reruns of the Antiques Roadshow? It’s a scheduling nightmare!

Despite all the explosions, the baby had an absolutely glorious nap through most of this one. She is exactly six months old today (and has roughly doubled in size - crazy), and we continue to dodge all the events that entails - no mushy avocado yet, and she’s still in the little cot next to the bed. Something magical seems to happen to babies at 6 months where all the gadgets and toys suddenly became safe and approved, but that seems so arbitrary to me that I haven’t braved any of them yet. In my head, she’s still 3 days old, and yet we merrily strapped into the baby carrier this morning and trekked off to Dalston on the Overground, so we must be more grown up than I thought.

All the babies in The Running Man are suffering from various horrible conditions for lack of money (although the suggestion that Glen’s baby was on the brink of death did seem, from a look at the baby, slightly far fetched). Money is a key theme - not since the Hampstead Players' 2015 production of The Alchemist have I tried so hard to keep track of the various amounts mentioned and what they say about the stakes on offer. Glen can buy a baby suffering from cancer some decent drugs for $20. He can go on a lesser game show and make about $100. If a member of the public helps catch him they get something in the order of $20,000 (so why didn’t you just try to do that, Glen? The odds are probably better, the chances of death far lower.) But if the running man or woman survives, they will receive a billion. A BILLION. This left me a bit confused - obviously, every single member of the public is going to want to get in on that and help them survive, aren’t they? Forget trying to avoid detection - if I was Glen I’d just be out there signing endless virtual cheques for $100,000 or so and hiding in people’s basements, and I’d still have a totally stupid amount of money afterwards.

Speaking of basements, how incredibly handy to know the location of a bunker containing William H Macy and a wardrobe of false moustaches!

Another weird rule of this gameshow is the contestant has to post (remember post?!) a video of themselves every day to be screened on the show. Glen sends of a variety of inexplicable choices, including a clearly identifiable hotel room and some defiant freedom-y speeches which - obviously - aren’t screened. Instead, a very convincing AI video of him saying angry things to make the public hate him is screened instead, and I’m wondering what the point of the video rule is if they can just AI whatever they want? In fact, what’s the point of using real people for any of this, while we’re at it? There is a sort of halfhearted attempt to explain this, but it really only draws attention to the issue.

*Literally just stop the car and get out Emilia*

Basically, as is traditional in such films, absolutely nothing and no one makes sense. Allies pop up out of nowhere and then randomly report Glen for absolutely no reason, a very cardboardy woman agrees to pretend to be a hostage for absolutely no reason and then decides to stay in the car when she’s no longer a hostage, for absolutely no reason, and it all ends in a sort of confusing muddle involving a private jet and a really oozy looking eye injury. But who says action films have to make sense? The best ones have internal logic (Speed!) but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of exploding nonsense on a Monday morning. It makes absolutely no sense but it looks fantastic doing it - I hear quite a lot of it was shot in Bulgaria.

Good things: We very much enjoyed the art direction

Bad things: So William H Macy can create Glen Powell an entire new identity capable of fooling a fascist dystopian regime, but not a fake moustache that doesn’t fall off? C’mon.

My review: Worth the surprisingly easy trek to Dalston

Lily’s review: 0 poos, and one of the biggest baby cinema naps of her 6 months on this earth. She must find explosive action movies soothing.

Tomorrow: Nuremberg…

The Running Man

Nuremberg

The Choral