Glen Powell has been in quite a few projects over the past few years, and he doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. That’s particularly true of his latest film to hit the 2025 movie calendar, Edgar Wright’s remake of The Running Man, which sees his character Ben Richards join a reality show in which he has to elude people for 30 days who are trying to hunt and kill him. So what are critics saying about the upcoming Stephen King adaptation?
The author himself, who published the novel of the same name in 1982 under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, has seen the film and called it “fantastic,” while audiences’ first reactions praised the fun dystopian action thriller. In CinemaBlend’s review of The Running Man, Eric Eisenberg agrees it is a great Stephen King adaptation … until it’s completely ruined by its ending. He rates it 3.5 stars out of 5 and says:
It can be said that the end of the movie is a let down in every single way. As dark and incisive as most of the film is, the way it wraps things up is preposterously safe and a betrayal of everything that comes before it. Not only is it deeply unsatisfying on a purely entertainment level, but the choices don’t even make sense in the context of the story, and that makes it worse and worse the more you think about it.
He’s not the only critic talking about the massive changes to the ending. While Jesse Hassenger of AV Club calls the movie more successful than not, the critic says it overstays its welcome with its “distended, herky-jerk” final 30 minutes. Edgar Wright can’t quite find the balance between thrilling action and being a vehicle for social comedy, Hassenger says, giving it a B- and writing:
There are moments where Wright’s gift for blending the real-world physicality of slapstick with the fantasy enhancements of CG make it seem like he could turn into a legitimately strong action director. Anyone who saw Hot Fuzz might have already had that inkling. But so far he continues to prove more adept at tightly weaving his thematic concerns into genre-friendly comedy. Making a muscular, fun-enough adaptation of The Running Man is at once beneath him and beyond him.
David Rooney of THR agrees, saying the director seems “almost constrained” by the film, which isn’t as compelling or as entertaining as it could be. The Running Man rarely gets the pulse racing, Rooney writes, and fails to prove Glen Powell’s viability as a leading man. The critic continues:
[Powell is] the engine in just about every scene, and his hard-driving physicality suggests the influence of Tom Cruise’s mentorship, not least in a climactic sequence on a plane with a lethal crew. But Powell has more easygoing charm than blinding charisma. He throws himself into the bloody, brutal action, and the ferocious determination of Ben. But he lacks the certain spark to make the character a standout everyman hero.
Clint Gage of IGN, meanwhile, says the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's not absurd enough to feel like biting satire, it’s not subtle enough to be a melodrama, and it’s not inventive enough to be a great action film. Still, Gage says, it’s fun enough to warrant its “Good” 7 out of 10 ranking. He continues:
It’s a very well put-together film, and more so than not, it’s full of charming performances, clever little details and some less-outlandish-than-I’d-like social commentary. Even though Edgar Wright’s stamp isn’t clearly on every sequence like some of his previous work, The Running Man sprints where it needs to, giving Glen Powell his first chance to be a full-fledged action hero. It’s a movie that lives up to its heritage but gets a little tonally caught between the book and its first, more Arnold-y adaptation, and does a few different things pretty well instead of doing one thing really well.
David Fear of Rolling Stone seems more than happy with The Running Man, saying it’s got plenty of action, Edgar Wright’s warped sense of humor and an ace in the hole in Glen Powell — all of which is cut with a justifiable dose of anger. Fear says:
But for all of the multiplex-friendly fun Wright’s conjuring with this over-the-top spin on dystopian sci-fi blockbusters, the prevailing feeling here is dread. Most filmmakers would have diluted the grit and genuine sense of moral free fall. Wright doubles the dosage. Every adrenaline rush comes with a chaser of low rage and simmering despair.
Critics definitely have some nitpicks about this book-to-screen adaptation, including how it balances its tone and an apparently polarizing ending. However, it looks like the positive outweighs the negative, as the movie stands at 65% on Rotten Tomatoes. If you can’t wait to see Glen Powell in The Running Man, the good news is you don’t have to. It officially hits theaters on Friday, November 14.
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