The Running Man (NC16)

Starring Glen Powell, Josh Brolin, Lee Pace, Colman Domingo, William H Macy, Michael Cera

Directed by Edgar Wright

Edgar Wright’s latest — an adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 dystopian novel The Running Man, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman and adapted into an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle in 1987 — is a frustrating watch. It starts strong: Glen Powell plays a desperado who enters the eponymous TV reality-TV contest, run by a ruthless producer (Josh Brolin), hoping to win the grand prize — if he can survive 30 days and not get killed by the hunters (led by Lee Pace, who spends a good chunk of his screentime masked). Then the momentum sags. If you come for the action, you’ll be disappointed. The trailer sells it better than the movie itself; the set pieces lack the verve usually associated with Wright’s works. In the end, it feels generic. As for the message? Nothing we haven’t learnt from The Hunger Games, Battle Royale and most famously, Squid Game, about the dark side of corporate hegemony and spectacle. It isn’t boring; it just isn’t satisfying. (2.5/5 stars) out in cinemas