Emilia Jones

The Running Man

15/11/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

A new Edgar Wright movie is generally a cause for celebration, even if The Running Man falls some way short of the dizzy heights he attained with films like Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho. And it certainly goes a long way to erase the memory of the shonky 1987 version of this story, which featured characters running around in multi-coloured jumpsuits and prompted author Stephen King to have his name removed from the credits. This adaptation, it turns out, comes with the author’s seal of approval.

The original novella is famously set in 2025: America has become a dystopian authoritarian police state, where the poverty-stricken working classes are ruled by corporate media networks, who keep them hooked on an endless diet of brutal reality-TV game shows. This used to feel like a big stretch but, with recent political developments in the USA, it seems an all-too credible premise.

Ben Richards (Glen Powell) is a blue-collar worker, currently black-listed because of his tendency to voice his feelings about the rotten state of his day-to-day existence. His wife, Sheila (Jayme Lawson), works at a hostess bar in Co-Op City and the couple are desperately trying to scrape together enough money to buy medicine for their sick infant daughter. Ben tells Sheila that he’s seriously thinking of signing up as a contestant on one of those hazardous game shows, but promises her that he won’t try his luck on the one with the biggest payout: The Running Man.

But of course, it’s hardly a surprise that the show’s producer – the smarmy, toothy, super-positive Mike Killian (Josh Brolin) – thinks Ben will make an ideal player for the titular game and that he could be the very first person in the show’s history to walk away with the billion-dollar prize money. It’s a tempting proposition…

This is a big, brash, blockbuster of a film with enough world-building to make Co-Op City (a heavily disguised Glasgow) look queasily realistic. With the help of his old friend, Molie (an underused William H Macy), Ben manages to start off his run aided by a couple of fairly convincing disguises and some forged paperwork – but the odds are stacked and there’s a team of professional hunters hot on his trail. They know all the angles and it’s only a matter of time before they begin to close in. The result is a super-propulsive chase movie, which swings expertly from one action-packed sequence to the next, with Ben escaping death by a hair’s breadth at every turn. It’s thrilling enough to keep me on the edge of my seat for the film’s first half.

A later section where Ben ends up seeking refuge in the home of rebel Elton Parrakis (Michael Cera) is, for me, the film’s weakest hand. Parrakis has rigged his home with boobytraps and a long sequence where a group of hunters attempt to enter it plays out like Home Alone on steroids. While it’s undeniably fun, it serves to dilute the air of menace that the director and his co-writer, Michael Bacall, have worked so hard to create.

Furthermore, the film has no credible roles for its female characters. Sheila is only really present in the film’s early scenes and an attempt in the final third to introduce Amelia (Emilia Jones), a civilian whom Ben is obliged to take as his hostage, offers her too little to do and not enough reason for actually being there, right up the point where she is – quite literally – parachuted out of the story.

Nevertheless, this is eminently watchable stuff. It’s perhaps unfortunate that another of King’s ‘Richard Bachman’ books, The Long Walk, hit the screens only a couple of months ago and arguably made a better fist of adapting what is a very similar – if somewhat more sedate – concept.

But those who book tickets for The Running Man will surely find plenty here to enjoy. Sharp-eyed viewers may even spot a familiar face gracing America’s one-hundred dollar bills…

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney

Horrible Histories: The Movie – Rotten Romans

29/07/19

Chosen simply by virtue of being the only film currently on release that we haven’t seen, Horrible Histories is a cinematic adaptation of one of the much-loved books by Terry Deary and the even more-loved CBBC series – hence that needlessly complicated title. Lovers of the TV shows can rest assured that this is the usual compendium of immensely likable historical humour, with regular references to poo, vomit and uncontrollable bouts of anal wind. My inner eight-year-old found plenty to snigger about, while the adult parts of me enjoyed some clever references to actual historical events.

Skinny misfit Atti (Sebastian Croft) is bored with family life in Rome and longs for some adventure. He gets it, unexpectedly, when his nefarious attempt to earn money by selling bottled ‘gladiator sweat’ earns the ire of the brattish Emperor Nero (Craig Roberts). He promptly banishes Atti to ‘that stain in the corner of the map’ better known as Britain. Now the world’s least-convincing Roman soldier, Atti’s not in Pictish territory for long before he’s kidnapped by Orla (Emilia Jones), a teenage wannabe warrior-woman, desperate to prove to her father, Arghus (Nick Frost), that she has the right to wield a sword. The two youngsters soon take a shine to each other, but – predictably – they are somewhat star-crossed. Meanwhile, Boudicca (Kate Nash) is raising a massive army in order to take on her rotten Roman overlords…

This is rollicking stuff, the jokes hitting the screen with such frequency that if you don’t like the first one, don’t worry, there’ll be another along in just a few moments. The humour largely comes from filtering historical references through a contemporary perspective – Atti’s parents threatening to limit his ‘scroll time’ being a typical example. Legions of well known actors pop up in cameo roles, with Derek Jacobi even reprising his classic performance as Claudius and Kim Catrall relishing her stint as Nero’s interfering mother, Agrippina. And of course, there are several songs, though for some of the earlier ones, the lyrics are somewhat buried behind an over-exuberant rock accompaniment – a pity, because the lyrics I do manage to hear are playfully witty.

Occasionally, the budget restraints show: the pitched battles never seem to feature quite enough extras, and there clearly wasn’t enough dosh to buy Paulinus (Rupert Graves) some decent horse riding lessons… but overall this is a fun romp that will keep all but the pickiest audience members suitably entertained. There are no kids in evidence at the showing we attend, but it doesn’t seem to matter.

There’s plenteous laughticus.

4 stars

Philip Caveney