Sprinting Human

I saw Running Man. The first hour. The new one, with Gwen Powell. Not good. I didn’t enjoy myself. Stopped watching after an hour.

They should have called it Sprinting Human, like those cheap Asylum knock-offs that slightly alter the name of the film they’re copying. Funny story: Asylum’s success story started when a Blockbuster* exec confused their War of the Worlds knockoff with Steven Spielberg’s original, and ordered 100,000 copies. And the rest is history. Incredible.

Incredible is something Running Man is not. It feels weird. Like someone was forced to do this; it feels joyless. Maybe the director needed a new house, and this was his paycheck? I don’t know.

It also looks cheap. I don’t know how much it cost, but it gives those 90s straight-to-video vibes. Comparing this to the original is like comparing a symphony to a guy sticking a flute up his butt. Glenn Powell has some charm, he gives off wholesome psycho vibes. I kept wondering what American Psycho would look like with him in the lead. He would nail it.

But alas! The movie. It’s just there. The fun ideas are the ones that were already present in the 80s version. There’s one scene where Powell keeps traipsing around in a tiny towel, showing off his immaculate bod. I guess if you like seeing that, check it out. Otherwise, just watch the Schwarzenegger-Glaser vehicle. It’s smarter, there’s Arnie, and it has that 80s vibe you can’t simply replicate.

* American video rental chain