Stephen King’s The Running Man is set in 2025, in a totalitarian, Orwellian America. The book’s impoverished hero, Ben Richards, participates in a gladiatorial game show called The Running Man. Ben and the other contestants must evade being captured and killed for a prize of a billion dollars within 30 days – all during a live broadcast.

The novel yielded a loose adaptation starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1987 (available on Netflix). Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver) has directed a new version that doesn’t feel futuristic but very much a tract of the present.

The screenplay, by Wright and Michael Bacal, stays largely faithful to King’s prescient novel. Top Gun: Maverick and Hit Man star Glen Powell plays Ben, an industrial worker who has been blacklisted over his union activities. Solidarity is the one quality that helps as well as hinders Ben when he literally starts running for his life.

Driven to despair by the plight of his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) and ailing child, Ben signs up for the show, barely aware of what awaits him. Producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin) and host Bobby (Colman Domingo) see in Ben the perfect contestant for high ratings.

Near-constantly monitored by cameras, Ben must rely on his personality traits – aggression, empathy, honesty, inventiveness – to make it to the...

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