2025 - THE RUNNING MAN, the remake

The director Edgar Wright had a big desire to remake the old Arnold Schwarzenegger version calling it a dream project.  Apparently Wright had not cared for Arnold's film of the Stephen King story and wanted to stay closer to the original. Careful what you wish for when it comes to dream projects.  The final result of this film is a jumbled mess that ends up in a series of individual action scenes which don't tie together. 

 

Wright went about creating a story about a totalitarian government now in charge of the United States tusing the media to manipulate the public to stay in power.  Apparently Wright didn't read  “1984” in school like everyone else was forced to do.  Glen Powell plays a contestant in The Running Man game show.  He's desperate to make money for his family and his sick child needs a doctor of course.  Nothing like dragging that old trope out.  The film follows Powell around from one situation to another as he is pursued by some government agents all the while being stalked by video cameras that transmit his situation over network TV for the entertainment of the public.  

This film is just a big miss for Edgar Wright.  Normally he is a director with an entertaining visual style who really knows how to move a story along.  Wright's other skill is adding humor to his films which he is usually very good at.  However the pace of this film is off and a lot of the film's attempts at humor are just not that funny.

Edgar Wright besides being a director is a serious film nerd as he has demonstrated on one podcast after another.  He started out strong in his career with his very funny television show Spaced.  He moved into film with Shawn of the Dead,  Hot Fuzz and his tribute to Walter Hill's The Driver with his version called Baby Driver.  Wright had his misses with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and Last Night in Soho but at least they were interesting films.  However The Running Man is a complete failure from conception to execution. 

Frankly this film also has some very disappointing casting decisions in it.  I hate to say it but Glenn Powell as the lead can't even begin to generate the charisma of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold's film also had Richard Deacon as the evil game show host who is really fun to watch.  Josh Brolin is the head of the game show in this version but he can't compete with Richard Deacon’s funny performance.

I think the major problem with this version of The Running Man is that it's just not as much fun as Arnold's goofy version was.  As film critic Andrew Sarris liked to say there is a "strained seriousness " throughout this film.   The Running Man  is also ungodly long running over two hours.

The writers were Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall.  The running time is 133 minutes. 

2007 - HOT FUZZ, a comedy spoofing the 80's and 90's action films

Movie nut Edgar Wright made this film a spoof of the 90's cop movies he grew up on.  Films like, Heat, Thief, Bad Boys, To Live and Die in LA and of course Point Break. 

Wright uses a lot of whip pans, zooms and rapid editing tricks, to reproduce the style of those films.  It almost reaches a point where you want to scream "ENOUGH." It really distracts from the comedy aspects of the film.  However about 20 minutes into Hot Fuzz the funny stuff really starts to kick in and I have to admit this film is very funny.

Edgar Wright has a couple of his old buddies as the leads, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.  In addition he has filled the remaining cast with lots of British character actors and comedians. Say one thing about Edgar Wright he really knows his actors and that they will deliver the comedic goods for him.  This is an extremely enjoyable film.

 

Written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg

 Running time, 121 minutes.

2013 - THE WORLD'S END, messy mix of comedy, science fiction and a little drama

After a disappointing shot at an Anime type teenage love story, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  The director Edgar Wright and his actor buddies Simon Pegg and Nick Frost try to return to form with a science fiction comedy.  The World's End is a step up from Scott Pilgrim but not a real high step.

The film is about a bunch of aging high school buddies bar hopping through a small town.  They just happen to stumble onto a space alien invasion of robots.  This film borrows from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars and The Earth Dies Screaming.  The film also borrows some dialog from Roger Corman's The Wild Angels.  All this nerd hipster stuff gets a little tiresome but I have to admit a lot of this film is pretty funny.  Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are funny guys and the fights with the robots are well done.

Unfortunately there is an attempt to add some profound meaning to this film.  You have to sit through a lot of tiresome stuff about friendship, male bonding and growing up.  Simon Pegg and Nick Frost actually do a decent job with these scenes but it seems like a lot of heavy crap to add to a film that is essentially a goofy comedy.  The dramatic elements are really trite and I've seen it all before in many other television shows and movies.

The uneven mix of all these genres might indicate that Edgar Wright is struggling with what type of film he wants to make in the future.  I wonder how many more of these genre rehash films he can keep spitting out?   It's starting to look like Wright's television series Spaced, which was very funny but had interesting characters which mixed with the funny situations could be his career highlight. 

109 minutes, written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright.

2010 - SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD, aging hipster loses the light

Didn't laugh once and thank god for 2nd run theater prices.  Anyway you look at it, not so great.

A geek hipster 21st century love story with lots of overloaded visuals.  Looks like cool guy director Edgar Wright is getting a little to old to make this kind of film. 

After Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, a lot of people probably felt Edgar Wright had a pulse on comedic geek coolness.  Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World  proves that all of Wright's visual tricks mask an unpleasant and empty film really lacking in ideas.

This film is Wright's  tribute to  ideo games, but the film also borrows plenty from other TV shows and films.  Forbidden Planet, Seinfeld and in particular the old Adam West Batman TV show which also used graphics and weird camera angles to put a comic book on screen.

Wright completely blew it with the casting of his two main leads.  Michael Cera has been criticized for pretty much giving the same performance from film to film, have to agree with that.  Mary
Elizabeth Winstead as his girlfriend Ramona Flowers makes absolutely no impression as a meta chick.  Their lack of chemistry as a couple finally kills the film.  I could get behind all the razzle dazzle stuff if the characters were interesting but these two have nothing going on.

 
Edgar Wright seems like a smart guy, he knows a lot about film, but he has wasted 5 years of his life on this piece of crap.  Richard Lester the cool guy director of A Hard Day's Night, another hip and much better film retired because he felt he was no longer in touch with contemporary culture, looks like Wright might have the same problem.

112 very pointless minutes. Written by Michael Bacall and Edgar Wright.