In a future dystopian USA that’s run by a powerful media boss (Josh Brolin), a cash-strapped fellow (Glen Powell) with a sick daughter and a wife forced into escort work, enters a hugely popular reality TV show. In it, contestants can become very, very rich if they can, for 30 days, outrun and outsmart teams of elite killers. And just to make sure it’s not too easy, average viewers are offered cash prizes to rat the guy out if they spot him.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s because Paul Michael Glaser already adapted the Stephen King source novel back in 1987. But though that movie and this share the same roots, it would be inaccurate to call this a remake. That movie was heavily rewritten to fit Arnold Schwarzenegger’s alleged talents. This one hews more closely to the novel’s views on social class divisions, media manipulation and corporate greed. Too bad about the weak final act that criminally leaves out the powerful and prescient twist that King wrote.

Which one’s better? Apples and oranges. Both are little more than multiplex fodder, too long and self-serious. On top of that, the central theme has become somewhat timeworn in the decades since the first movie in the wake of such superior efforts as Black Mirror and The Hunger Games. 

The director is Edgar Wright, a favorite of mine, but this disappointment is the least personal film to come from the brilliant guy who made the hilarious Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, the thrilling Baby Driver, and 2021’s phantasmagorical Last Night in Soho. 

(133 min)