In the dark future of 2017, Police pilot Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is arrested when he refuses to fire on civilians at a food riot. Framed for their murders, Richards is offered a choice between prison and competing in The Running Man, the biggest gameshow on Earth. Hunted by grotesque celebrity trackers, Richards must fight to survive while the whole world cheers for his death.

It’s been a weirdly great year for Richard Bachman movie adaptations, with the excellent The Long Walk followed by a second run at Bachman’s game show nightmare. Rewatching the first movie, a frankly horrifying 38 (!) years after release is an interesting experience and, unfortunately, rarely a fun one.

The central issue here is the one that Schwarzenegger wrestled with for most of his early career: himself. There is no way that, at any point, you feel like Ben’s in danger. Schwarzenegger is such a monolithic physical presence that you just wait for the action to bounce off him, which it always does. Worse, it makes the stalkers look even worse than they already do, And the stalkers include an electricity throwing opera singer; as an aside, the actor who played him Erland Vn Lidth De Jeude was a professional opera singer and wrestler which may be the coolest double job ever. To be clear, the actors playing the stalkers are great, and include some of the best professional wrestlers of their age. They deserved better than they got, with only Jesse Ventura as not-quite-retired enough Captain Freedom getting something approximating an arc. But even then the costumes and equipment feel cheap and flimsy and coupled with Schwarzenegger’s presence it renders them entirely toothless.

Worse, Schwarzenegger’s just not very good here. Ben’s emotional arc from grumpy cynic to idealist is flattened into four terrible one liners and his scenes with Amber, played by Maria Conchita Alonso, have a frisson of actual physical threat that’s actively nasty to watch. It’s compounded by Alonso being given absolutely nothing to do besides scream and get a special bonus kill towards the end. It’s compounded further by Yaphet Kotto as Laughlin, a fellow contestant. With a tenth the screen time he’s twice as compelling to watch as Schwarzenegger ever is and the movie is hurt badly when he leaves. Hell, even Mick Fleetwood (yes, That Mick Fleetwood) is fun as what is heavily implied to be himself. Richard Dawson is superb too as Damon Killian, the oleaginous host of the show. There’s good work here, but it’s work built around an actor who’s a physical presence but, at this stage in his career, absolutely nothing else.

Verdict: If you’re a fan of old school Arnie, this will be a lot of fun. It’s also a fun enough watch as a kind of pseudo-prologue to Robocop and some of the style choices it makes. But for the most part this is a curiosity rather than a good time. Which makes it a prime candidate for rebooting but also, unfortunately, a bit of a chore to sit through. 3/10

Alasdair Stuart