This is an Arnold movie. Now that you know that, I've saved a lot of you the time it would have taken to read this review. If you don't like Arnold, then you wont like this movie. If the case is the other, then you will very probably like it. It's as simple as that.

Now, if you're still reading this I expect you like Arnold. Good for you! He is quite good isn't he. The Running Man is a very typical Arnold feature. It's got the usual retro-future we know so well from 80's B-Sci Fi, it's got a bunch of terrible one-liners, lots of violence and explosions, and a good-looking heroine and a happy ending.

In this case, the evil opponent is the all-controlling 1984ish government, which uses television as an effective crowd-control with gladiator-type game shows. Arnold, of course, ends up in one of these shows and turns it all up-side-down, with a little help from his two confederates and the good-looking Amber.

It's not a big budget movie, but it still managed to create a pretty good atmosphere of the future, with some nice matte paintings and sets to help it. It's hopelessly 80's, but I find that charming. Acting is varying, Arnold doing his usual grunt and shout thing, with a helping of stone-faced one-liners. Heroine Amber is, to put it lightly, a bit stereotypical, and the subtly named Damen Killian is a typical evil TV man.

In spite of all it's flaws, the movie shows its message very clearly; television is an opiate of the masses, a good way to control people. It also features some at the time futuristic digital video editing, allowing the bad guys to change faces in a video to fool their audience. This does not seem futuristic at all today, which is a bit alarming.

If you've seen Arnold movies before then you know when to watch this one. Enjoy.

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