6/10
Comic-strip Sci-Fi about a game to death starred by Arnold Schwarzenegger who takes cruel villains
12 November 2012
The year is 2017 . The world economy has collapsed , food , natural resources and oil are in short supply . A police state , divided into paramilitary zones rules with iron hand . Television is controlled by the state and a sadistic game show called ¨Running Man¨ has become the most popular program in history . All art , music and communications are censored , no dissident is tolerated and yet a small resistance movement has managed to survive underground . When high-tech gladiators are not enough to suppress the people's yearning for freedom.. more direct methods become necessary . The finest men in America don't run for President . They run for their lives. A wrongly-convicted man must try to survive a public execution gauntlet staged as a TV game show and located in the bombed-out sections of Los Angeles . As a helicopter cop is assigned to massacre unarmed civilians , but following his arrest in tramped-up charges after failing his mission . Inmates are given a chance for pardon , all they have to do is survive an on going game with specially trained gladiators-assassins . Arnold and his friends taking on a series of massive opponents armed with flame throwers , spikes scythes chain-saws .

This exciting film contains action , thrills, suspense , blood , a little bit of humor and is plenty of graphical violence . Special effects laden adaptation of the Stephen King novel , under his Richard Bachman pseud , he wrote the story in 72 hours and was screen-written by Steven Souza , the film is based very loosely on the novel of the same name . The story deals with a futuristic TV game show in which each game are selected some convicts to participate in a brutal man-chase wherein felons are given the chance to run to freedom but have to elude the stalkers ; men who hunt them down and kill them in gruesome manners . 'The Running Man' game seen in the film was based upon an early 1980's Japanese game show called 'Trans American Ultra Quiz', in which contestants were tortured in various ways and the prize went to whichever contestant could stand the pain/humiliation the longest . The movie displays strong and realistic fights and excellent action sequences with bloody attacks and violent , blistering struggles . The picture belong to ¨dystopian world¨ genre as well as the tyrannical control by the government of ¨1984¨ and death games films such as ¨Battle Royale¨ (Kinji Fukasaku) and the recent ¨Hunger Games¨(Gary Ross). Arnold Schwarzenegger is an appropriate and powerful warrior , he steals the spectacle as one army man , as enemies are dispatched in turn ; in addition , he holds the brief comic relief . Dolph Lundgren and Christopher Reeve were interested to star in the movie, and Patrick Swayze had also been considered. Arnold , Governor of California , along with Maria Conchita Alonso have both starred in the Predator movies. Jesse Ventura , Governor of Minnesota , starred in the first Predator film . Ample plethora of secondary actors give bouncing performances as Professor Tanaka , Jim Brown , Yaphet Kotto , Zappa , Fleetwood and Sven-Ole Thorsen . Furthermore , Erland van Lidth's and Richard Dawson's last film. Thrilling and commercial musical score by Harold Faltermeyer , it was composed by means of synthesizer . Colorful and adequate cinematography by Thomas Del Ruth . The motion picture lavishly produced by Rob Cohen was well directed by Paul Michael Glaser (Starsky and Hutch) . Rating : Good . Well worth watching .
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