The Reel Rejects - Extended Version: We Just Saw THE RUNNING MAN… And We’re Conflicted

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Starting point is 00:00:22 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1866-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comixonterio.ca. God, I got to figure out what I think about this movie as we're doing it. In real time. You know what the funny part is about filming these with you when we're standing? It's like normally when we're recording, we're sitting, so we're at same height. You're taller than me. And then I get intimidated by people who are taller when I'm filming with them, and it's noticeable.

Starting point is 00:00:47 And I get uncomfortable when someone's shorter than me. So you only want to film people with your exact height. John is the only one I can film with that or Sandy. It's a real problem in my life. It's the real secret gang. Citizens of the Rejagnation, we just got out of watching. Edgar writes The Running Man

Starting point is 00:01:02 Not a remake It's an adaptation Of the Stephen King book Although it does feel like it's a splice The impression that I got from this movie Is that he likes the original Running Man movie with Schwarzenegger And he likes the book

Starting point is 00:01:14 And he wanted to do A hybrid of both Now we got some thoughts We like chatted for a tiny bit Full Disclosure Like 30 seconds beforehand And it's gonna be a bit A bit of a conversation today

Starting point is 00:01:28 So if you guys can leave a like on this video, we would greatly appreciate that. Coy, how would you describe the plot of this movie? The plot. The plot. I've learned this the hard way. It's a theme right away. Totally a journey.

Starting point is 00:01:42 It is a movie wherein Glenn Powell plays a man who is desperate to save his family and he lives in a dystopian world where health care, money, and all things control are handled by the rich very unlike our world where we are all able to survive without having to sacrifice

Starting point is 00:01:58 our humanity. And so he has to join this game in order to raise enough money to save his daughter and to get his wife and family out of the slums. And in joining this game, it is a risk of his life and he must survive for 30 days in order to make it to the point where he gets paid and gets to rejoin his family. So it's all for his family. Is that a fair? That's actually a really great succinct version of that. And if you guys saw the 1980s running man movie, it'll have you think that they go into some type of gladiator like game and then you're in this like closed off city. I did

Starting point is 00:02:29 not realize that this world would be the whole world. Yeah. And that every citizen gets to be a participant in it, which should theoretically raise the stakes of this movie and make it 10 times more intense and exciting. So that's a conversation to go into.

Starting point is 00:02:45 But Coy, let me go to you first on this. What were your expectations before watching this movie and what is your first feelings when walking out. What would you describe? So expectation is I'm a big Glenn Powell fan. I think he is the next Tom Cruise. I think he's very much in line to be a huge movie star. And this is a big tent pole movie star role. But it's very counter programming to Arnold Schwarzenegger and that role. Like that performance is very much an Arnold performance full of zingers and one-liners, but also like

Starting point is 00:03:15 the intensity. So coming in, I was like, how is Glenn Powell going to play a very different take? Is it going to be more like the book? Is it going to be more like an Edgar Wright performance? because the other element that was really excited to me is Edgar Wright is one of those directors that has this panash. He's got this energy, he's got this kinetic flavor. He's got this visual flare. So I couldn't quite imagine how all of that was going to blend together. Plus, the great supporting cast, I'm a big fan of everyone that's in this film, big Brolin guy. But what my thought was before I'd seen the film was the original is a prophetic bit of commentary on the present. The original is talking about reality TV and the abuse of surveillance and a dystopian future of even greater wealth

Starting point is 00:03:52 inequality than the 80s, all the things that are today. And when you add that up, I was like, how are they going to do it? Is it going to be Edgar Wright using his visual style to make it farcical? Is it going to be more satirical because of us acknowledging around the TV, all those things? And it does do those things, but I think one of its shortcomings is that it is so similar to the world we live in. It's not able to feel like the extreme that it does in the 80s. I think we might live in a world too similar for it to feel satirical, so the tone gets muddied because of that. And it's kind of crazy when you say that, because this movie does a lot of video manipulation, things that you would see in movies from years ago. And now with what AI is today,

Starting point is 00:04:39 they have these sequences that happen in there that, to me, we're kind of the most freaky because I had those moments during it going, wow, just a few years ago, if they had these kind of plot element we've been throughout because it's kind of throughout the whole movie where they manipulate footage of what Glenn Powell's saying what other people are doing like direct actions and stuff just a few years ago like what a bunch of bullshit but now I watch I'm like this would this could actually happen right now to this day yeah so there's a lot of this commentary that I enjoyed seeing on screen which at times I find kind of conflicting I would find it with those like Disney movies like Mary Poppins returns where they're like CEO and pursuing wealth is bad or

Starting point is 00:05:17 something like that. Is that so? Paramount made this movie that is talking about wealth inequality and taking advantage of the poor. And so my mind had to kind of be like never mind, forget studio, let's just go with filmmaker vision here for a second.

Starting point is 00:05:33 And I had a lot of high hopes for this movie because I think Eggaright is one of the best filmmakers working today. You know, like I can't think of an Edgar Wright movie that I don't actually like. I feel like he is great. And every time I rewatch one of his movies. I feel like they get stronger every single time. So I'm kind of hoping I have a similar

Starting point is 00:05:52 experience with this. I do feel like what I was saying at the top of this with the inspirations of loving the 1980s movie and then loving the book, because I imagine the book is a lot more harrowing and bleak because that was kind of the surprise experience to me. When you watch the trailer for this, which I've only seen like a couple times, it pitches it like it's a traditional Eka Rite movie. That's going to be this like kinetic, funny, wild, kind of zany out of this world experience. But the movie's surprisingly a lot darker than in tone and mood and a lot more scenes than I expected it to be. At the same time, it is implementing this humor. And my overall takeaway, if I were to sum it up, was I didn't find it as funny as I thought it was trying to be.

Starting point is 00:06:38 I didn't find it as intense as I thought it was trying to be, nor did I find it as thought-provoking as I thought it was trying to be. It was a strange experience for me because I'm like, I technically like everything I'm seeing. It looks good. Coleman Domingo is having fun. Everyone's having fun. Everyone's having fun.

Starting point is 00:06:58 Glenn Powell, there was something kind of refreshing to me in today's world, honestly, about seeing, I'm someone who struggles with a lot of anger problems. Like, I do my best to prime myself before I come on camera when you guys usually see me. But I'm usually like in a state of being flooded and stress. And I get a lot of friends, like, Koi see me. Like, I get very, I have anger issues. So there's something kind of refreshing about seeing a guy who struggles this much with rage and being able to have that catharsis for it.

Starting point is 00:07:24 And in today's world where any type of masculinity can feel toxic, we talk a lot about that. Yeah. It was kind of cool to see that. Even if I didn't fully believe Glenn Bell sometimes. I was like, I like see it. Yeah, and so he's one of those for, kind of like Arnold's where even if I don't fully believe you, I always enjoy watching you. So I had, I hadn't, I enjoyed myself from beginning to end, but I weirdly didn't feel as much as I wanted to. At the end of day, it's got to be a feeling

Starting point is 00:07:53 experience. It's got to be emotional experience. So while visuals are cool, while it's, I feel like I actually could have used a bit of the egg or right punch up. So that way, the tone of it could have been a little bit more fluid. But then again, we talked to some other people. afterwards the average person really enjoyed it. Yeah. And I agree with you what I wanted from, we're not sitting next to each other. No, no. We were rows apart. Greg was in fancy reserve seats. I was in the reserve seat. I was tucked away. He was with the bums. I was up there. He was hanging out in the slums trying to survive like Lynn Powell. I was trying to Richard Lips. But my experience of my prep for the film was wanting that visual panache and all that energy

Starting point is 00:08:31 that Edgar Wright brings. But as a commentary on how farcical the reality show would have to be for The Running Man. And that's what I feel like never really hit was the in-movie reality of The Running Man and the in-movie reality of the dystopian future were too similar. And at no point that I actually feel the themes and horrors of the world because it always was undercutting it with either humor or being so satirical that there wasn't actually horrors. And then in a film that is a commentary on the audience's intelligence, on the world at large's intelligence. There's a lot to say about surveillance and social media and reality TV and all the things that I love about the original, but thought it might be too real

Starting point is 00:09:09 for today. It became really difficult because the movie is always like, hey, you're actually a clever person. You understand what we're trying to say. But then it'll do like movie things. And the movie things aren't this movie's fault. But in a movie where something has to happen that 100 events lead to one actual objective, you have to suspend this belief pretty hard. But the movie is equally saying like, look how smart you are. You understand what's going on. But also, you're going to buy this crazy thing that would actually never happen. But also, you have to believe this crazy thing is happening for us, for the movie to work. Like, when someone gets attacked in a one in a million circumstance,

Starting point is 00:09:42 and then the next scene is about the fakeness of reality TV, it undercuts the severity of the horror. Yeah, because they talk about some very real things. And there's some very real consequences, especially when you're going more into, like, the lower class areas and things that sound like a very possible future that we could have. This is some very touchy subjects, technically. and yet they'll have these moments like you're talking about that seem to undermine the

Starting point is 00:10:06 and it's weird because I feel like Edgar Reich is probably the kind of filmmaker who could actually handle both and I like a movie that is able to do both I guess there was just something not here that didn't feel as entirely special as I was kind of hoping for it's very much a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down situation but I felt like it was too much sugar I needed more medicine and at the same time there was this pacing problem that I actually had with it where it's called The Running Man and every time I felt like we should be ramping up, we never really were ramping them.

Starting point is 00:10:36 Each act ramps up. So by the time you're like getting into the third act, it's hard to ramp further. Like, it has a roller coaster emotion and that doesn't quite work for the story being told. Yeah. It doesn't crescendo. It kind of always bunny rabbits.

Starting point is 00:10:48 Yeah. You know, and it's interesting because it seems to embrace its 80s vibe. I heard it with someone at one point. There was like a specific line of dialogue that happens in a very serious. moment, but I guess it's going for that 80s action movie cheese with this one female character. Do you know what I'm talking about? She's this woman who's in the car. Oh, yes. She says, she states her motivation. Yeah. And I heard someone like rose behind us go,

Starting point is 00:11:17 what? What? What's your motivation? Delivered. Yeah. And that's a weird choice. And that's when I, that's when I'd really hit me like, okay, there must be something off with this tone because there's a version where that line could totally work, even in a commentary heavy movie. Yeah. But if some random person, a few rows behind this is kind of exclaiming the what. Yeah. I'm like, all right. Okay. So I'm not alone. I'm not alone in this. You also came out and we're like, oh, did you love that? I feel like you and I were going to have that moment of like, I usually like everything. And I did like this. Yeah, that's a weird part. It sounds like we're like, it sounds like we fucking hated it when I'm like, no, I liked it. It just put in hit me as much

Starting point is 00:11:56 as I wanted. I think we saw the potential. And that's always harder when you can see the potential of something and you don't feel the emotion you want to feel from the potential. Yeah. And, you know, I think people might actually show up here too for the action scenes. And that's in there. There's, there's action scenes. There's, there's technically good action. Again, you know, I just sound like a total sourpuss. I know, if you look at like baby driver where he kind of, oh, he reinvented, reinvented driving, you know, like top like 10 fast and furious movies with the opening scene, you know? And here I'm like, oh my God, Edgar right on foot. And a baby driver, that ended on like him on foot. He's going to be able to do something really different here

Starting point is 00:12:36 with action scenes. And I, there's this like plane scene that's pretty cool. But there was never an action scene either that even in just a pure entertainment level, there's never an action scene that really fucking was like, whoa. That'll remember that scene of the year and fucking did something, you know. Yeah. So yeah. It's, Lynn Powell's in great shape. He's in great shape. He's a good looking guy. Good looking guy. Really charming. Roman Domingo is having a ton of fun. Rolling in there, just like doing the villainy, doing the work. Michael Sarah, it's cool to see him play a different kind of role too.

Starting point is 00:13:05 Yeah. Yeah, you know, normally when you expect Michael Sarah, he's kind of just shows up to be the Michael Sarahisms, but I actually didn't feel like he was doing any of that Michael Sarahisms. I don't know her name, but she's quickly becoming one of those actresses to watch for me. She's the mayor and Batman. She played his wife in this. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:13:21 She's insanely, like, she's so captivating. Oh, she's the mayor, man. She's the mayor. Bar real. But like every time she's on screen, she's the prison. She does the prison. No, she's the she's this very important arc and heart of the film. And if she didn't have so much gravitas and so much depth to her, then it wouldn't work at all. So whenever she's on screen, it has to sell so much. And I was very impressed with that. Yeah. And there's there's things they talk about with the way people have to survive in this type of lifestyle. If you're not a one percenter. And I kept feeling like this would probably hit. harder if they actually showed it. Yeah. Especially when it comes to sexuality. Yeah. I think they highly shied away from those things that could have made it like icky, but it might have undercut the fun though, you know. Yeah. A few times they like dabbled and then they would sphere away. Yeah. And, uh, you know, it's because like, yeah, I guess the, the conflict of wanting

Starting point is 00:14:14 to be like the adaptation of a Stephen King book versus being like a cool movie that Lexo Amosh, some of the 80s vibes was a bit at odds with itself. Overall, though, I mean, I imagine we're in the minority, but we just got to be honest about how we felt. Yeah. To my surprise, we are surprisingly on the same page. And I did not expect that. Yeah. I enjoyed it.

Starting point is 00:14:33 I would say it is, uh, you know, a fun time, but it had the potential to be a really fun and important time. And I think the, the themes are, are more important than, uh, the fun. Yeah. We give like a 6.5 at a 10. I'm really close. I think I'm about there too. I was going to 6, 6, 6.7.

Starting point is 00:14:51 Okay. So right shy of 7, like 6.7, I think for me. But that's our thoughts. Do you want to run them to the comment boxes and start bitching at us? Yeah, you already have. Go do it. What do you do it? Do it. Do it.

Starting point is 00:15:03 If it was D.C., we would have recommended it. Obviously, if they made it, I'd be like, man. If James Gunn wrote this, it would have been like, wow, what a perfect film. Why didn't Peter Safford produce this? Otherwise, I'd be like, man, well, yeah, but, mm-mm. Anyway, Paramount, I hope you buy Warner Brothers. And we'll see you guys soon, Reject, Nation. Thank you.

The Reel Rejects - Extended Version: We Just Saw THE RUNNING MAN… And We’re Conflicted

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