Trust me, we're only a few years away from seeing The Running Man as an actual reality show. All you'd have to do is add murder into The Amazing Race and you'd be there. This quote from Killian is great:
"This is television. It has nothing to do with people, it's to do with ratings!"
Perfect. Television nowadays is absolute dogshit and it has everything to do with trying to get as many stupid people to sit and stare at a magical picture box for as long as possible. That's why I prefer movies. Movies end. Television doesn't. After one shitty show there's another and another and another.
But I digress.
The Running Man is one of Arnold's worst action outings of the 80's. The movie is just so fucking cheesy and the one liners don't make ANY sense whatsoever. Check this out:
Arnold kills an Asian hockey player (HUH?!) named Sub-zero by wrapping barbed wire around his neck and then says, "Killian, here's your Sub-zero...now plain zero." Terrible...just terrible (and by terrible I don't mean in a terribly EPIC Commando-way, I mean it's just fucking stupid.) And seriously, how many Asians play ice hockey?
And here's where this movie really fails: It's called The Running Man and it stars Arnold...what?! Arnold doesn't run from danger, he runs over it and stomps on its esophagus. The entire movie is him running around a garbage dump wearing a full-size body condom and looking like a sopping wet vagina as he complains about the Uplink. The big showdown is him vs. a game show host. I'm sorry, Arnold, but you've had better days.
Why It Doesn't Completely Suck: Say what you will about the action, but you can't deny that Arnold's little minority love interest looks hot in that little black nightie. Arnold liked his women spicy and ethnic in his action flicks. The Running Man, Predator, and Total Recall all have Arnold eating tacos...
Best Quote:
Arnold: I live to see you eat that contract, but I hope you leave enough room for my fist because I'm going to ram it into your stomach and break your goddamn spine!
But the 80’s were about cheesy action movies, and this was one of the best examples of cheese in the film industry. The reason the one liners were so bad in this movie is he had used them all up in the previous cheese filled action flicks, but does it stop you from having to watch the movie every five years or so? Do you do like I do and load your rental queue full of cheesy 80’s action movies and have movie time? Wait I am weird so it might just be me, but it happens every once in a while. I recently added the blockbuster @home plan to my DISH account just for that reason. (I know I have a problem with 80’s movies at least it isn’t Molly Ringwald movies) I got on their the first night checked all 20 movie channels for any cheesy Arnie movies, and when I didn’t find them I queued them all up and had them sent to me 3 at a time. I think my wife hates me now, but when you need to see cheese, you need to see cheese. Especially when you get to see last year’s winners… Oh last years losers you say? Well at least we have a fireball of a man to burn it all down. Even the movie geek that I work with at DISH says I am nuts for watching them all, but I think he is just tired of hearing cheesy one liners all the time.
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