MovieChat Forums > The Running Man (1987) Discussion > This movie is a poor man's..

This movie is a poor man's..



This movie has no reason or excuse to exist, really. It simply takes a couple of better movies and simplifies them, until there's almost nothing left.

There's no point in this, when you have Total Recall and Robocop.

Anyone that says they aren't satisfied by watching Total Recall and Robocop (the originals, of course), and NEED to also add this movie into the mix, is out of their mind.

What does this movie offer that Robocop and Total Recall don't? Those two movies have every single element you could want from this movie, and this movie doesn't add anything useful, meaningful, interesting, thought-provoking, new, or storywise good to it. It just rips them off.

This is like a poor man's Total Recall + Robocop-combination.

RTR have better action, better acting performances, better actors, more detailed and believable worlds, more intricate, well thought-out and interesting plots, just as dystopic stories, but better..

.. if you want Arnold, Total Recall should satisfy you. If you want otherworldly quality, Total Recall again. If you want a futuristic, high-tech dystopia world, Robocop serves you well. Basically anything this movie offers, is offered by one or both of those movies much better.

This movie has no reason to exist, when those two, much better movies already exist. The Running Man is just a 'passable filler' at best, and 'seen it already'-type bore-fest at worst.

I wouldn't say it's a bad movie per se, it's just like.. why would anyone watch THIS, if they can choose to watch Total Recall and Robocop?

To see Arnold perform new one-liners? That may be the only reason.

What a useless movie. If the story had been better, this might be more interesting, but everything that could be interesting about this movie, has been shown to us already in better form, even Arnold (which isn't that interesting a thing anyway, just a bad-acting bodybuilder).

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Total Recall and Robocop dont have any "pre arranged fight to the death in an arena" scenes.

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Total Recall and Robocop don't have this dialogue:
Ben Richards: Killian, I'll be back.
Killian: Only in reruns.

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Or “you cold blooded bastard, I’ll tell you what I think of it: I live to see you eat that contract but I hope you leave enough room for my first because I’m going to ram it into your stomach and break your goddamn spine arahhhhhh”

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or
"What happened to Buzzsaw"
"He had to split."

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lol! I just posted and then saw people had wrote some of these lines xD

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Or

Damon Killian : You bastard! Drop dead!
Ben Richards : I don't do requests.

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That is one of my favorite exchanges of dialogue, and Killian gave an excellent comeback to Arnolds signature line. No one else had a good comeback to Arnolds "I'll be back".

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What a ridiculous post.

The Running Man was drawing parallels between the gladiator games and American TV, saying that one day, network television would start creating shows appealing to the lowest common denominator, for the sake of ratings. It's commentary has nothing at all in common with either Robocop or Total Recall.

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How could it rip off Total Recall or Robocop when it came out the same year as Robocop and three years before Total Recall?

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Something I'm surprised nobody mentioned is that Total Recall came out 3 years after this movie and Robocop came out the same year. So they have nothing to do with it.

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The novel is from 1982. Granted, the PKD story "We can remember it for you wholesale" is from 1966.

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But you forgot some amazing zingers from Arnold and other lines from the movie that make this movie fun.

"I'll see you at the 10 year prison reunion"!

"Here is SUBZERO, now PLAIN ZERO"!!!!

"What happened to Buzzsaw"?
"Oh, he had to split".

"Vincent, Pryce, and Haddad. You remember them?!! There they are! Basking in the Maui Sun"!

"...Vincent, Pryce, Haddad...they were last seasons winners..."?
"WRONG...They were last seasons LOSERS".

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Killian was hilarious as well.

Ben Richards: I've seen you before. You're the asshole on TV.
Damon Killian: That's funny. I was going to say the same thing about you.

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Thats an exchange that has me coming back to this film xD. Killian was quick witted and funny.

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I’ll take this over Total Recall any day of the week.

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