Rating: 
Summary: spoofing the Slime From the Video
Review: I often rewatch my favorite Arnold action flicks. This one's a classic! Of course the premise is ridiculous: in the near future, the most entertaining television show will feature supposedly convicted criminals being pursued and slain by enormously muscled, outlandishly costumed, ludicrously personae'ed "Stalkers". Implausible... or is it? Rewatching just the other day, I suddenly realized how eerily accurately this 1987 film seems to have spoofed the phenomenal evolution and popularity of the World Wrestling Federation! Not so coincidentally, the film's Stalkers are played by 'roided-out pro-wrestlers of its day, including Jesse "The Body" Ventura. The obnoxious, smarmy gameshow host is a forerunner (or futuristic clone?) of WWF honcho Vince McMahon. There are even scantily-clad bimbos, the titillation equivalent of Wrestling's "Ho Train". (None of the "Running Man" dancers have silicon implants; an aesthetic omission the WWF would never be guilty of!) There's no chainsaw murder on "Raw is War" -- yet -- although come to think of it, a few Stalkers might actually improve those inane "survivor" shows. OK, maybe not. But at least Arnold "The Running Man" never takes himself so seriously as those deadpan contestants of WWF and "Survivors". There's plenty of grisly humor. Each of the Stalkers meets an appropriately karmic demise, punctuated by one of Arnold's trademark one-liner quips. But the best line of the film comes from Dweezil, son of the late, great Frank Zappa. That's right folks -- "Don't touch that dial!"
Rating: 
Summary: Wait For Another Edition...This One Is A Pass
Review: Stephen King story converted to an Arnold Schwarzenegger action film? I think that says enough.If you were expecting more, you are going to be disappointed. If you can let go, suspend disbelief and just enjoy the total "cheesy-ness", then you should have no reason to not enjoy the film. But let's get to the important stuff. 2 discs? Given the pathetically little amount of extras, this didn't deserve 2 discs, not when the clowns in Hollywood were originally putting out two versions of a film on one, two-sided disc. Oh, how I wish for a return to the early days of the DVD. The "Game Theory" documentary was fluff. End of story. Why not more info about the making of the movie? Why not some mini-documentary on Arnold? Why not develop more sections along the lines of the "Meet the Stalkers" extra? Instead, we are subjected to liberal political dribble in the form of the "Lockdown on Main Street" documentary? When are the "enlightened" Illuminati of Hollywood, California going to realize that they are not representative of the rest of America?
Why is it that there is only 2 other reviews that mention this worthless tidbit of an extra? Wait for a different version of the film. One where you aren't going to be subjected to the less than subtle attempt at calling you a moron for not standing up in revolt against the Patriot Act.
Rating: 
Summary: Movie Stunk, Always Did!
Review: This movie always stunk in my opinion. Only reason I bought it on DVD was for the soundtrack for the game show and to see those hot chicks dancing. I hear Paula Abdul choreographed the dance sequences. It shows. Otherwise, don't waste your money. Arnold made better movies than this one!! Predator and True Lies come to mind, while never forgetting Terminator. I'm out....
Rating:
Summary: Avoid Special Edition Version!!!!
Review: If you can still find it, get the original DVD release of this film, because the Special Edition 2-Disc set is the WORST DVD ever released! Meet the Stalkers is the least offensive of the extras included, but it is less like a DVD feauturette and more like some stupid thing you'd find on simpler, older video games. Game Theory is nothing more than a promotion for Survivor and other reality shows that have been polluting TV for years now. There is vague association with the movie, and a few clips, but is otherwise irrelevant and inappropriate. Then comes the biggest offender: Lockdown on Main Street. Artisan, what are you thinking?! I won't reiterate what has already been eloquently stated by other reviewers; suffice it to say that this is suppose to be a fun sci-fi flick, not some serious drama about civil rights or terrorism. Including this ultra-liberal, anti-government propaganda is beyong absurd; it's idiotic. Fire the "brain trust" who came up with this idea, and stop releasing nonsense like this. And please read the other reviews who address this outrage.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good DVD, but a Good Arnold flick
Review: The Running Man tells of a future world where convicted fellons are put on a game show "The Running Man" and are placed in arenas along with psychotic stalkers who are there to kill these guys in record time all for the entertainment of the American people.
The film is great but not perfect. I love the way the film portrays society, as basically a bunch of mindless and gullable media slaves. Which some would argue is true for our society today, where we believe everything served to us on television and radio, not considering that maybe the people behind these stories are money hungry, heartless liars. It was almost like a future version of the Roman Empire, where upper class Romans found the most violent and bloody sport with slaves getting butchered in an arena as pure entertainment. This film uses the likes of rich corporate adults as the shows mainstream audience loving fellons get butchered the same way.
The films special effects are ahead of its time, with believable gore and movie props like futuristic cars and buildings.
Richard Dawson is great as the gameshow's host, as a lovable teddy bear on screen, and a greedy, self-involved liar backstage. The remaining cast do thier jobs well, although they could have found more talented actors. Arnold is Arnold, without him, this movie wouldn't have the box-office appeal that it did, nor would it have the appeal on todays audience that it did. And even though his one liners after each death border on stupidity in this film (with a lot of the other dialogue), his Arnoldness simply makes up for it.
This movie was a great and unique idea and it was executed just fine, I own this dvd and like it a lot. Although, giving us simply a trailer as an extra simply sucks. I wouldve like to hear some commentary on it at least. Oh well...
Rating: 
Summary: Great movie. BAD POLITICS!!!
Review: I am writing this review to rate The Running Man. It's Arnold. It's action-adventure. It's entertaining!!! Nothing in this film to change the social conscious of America or inspire great literary works but who wants that in their boom-boom bang-bang films. The look of the film was, on a whole, dark and sweaty. The music caught my attention as being an odd score for a film of this nature but has a memorable theme. Arnold does another good job and kicking that a$$ and then piling on a one liner or two. Maria Conchita Alonso is a beautiful woman and gives a solid performance. Seeing them together harkens to a Total Recall vibe. Yaphet Kotto of ALIEN fame is on board for a supporting role and Jesse "The Body" Venture and Jim Brown shine in rolls of stalkers on the maniacal gameshow. Richard Dawson makes a dominating persona of the Running Man's host. Entertaining while leading you to believe he is one of the bad guys without any hint of "acting" like a bad guy. The plot has a general feel of Escape from New York. Paul Michael Glaser of Starsky and Hutch TV fame does a fine job of directing this film, coming on board after the first director separated from the project. Some unique shooting angles and motion shots in this one. The reason I give an overall rating of 3 stars is due to this two disc set being spiced up with several Extra Features that are NO FEATURES! The best of the 3 main extras is Meet The Stalkers, a review of the characters that hunt Ben Richards(Arnold). Game Theory tries to relate modern reality shows to the Running Man gameshow and does a poor pr job for the modern shows(Survivor, etc.) clarifying that many participants of these not-so-real "reality" shows are prompted and directed, while many scenarios in the shows are forced upon the participants to draw reactions desired by the creators. How real is that? Lastly...I am OUTRAGED that the Lockdown on Main Street feature, alleged to be a documentary about current national security issues in the post 9/11 world, is really a liberal political statement. I paid my money for this item to be ENTERTAINED/informed and not lectured about how the government, particularly the current administration, is out to rob US citizens of their rights. How this directly relates to the plot is vague at best(the government runs the TV network that airs Running Man show and controls the network/Dawson). A debate over how far the government works in controlling TV and it's effect on the viewing masses would have been tolerable, even if remotely relevant to the film. This feature far exceeded that scenario and simply portrayed elements of the government as wanting to invade American homes by using backlash from 9/11 as the excuse. I DID NOT buy this DVD to be told how I should think!!! Show me a movie and make me laugh/cry/jump/pump my fist. Don't feed me PROPAGANDA for YOUR cause. I find it humourous that the government is made to be a villian, being in control of the fictional violence-rich TV show, when the current administration is from a party that is usually leading the effort to control the language/violence/sexuality on the airwaves of this nation while being opposed by cries of CENSORSHIP from the other side. Wouldn't this DVD have been better served with extra features that actually relate to the movie/cast/crew??? Poor decision making on REPUBLIC PICTURES and ARTISAN HOME ENTERTAINMENT for producing this release when it could have been more ENTERTAINING to have an interview or two with Arnold, Jesse, Maria or Yaphet(none of them appear anywhere in the extras) and SHAME on them for attempting to make politics out of a good/entertaining film.
Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous extras
Review: What do you get when you combine interviews with people from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other random idiots? Think it's a protest taking place in Washington, or a news story on slashdot.org or your favorite left-wing website? Nope, it's a "special feature" on the Running Man special edition DVD. Apparently the studio responsible for this release decided tinfoil hat politics would help sell the movie. Yep, nothing like 30 minutes of "THE GUVMINT'S SPYING ON US!!!111" And I sincerely hope this mistake is not repeated. I'm an avid movie watcher but if heavily-biased political commentary like this starts showing up in DVDs on a regular basis I'll just find something else to do with my 15-20 bucks per movie. I've got better things to do with my time and money than support wackos like this. Oh, and the movie itself was pretty decent.
Rating:
Summary: Underrated gem!
Review: Let's make one thing clear-- this is not a brilliant piece of filmmaking. It is painfully dated in its look and feel, much of the acting is marginal (Arnie has improved a LOT since!), and the musical score reminds one of nothing so much as a bad mid-80's teen angst hairspray-fest. Maybe a porno. A bad one at that. But I love this movie! I find the silly dialog and excessive violence (and there are PLENTY of both!!!) more ironic then anything else. The choice of Richard Dawson as the host of the "Running Man" show proves to me that irony was what the producers were going for. This disk is worth buying just to watch the Battle of the Future Governors. Ventura v. Arnie. The irony grows... My wife and I have debated the value of this movie for years (OK, I keep telling her what a great flick this is, and she rolls her eyes and laughs at me). I have defended it as a brilliant if somewhat cheesy social commentary for years. She thinks its a dumb explolsion-fest (truth is, we're both right...). When it came out, it would have been easy to dismiss this as a silly vision of the future, but not today. Mix together WWF wrestling, Survivor, Fox News, and Cops, and-- guess what?-- you've got Running Man! Show this one as a double-feature with RoboCop (make RoboCop the second feature- its wittier, more ironic, more violent. But the music is just as bad). On to the DVD-- the video is probably as good as one can expect from a medium-budget movie of the day. Not bad, considering, but the picture is often a bit muddy and soft around the edges. Again, you can only milk so much out of the source, and this aint exactly 'Gone With the Wind', so you can only expect so much effort in the remastering. The DTS track is really a waste for this movie-- I got nothing extra out of the dialog or sound effects from the higher-end sound. The score sounded very clean, but, well, the score sucks, so whats the point? I feel compelled to make a comment on the one Feature added to the movie-- the short documentary on the Patriot Act. First, its mediocre, and had the feel of something slapped together. Second, I think a piece on manipulation of the media would have fit better with the theme of the movie. It was an adequate, factual piece, though, and it is a sensible, but not perfect addition to this disk. I do not understand so-called Republicans that bristle at this sort of stuff, though. Have you all lost sight of what a "conservative" actually is? Read the Church Report that blew the lid of of J Edgar Hoovers wierdness when he chaired the FBI (mentioned too briefly in the feature). Look at the authors. Goldwater. Baker. REAL conservatives who saw big opressive government as the biggest threat to our nation. I find it silly and tasteless to see what is quite obviously a co-ordinated assault against anything that doesnt suit the views of the current administration as part of these reviews.
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable Liberal Propaganda in extras
Review: I'm love Arnold movies, and this one was one of my favorites from the 80's. In the re-mastered version there a documentary called lock down. This political liberal crap does not belong on this DVD. It's quite clear that these people have truly lost their minds now. If I knew ahead of time this was on the DVD I may not have bought it. The movie is very clear and sound quality is good.
Rating:
Summary: Great remaster - pathetic extras
Review: The newly-remastered picture is so much clearer and more vivid than the original release and the DTS soundtrack is an awesome addition. After having heard it, I would've bought it for the DTS, alone. Who knew that a 17-year-old movie could be remastered to DTS quality and 6.1 surround so well (including very targeted use of the rear channels). The extras are another story, as many people have stated. The "Lockdown on Main Street" is a thoroughly one-sided political statement. If it should be anywhere, it should be on PBS, not on an action movie DVD. It feels like execs at Artisan were determined to put this documentary out there and picked "The Running Man" from their upcoming catalog as the best suitor. The "Game Theory" documentary is just a piece in which creators and participants of reality TV shows pat themselves on the back for their popularity. Perhaps fans of reality TV would find it interesting, but I didn't. In summary, the new remastering of the movie is "special," but nothing else on either of the discs is. As someone else said, buy it for the movie. The extras may make my stomach turn, but the movie is one of the best remastering jobs I've ever seen.
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