Edgar's big-screen adaptation is fittingly but awkwardly timed

It's always interesting when time overtakes the dystopias of the past. In Stephen King’s 1982 novel “The Running Man," the United States has fallen into a totalitarian state, divided between haves and have-nots, where all movements can be surveilled and realistic video propagandais easily generated. King’s book was set in the year 2095

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Edgar Wright's new big-screen adaptation is fittingly but awkwardly timed. Arriving in the year of King's imagined dystopia, its near-future has little in it that isn’t already plausible today, making this “Running Man” — while fleet of foot in action — feel a step, or two, behind.

“The Running Man,” of course, has already begat one movie. Paul Michael Glaser's 1987 film starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, the young father who out of financial desperation auditions for a lethal reality show where survival for 30 days means a $I billion payday. (The movie was set in the distant year of 2017) Times have changed, though. Wright's film stars Glen Powell as Richards, a fairly exponential upgrade in smirking charisma.

This is, for sure, a dystopia with a genial spin.