With Arnold Schwarzenegger currently stumbling through a career resurgence, it's kind of fun to look back at where he got his start, and what better place than RUNNING MAN? It has all the elements of a perfect cult movie: post-apocalyptic trappings, pulpy concept, 80s synth soundtrack, great character actor cast, and a breakneck pacing that ensures that this all makes no sense.
It's funny to see Arnold in "brand building" mode - after making a prison break in Neo-America, his character somehow finds a "World Gym" shirt to wear and smokes a few stogies. There are scenes of him pointlessly showing off that he's muscular despite the fact that he wears sleeveless tees and as audience members, we tend to have eyes. Since this movie, he's also developed into a much better actor, who could deliver campy-ass dialogue with a patina of sincerity that made it work. There's even an "I'll be back" in this.
This is one of those movies where they just launch you into the high concept buggery with a woman doing a stern voiceover over a primitive text screen telling you to shut the fuck up and welcome to dystopia America. Apparently some sort of super-calamity has befallen the world, and everything is just terrible now. Food shortages, high crime, riots, that sort of stuff. No pandemics as far as I can tell, so there's no scene of Arnold punching out a plague victim or anything. All very ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, just not as effortlessly cool.
