151 Proof Hangover: The Running Man Review
[After creating and then testing the drinking rules, Swan and Penguin recap their adventures with the movie. Offering their thoughts on the quality of the film itself, as well as how the drinking rules held up, and if worth using.]
There are a lot of reasons we do terrible movies mostly for this segment. One of the key ones though is they tend to not be that engaging so I don’t really feel bad NOT watching the movie with all my attention. Good movies on the other hand just makes you want to get lost in the world.
With that said, let’s get to our review of The Running Man!
Movie – 4
Swan – 4
I learned something about The Running Man while watching it. Even though I had seen this movie hundreds of times I had never seen the entire movie. It was always one of those films that I would catch on TV and just have to watch but I would never catch from the beginning. I found out that I had never seen the first 20 minutes of the movie, and that my friends, was shocking news. And because that first 20 minutes was not glazed in creamy, sticky nostalgia I was able to notice that the acting was fairly awful. Laughably bad at points. Once it got to parts I remembered I was lost in childhood joy at the fights and one liners and everything.
If you have not seen this movie it is a must see. Stop reading right now and watch it.
Penguin – 4
I’ll be honest these really morbid, reality TV competition movies are a huge pleasure for me. I enjoy films like The Condemned and The Hunger Games because of their set-up and generally enjoyable characters put in these impossible situations.
Thus, it was no surprise that I really enjoyed The Running Man, and just wondered why I hadn’t seen it sooner. While it takes a bit more over-the-top approach to the game show set-up than those other movies, it does make for a fun look at society. In many ways, we do enjoy the bloodlust a bit much at times.
If the film had weaknesses for me, it would be the romance subplot… in that it really doesn’t exist, but they end up together at the end anyhow. I get the notion of always including one, but really if it serves the movie no purpose.. don’t just put them together!
Drinking – 4.5
Swan – 5
This was a first for us, being that our Penguin pal ended up calling RN for the main reason of him wanting to watch the movie. He was getting to distracted by having to pay attention to our rules. And our rules certainly worked. I definitely felt it the next day. I am very glad we decided against taking a shot every time they dropped the title.
Penguin – 4
As Swan noted above, I pulled the rules because I was actually invested in the movie. And your brain is processing stuff in a normal manner, a lot of drinks just went by us because weren’t paying attention to those.
That said, the rules were pretty solid for what we did. Worked well, and will get you where you need to be.
Drinking or not, The Running Man is a really fun movie, and worth checking out!
