Scenic western.

Really novel for its time.

Better suited to print.

Home run. Great cast, director, story, and screenwriting.

Not close to the original.

Director Whedon makes sure this doesn’t devolve into a giant mess.

Gets worse as it goes along.

Some truly awful accents, but it’s entertaining.

Visuals were ok, but everything else wasn’t.

Other than some horror-flick-esque “why is he/she doing that?” moments, the story is too good to screw up. Attempts were made, though, with overwrought dramatic scenes that didn’t translate well to the screen, as well as lots of shaky-cam/uber-zoom action scene tricks. In addition, obviously, to “The Running Man”, I think somebody made Suzanne Collins watch the original “Death Race 2000”.