My quick rating – 4.4/10. I’ll give The Runner credit for letting us know that communication is important. Radio broadcasts, phone calls, messages and various other forms of people talking at each other all fight for attention during the opening minutes, apparently in preparation for the moment when the movie will eventually stop explaining things and just make Gal Gadot run.

And run she does.

After the opening barrage of audio clutter finally settles down, we meet successful London attorney Sarah (Gal Gadot) and her diabetic son Noah (Rory Wilmot) getting ready for the day. Then she gets a call from coworker Ted, and suddenly she’s off and running through London to the dulcet sounds of Blondie’s Heart of Glass. The title finally appears, presumably because the movie has decided, “Yep, this is the one. We’re making Gal Gadot run now.”

Which raises an important question. Was this entire movie just an excuse to put Gal Gadot in skin-tight running pants?

Because if so, mission accomplished. Unfortunately, there’s also supposed to be a thriller happening.

Noah is abducted, and a mysterious Caller (Damian Lewis) starts issuing Sarah a series of cryptic commands. She has to race across the city to save her son, navigating secrets, threats and whatever other obstacles the screenplay can throw in her path.

The problem is that I never really understood why she needed to be running everywhere in the first place. The bad guy has a specific objective, and that objective is apparently time-sensitive. So why not simply tell Sarah where she needs to go and let her get there by whatever means necessary? Why is running specifically the solution?

It’s not like she’s being chased by a bus.

The movie does have some things going for it. There are some genuinely cool shots, the editing has energy, and there are flashy sequences that demonstrate some filmmaking talent from Kevin Macdonald. Unfortunately, all that technical polish is being used to prop up an idea that probably sounded considerably better on paper.

And then there’s the ending.

You have to give The Runner a lot of leeway when it comes to plausibility. I can’t say I was surprised by where things ended up, because the ending was pretty much exactly what I expected. It isn’t necessarily terrible. It just feels like the movie has been sprinting toward a finish line that was never far away.

All I could think about was how great Run Lola Run was. That movie understood how to turn running into an actual cinematic engine. The Runner mostly turns it into cardio.

It’s Speed without the bus, without the excitement, and with considerably more Gal Gadot running. At least she looks great doing it.