So I got dragged to see this by my wife and a few of her friends. It was actually pretty good, and I'd have a hard time faulting it on much other than its lack of originality. The Running Man isn't a great comparison. This really isn't anything like that. It's basically an improved version of Battle Royale. It kind of reminds me of Infernal Affairs versus the Departed, where The Departed was actually better than the original. It was very well acted and written. The action scenes are pretty good and very bloody, particularly the opening of the game where everyone runs for the weapons and there's a total bloodbath. Woody Harrelson was pretty good as a drunken comic relief character. I thought it did a pretty good job of showing a dystopian society where a few rich people live in opulence and have access to advanced technology, but most people live in squalor. I'm guessing the books are recent, because the dystopia in this seemed to be based on the 99% vs 1% rhetoric. Nothing about it felt childish or anything like that Twilight garbage. I wouldn't have known it was based on a teen book series if no one had told me otherwise. I thought it had a better explanation for why the game was held than Battle Royale. It's basically a way to punish the population after a failed rebellion, but done in a way that they won't start another rebellion because they have some hope of winning the game. I also thought the action scenes were better and found it more suspenseful, probably because the characters are better developed. If you liked Battle Royale, I can't imagine you not liking this because it takes the premise from that and fleshes it out more. 8/10