Flawed Fun
Written and directed by Michael Crichton (The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Westworld), Runaway was overshadowed at the box office in 1984 by megahits like The Terminator. It earned $6,770,587 against an estimated eight-million-dollar budget.
The film also suffers from police procedural clichés and offscreen plot hand-waving. Unrealistic situations tend to pull the viewer out of the movie, such as a cold-blooded murder in the middle of a crowded restaurant that somehow draws no reaction.
Runaway does have an interesting premise that shows off Crichton’s imagination. In this near-future world, robots handle everything from housework to construction labor. But an evil maniac starts reprogramming these helpful machines into murder bots and invents a heat-seeking missile handgun while he’s at it.
The movie is a fun, if flawed, watch. Like a lot of old sci-fi, it’s loaded with lessons for running D&D or any RPG. It sparks some cool setting ideas and also shows a few things not to do.
Runaway is free to watch on Tubi.
P.S. Tom Selleck never uses that awesome gun from the poster.
