Gal Gadot's new action thriller on Prime Video took a risk with its premise, which proved divisive in reviews. 2026's The Runner, which premiered on Prime Video on September 2, follows Gadot's Maia Marten as she is forced to (literally) run for her son's life. Maia, a London prosecutor and single parent, is held in an impossible situation after a mysterious caller held her diabetic son captive and will let him die unless she crosses the city on foot and kills a protected witness. The movie's premise is interesting, as it's primed for clear tension between Gal Gadot's character and the mystery villain. However, critics noticed a major flaw, specifically with Gadot's actual running in the movie.
The Runner received a dismal 8% critic score and a 34% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and much of the blame falls on the running of Gal Gadot's Maia, which rarely feels like a life-or-death act.
Some reviews noted that Gadot's Maia spends much of the film not really looking invested in saving her son. The Wrap described it as a "brisk scamper," noting that her running didn't really convey a sense of desperation or urgency. The movie clearly failed to maximize Maia's panic, and it also didn't help that Gadot's reaction pretty much looks the same for a good chunk of the runtime.
There is no question that Gadot's Maia is physically fit as intended in the movie's run-or-get-your-son-killed premise. However, much of the movie shows Gadot as nothing short of a woman who does not look at who has just been told her child is sliding into a diabetic coma. The sense of desperation isn't believable enough to make viewers invested, and that is part of the problem.
The Runner employs a core storytelling tactic by asking viewers to accept the rules governing Maia's running: stay on foot, tell no one, and obey the mysterious caller by any means necessary. The problem here is the fact that Gal Gadot's Maia doesn't look desperate, making it hard to sell to viewers that she is on a frantic journey to do what needs to be done.
Maia doesn't really look like a mother who looks truly cornered. There was one sequence where Maia needed to run to beat a subway train from one stop to the next, and this would've been the saving grace if The Runner had established the same amount of fear throughout its 90-minute runtime rather than this pivotal moment. The fact that Maia went back to the same measured run right after this crazy subway sequence was the final nail in the coffin for this movie to not work at all.
In a movie whose premise is that the actual run is the only thing driving the plot, the chase itself is the character, and the film should've known that from the beginning. Yes, there was a clear commitment to the physical performance Gadot brought, but the urgency remained theoretical because her acting leaned more toward the ordinary and did not embrace something far more compelling.
Gadot has faced criticism of her acting in the past, such as the now-infamous "Kal El, No!" delivery in 2017's Justice League, which sparked numerous memes and negative online engagement. The Runner would've provided her a chance at redemption, but many would agree she completely blew it.
The Runner tried to save face at the movie's end by introducing a game-changing twist: Maia outsmarted the mystery caller through flashbacks that reframed the chase as a setup for his downfall. However, the damage had been done, and a last-minute turn still couldn't supply the desperation the movie never put front and center through her performance.
How The Runner Should've Used Its Biggest Problem As Its Strength
The Runner failed to be compelling on its own, but there were ways to fix it if the movie had decided to go all in on its premise. Putting more into the physical performance could have added to the suspense and stakes of the film, completely treating exhaustion as an anchor for the character work on Gal Gadot's Maia.
It would have been better to see her form break down as the hour collapsed, portraying her not as an athlete ticking off the distance traveled, but as a mother whose stride shortens and someone who has no gas left in the tank.
While it would not have directly transformed The Runner into a great film, it would still have improved its quality and made Maia's desperation one of its strengths rather than its core weakness. Doing this would've allowed the film to tell the audience who Maia was under pressure, making it more believable and compelling than what was shown in the final product.
All in all, The Runner had a great premise, but it clearly missed the opportunity to build on maternal terror, as Gadot's performance became the brunt of the criticism that lay at the center of the gap it lacked.
