Gal Gadot’s Hollywood fall: A few years ago, Gal Gadot looked like one of Hollywood’s biggest new stars. Wonder Woman changed her career in 2017 and made her known around the world. The film became a major success and turned Gadot into one of the main faces of DC’s superhero movies.
But her career hasn’t reached the same level since then. Several of her later films received weak reviews, while her acting has also faced repeated criticism. Now, her new Prime Video thriller The Runner has brought the same conversation back again.
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The Runner is facing Harsh Reviews
The Runner arrived on Prime Video on September 2, 2026. The movie is directed by Kevin Macdonald and stars Gadot as Maia Marten, a successful London lawyer and mother.
The story begins during Maia’s normal morning run. She gets a phone call telling her that her son has been taken. She’s then given a frightening set of instructions. Maia has to keep running across London and follow every order. She’s warned that stopping or telling someone could put her son’s life at risk.
Because Gadot is on screen for much of the film, the role puts a lot of pressure on her performance. Critics have not been kind so far. Rotten Tomatoes currently lists The Runner at 9% from critics and 31% from audiences.
Several reviews have criticised the film’s weak story and lack of tension. The Guardian said Gadot’s performance doesn’t give the character enough emotional depth, while RogerEbert.com also attacked the film’s strange and illogical plot. The poor reviews have also led to online jokes and criticism aimed at Gadot. The Independent noted that this is part of a much bigger pattern around the actor rather than one bad movie alone.
From Wonder Woman to a Difficult run of movies
The gap between Wonder Woman and Gadot’s recent work is now hard to ignore. Rotten Tomatoes gives the 2017 superhero film a strong 93% critic score, making it one of the best-reviewed films in her acting career.
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After that success, though, her film record became much more mixed. Justice League, Wonder Woman 1984, Red Notice, Death on the Nile, Heart of Stone, Snow White and In the Hand of Dante all received weaker critic scores than Wonder Woman.
That doesn’t mean every one of these movies was a box-office failure. Some were popular with viewers or performed well on streaming platforms. But the repeated criticism has created a stronger public idea that Gadot works better in certain roles than in films that need a lot of emotional acting.
Why Wonder Woman worked so well for her
Part of the reason Wonder Woman suited Gadot may be the character itself. Diana Prince is serious, calm and physically powerful. Gadot’s strong screen presence matched that style well.
The problem becomes bigger in roles where the character must show fear, pain, panic and deeper emotions for long periods. The Runner depends heavily on those feelings because Maia is trying to save her kidnapped son while moving through the city.
With Gadot no longer having Wonder Woman as a major safety net, The Runner needed to give audiences a new reason to believe she could lead a film on her own. Instead, the early response has added more fuel to the criticism that has followed her for years.
