JacobsonCinemas

While I’ve never read any of Stephen King’s books, I have seen a few of his film adaptions such as the Shining, Doctor Sleep, Stand by Me, and the It duology. The Long Walk is a yearly challenge where 50 boys run across a dystopian of America at a speed of three miles per hour. If they go slower than that or stop, they are given a warning and after three warnings are shot. The walk ends when only one participant is left.

You will notice that this has a similar premise to a book series I read in high school called The Hunger Games which is about a group of kids fighting to the death until one of them is alive. The Long Walk has a similar vibe to that series mostly because the director Francis Lawrence also directed the sequels Catching Fire and the Mockingjay two-parter. His directing in those films is really great and same can be said here as there are many shots that let you sink in the atmosphere of this bleak setting. I bet Suzanne Collins took a lot of inspiration from this book when writing her series. I also really like the participants. A lot of them have their own personalities and reasons to why they want to win. The biggest standouts are definitely Cooper Hoffman as Ray (#47) and David Jonsson as Peter McVries (#23).

This film manages to balance being both intense and quiet. There are a lot of moments where the participants are just having conversations with each other. It’s very reminist of another Stephen King film Stand by Me, which also had quiet moments where the characters talk to each other while walking throughout the country. When it gets intense however, it gets very intense. A lot of the participants get very close to getting shot but when they do die it’s very gruesome and sad. One of the most gruesome scenes is when one of them gets their legs crushed by a tank. Another intense scene is when they have to walk up the hill without tiering. This film managed to make walking up a hill one of the most disturbing parts of the film.

The Long Walk brings me back to a younger age when I watched the Hunger Games series. It is up there with The Shining and Stand by Me as one of Stephen King’s best film adaptions managing to balance being quiet and intense. Absolutely worth the walk to your local movie theater.

Verdict:

+Francis Lawrence’s directing

+Intense

+Quiet

+The participants

Score: A