Reviews for “The Long Walk” were overall positive —expectations were low for this Stephen King adaptation , but critics generally cut it some slack; 71 Metascore and 88% on·Rotten Tomatoes.
Based on Stephen King’s 1979 novel — the first he ever wrote, though it was later published under the Richard Bachman pseudonym — “The Long Walk” follows 50 teenage boys forced into a state-run endurance march in which anyone who drops below three miles per hour is executed on the spot. The march continues until only one remains.
I missed the film during its theatrical run while bouncing between festivals — Venice and TIFF — in September, but finally caught up with it on streaming in November. It left little impression, and at the time didn’t strike me as worth writing about.
Yet a review from Letterboxd, of all places, has been making the rounds — largely because of how precisely dead-on it is in calling out the film’s more ludicrous elements. You can read it below this piece. They’re criticizing the internal logic and world-building of The Long Walk, not just the execution.
“Why would you show up fat and wearing jeans?”
This is about realism and preparation. If the contest is known to be brutal and life-or-death, it makes no sense that participants would arrive physically unprepared or poorly equipped. It’s sloppy characterization or a failure to show how seriously the world treats the event.
“Why want the others to succeed?”
This bugged me. The rules of the game dictate that only one boy survives, yet many of the characters form friendships and actively root for one another. Some even help struggling competitors continue by carrying them forward. There’s zero realistic psychological grounding for this, and the behavior feels fundamentally contradictory. If I — or really anyone — were to enter this contest, survival instincts would kick in and override any sense of camaraderie. It’s survival of the fittest. The goal would be for every other contestant to die, except me.
The characters’ choices in this film feel irrational, there’s no emotional weight to what they’re doing, the entire scenario feels contrived rather than tragic.
Cooper Hoffman (”Licorice Pizza”) and David Jonsson (”Alien: Romulus”) lead the cast as two of the Walkers, with Mark Hamill playing the officer overseeing the contest. JT Mollner, fresh off the indie buzz of last year’s “Strange Darling,” penned the screenplay for “The Long Walk.”
