Welcome to Movie Monday! Each week we will look at a movie either in theaters or available to stream by a major streamer. We will briefly review the movie, and tell you why it is enjoyable. This isn’t meant to be a detailed criticism, rather, a celebration of why a movie is entertaining or worth the watch. We will typically avoid spoilers, but if there are any, we will denote that clearly before it appears in the review. This week, we’ll be looking at The Long Walk.
Stephen King adaptations have always been plentiful and that will continue to be the case this fall when The Running Man follows the recently released The Long Walk. As a disclaimer which is typical for me, I have not read the 1979 novel by King, so this is purely a review of the film in its own vacuum. What stands out about The Long Walk is it’s deeply personal and emotional gravitational pull.
The characters you meet all establish a personality quickly, and despite a few characters that change at the very end of their journeys, you kind of know who you’re rooting for and who you aren’t quickly. It was important to establish an emotional connection because the film isn’t going to give you any thrills, it isn’t going to give you many surprises (aside from a few graphic kills) but it is predicated on you feeling some kind of way about the characters, and being in some ways just as disgusted as those in the movie are when someone “receives their ticket”.
I couldn’t help but notice the parallels in the world in which this movie operates to The Hunger Games. Again remembering that The Hunger Game is written after The Long Walk, essentially the country is broken from a war of the past and the powers that be find it necessary to put on a spectacle of sorts with young people where the winner is glorified and given vast riches, and all of the players that lose, well, “their sacrifices are honorable and important to continuing a post war country”.
Ultimately, I believe The Long Walk is worth the watch. Not because the entertainment value is off the scales, but because of the on the nose nature of how the events of the film make you feel, and how the film does a wonderful job of character development, which is not always easy given the finite nature of an hour and 45 minute film. While the characters who didn’t know each other beforehand slowly walk toward their demise, they remind you of one thing: you never walk alone.
The Long Walk is currently showing in theaters everywhere.
