The Long Walk - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

The Long Walk



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:



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Movie
Not having watched the film in theatres, nor read the Stephen King story that it came from, I was shocked at how obvious the parallels were between King’s The Long Walk and Suzanne Collins The Hunger Games. I mean, if you had told me that this was a spin-off in the same universe, I actually probably would have believed it. Young adults are being forced to compete in a competition where only one person survives. A dystopian future America that is in shambles and relies on bloviating and preening in front of the crowd to whip up hope for those with no hope, and pad the coffers of those who prey on those with no hope. But Suzanne Collins was merely a teenager when King wrote his novel “The Long Walk”, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess where she got her “inspiration” from in penning her own novels with near parallel themes. But hey, replication is one of the sincerest forms of flattery, and fans of dystopian sci-fi will relish the fact that Stephen King’s variant is much darker and less flowery than the pop culture phenomenon that was The Hunger Games.

The year is unknown, but the place is America some sometime in the future. Our economy is in shambles, with people barely making ends meet in a world that is run by a totalitarian regime that keeps the peace through military control. Years ago, the regime figured out that hosting a 50-man march across America wherein only one person survives acted not only as an opiate for the masses, but caused an uptick in the general productivity and GDP of the nation due to the event being filmed and paraded around like some heroic thing. So, year after year, a march known as “The Long Walk” occurs with 50 young people across the nation being chosen via a lottery to represent their state in the event. There, they must walk no slower than 3 miles per hour, or they are executed (after 3 warnings), until only one person is still standing. That person is granted a luxurious financial gift as well as the honor of having one wish fulfilled on the spot.

The Long Walk differs from The Hunger Games in that there are no overarching political machinations or rebellion going on. Instead, it is an extremely intimate bonding experience for the young men as they knowingly walk a road where they have only one chance out of fifty of making it out alive. Young men who only have solace in each other and the pain of the walk that is to come. More importantly, it is a story of friendship and brotherhood between two very specific people who have never met before. The first being the story's obvious protagonist, Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman), who happens to be doing this to not only gain freedom, but also avenge his father's death. The second being Peter McVries (David Jonsson), a mysterious man who seems to want to bond with everyone around him, and yet is more alone than any of them.

The film lives and dies on its interactions between the boys, with some of them being viciously unpleasant, but some of them being so incredibly intimate and close that you can’t take your eyes off them. This is a horrible experience that they know won’t end well for most of them, but they still push forward with all of human nature’s vices and gifts together. It’s a fascinating watch, and for the first two-thirds of the film, I was absolutely captivated. King’s trademark male bonding is on full display here, with Cooper and David taking the lead, but many of the supporting characters do no worse with less screen time. Violence is brutal and absolutely gut-wrenching as you watch soldiers execute the boys one by one, with Mark Hamill hamming it up as the grizzled Army Major in charge. And that’s really one of the only two major problems I have with the film. Hamill is a great character actor when he wants to be, but he feels woefully miscast here. His gruff Major character is almost too cartoonish for the film at hand, which thrives on being grim and dark, a la The Road. But every time he opened his mouth, I felt that he was acting for a different movie. Something with a more lighthearted tone. Something cartoonish, if you will. The second major hiccup in the narrative is the ending. There’s a nice twist to the ending, but it feels a bit too pat, a bit too telegraphed. I initially wrote off my gut feeling about how the movie would end as too obvious, but sadly, they went with it, and somehow it made the ending feel a bit weak. Not bad, just diminished from the intensity that we saw for the last hour and a half.




Rating:

Rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, suicide, pervasive language, and sexual references.




Video:

Presented courtesy of Lionsgate with a 2.39:1 AVC encode, The Long Walk looks spectacular in 1080p. The film was supposedly shot using Arri Alexa cameras and mastered in 4K for the home video release, so the results are naturally quite pleasing to the eye. Sharpness is there in spades, whether it be the heavily green foliage littered daytime shots, or the pitch black of night lit only by military spotlights. Delineation is good, especially at night, and fine details range from excellent to downright jaw-dropping. The only real “problem” or downside I could find in this encode was the sporadic flickers of digital noise spiking in some nighttime shots (the most obvious ones were actually in dusky/dawn scenarios with low lighting, but not pitch black). But all in all, this is a superb-looking transfer that borders on 5/5 perfection.









Audio:

Similarly to the video score, The Long Walk puts forth an incredibly immersive and intense audio mix that makes full use of the overheads and surrounds. The entire film literally takes place entirely outside (except for a couple of 30-second flashbacks) and takes full advantage of the spaciousness of the outdoors. Birds chirp, military vehicles hum and rumble alongside the boys, with the thudding ricochet of a carbine report shocking you out of your slumber each and every time a boy is put down. Bass is intense when needed (tank tire treads, gun shots, etc), but also knows when to settle in to the background as it accentuates footsteps and other ambient elements. Overheads aren’t crazy insane, but they utilise the score quite effectively, as well as the ambient nature sounds, so everything blends quite nicely.









Extras:

• Ever Onward: Making The Long Walk
• Theatrical Trailers

Final Score:

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To add another layer to the similarities between The Long Walk and The Hunger Games, you may recognise the name of the director of this film. Francis Lawrence, the same man who directed all 4 of the original Hunger Games movies as well. I’m not sure whether it was intentionally done, but the meta nature of it all is almost more fun than the movie itself. But at the end of the day, his skill in directing the 4 Suzanne Collins adaptations may have worked out here as well, because it feels similarly engaging, despite having much different tones. That being said, this is a solid film that hits home quite painfully in our modern political climate (the monologues about the economy being in tatters had me wincing) and blends bits of Stand By Me, The Hunger Games and traditional Stephen King horror together for a fascinating (if not slightly flawed) watch. The Blu-ray looks and sounds excellent, with some minor extras for good measure. It may not be a blind buy type of film, but it’s certainly worth checking out.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing, Ben Wang, Judy Greer
Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Written by: Jt Mollner, Stephen King (Novel)
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: French: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, French, Spanish
Studio: Lionsgate
Rated: R
Runtime: 95 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 25th, 2025

Recommendation: Interesting Watch

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