Marche ou crève

I'll start by saying I haven't read Stephen King's book, but the concept of a dystopian death march with one winner and no finish line sounded pretty intriguing.

Turns out, it's just... walking. For almost two hours. Straight.

I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I guess I should've known better - watching people walk (and talk, and occasionally fall over) probably can't carry an entire movie. The film kind of flatlines early on and just keeps dragging its feet, literally. Nothing major really happens - it's just endless walking with bits of dialogue sprinkled in, and none of it feels impactful enough to justify the runtime.

It's like watching a horror movie without horror, or a war movie without war - just the awkward middle bits where everyone's sweaty and miserable. The concept had potential, but it feels like it forgot to actually go anywhere (ironically).

Most of the characters are forgettable or painfully stereotypical: the cocky one, the quiet one, the emotional one, the guy who clearly won't make it past the halfway point, and a few randoms who seem to exist just to fill the quota of "people who can die later". Some are purposely annoying, some are just... there. And while I get that the point is supposed to be bleak and psychological, it ends up feeling weirdly hollow.

The film tries to say something deep about humanity, sacrifice, survival, or whatever, but it never quite lands. In the end, it's just a story about a short-lived friendship that won't last, told through the world's longest, most uneventful walk.

I wouldn't say it's bad-bad.. it's just frustratingly dull. It's one of those films where you keep waiting for something to happen... and then the credits roll.

In essence, The Long Walk is a long watch.

If you film a much loved book, say Lord of the Rings for this example, and, at the council of Elrond, Gandalf says "Oh, you want to take the ring to Gondor Boromir? OK then", fans of the book are going to be disappointed. And that's how I feel right now. Unlike LOTR, The Long Walk does not have a great deal of action in the traditional sense, so why remove what important moments there are: an adolescent who's never had sex risking everything for a kiss? The barbaric nature of huge crowds gathered to cheer on boys about to die? Or to gamble what small funds they have on who will survive? Why remove all the things that made a novel so special and decide your scriptwriter knows best?

The ending is changed and not convincing and while I can imagine Hollywood require more resolution than the original text, I don't think this was the way to go personally.

Apart from the changes, I thought most of the cast did well but were a bit too well fed and healthy for the supposed economic misery this US faced.

It was an ok movie, too much missed potential as they could have done so much more. More talking than action. There was no moments that really hit you and it felt kind of repetitive and you could see how the story would go from the beginning. A lot of things were out of nowhere, ofcourse people die but some of them the way they go out just has no substance, and there's no real twist that takes place. You know how most movies have a crisis in the middle that needs to be overcome? This movie doesn't have that. The ending was super annoying also and contradicts what was preached throughout the movie. I watched this based on the 7*+ ratings, but in my opinion it doesn't match up to any 7* movie I've ever seen, hence the rating.

I recently watched this movie, and to be honest, I'm struggling to understand the purpose behind it. From start to finish, it felt like the entire experience was built almost entirely around dialogue, yet those conversations rarely carried any real weight or depth. A film can absolutely thrive on dialogue alone when it's sharp, meaningful, or layered with subtext, but here it felt shallow, repetitive, and ultimately unconvincing.

The characters spend so much time talking, but what they're saying doesn't seem to move the story forward or reveal anything profound about who they are. Instead, it feels like words for the sake of words-long exchanges that might have been aiming for philosophical or emotional depth but fell flat. Without strong dialogue, the movie doesn't have much else to lean on, because there isn't really a compelling plot, standout visuals, or a strong atmosphere to carry the gaps.

Movies built around minimal action and heavy dialogue can be powerful when done well, but this one left me unmoved. It's not that I expect explosions or constant action, but I do expect substance. Unfortunately, this movie just didn't deliver, and I walked away more frustrated than entertained.

The Long Walk is one of my favorite books and I have been dreaming of a movie adaptation. I felt it was promising for the first 30 minutes, mostly due to wonderfully brutal cinematography. However, as soon as the drama ramped up, actors started to overact and the whole script all of a sudden derailed into Hollywood cliche land. I felt like the movie pretty much cut out all the parts of the book I loved the most and butchered the final scenes into something completely different than the subtle but powerful book ending intended to convey.