It feels counterintuitive, not to mention glib, to say that The Long Walk is arriving late to any trend, but that’s a bit what it feels like to be watching this adaptation in the year 2025. Stephen King’s “first” novel — the one he wrote at the ripe age of 19 but didn’t publish until years later — is one of many stories about a dangerous game enforced by a totalitarian regime. The book is favored by King aficionados the world over, but it was also considered borderline impossible to adapt. So it remained on the shelves, while splashier successors took the slow-drip dread of King’s tale and repackaged it for the big screen. The Hunger Games was arguably the splashiest of those offerings, and while that franchise is enjoying something of a resurgence now, it’s lost a bit of its luster since becoming a modern classic. It’s hard to invest in a dystopian world that seems only steps removed from our own: why watch fictional heroes tear each other apart when we can doomscroll for the same effect? Such is the hurdle that The Long Walk finds itself facing — but it’s one that the film clears easily. Its familiar premise is just the set dressing for a much more intimate story. With masterful direction, heart-wrenching performances, and a harrowing survival tale in perpetual motion, The Long Walk smoothly snatches back it legacy as the king of the dystopian fable. It might also be one of the greatest King adaptations ever made. |
