The Long Walk review
By Joel Humphries · Watched 09.11.25
★★ 2 / 5
Spoiler-free review
The Long Walk wastes a promising dystopian premise on days of dull terrain, fascist cruelty and young men who rarely have anything interesting or thoughtful to say. One lead’s mush-mouthed imitation of an American accent adds another distraction while the group walks, curses its rulers and periodically shrinks through gunfire until the least compelling characters remain. Stephen King adaptations repeatedly convince me that this time the underlying idea will overcome my indifference to his writing. Once again, it did not. Movement is not momentum, and this very long walk goes nowhere.
Full review — contains spoilers
I don't understand why people like this so much. It was boring and never went anywhere with such promising premise. It would've helped if the boys ever had anything interesting or thoughtful to say. And if one of the leads didn't have a mush mouth fake American accent.
The kids walked for days over boring terrain while cursing their fascist overlords and occasionally getting shot in the head until only the most boring characters remained. That's it, that's all that happened until the end. Ugh.
I don't like Stephen King's books and I don't like things based on Stephen King's writing. Still somehow I convince myself that this would be good. It was not.