The Long Walk follows quickly on from The Life Of Chuck as another Stephen King novel reaching the big screen, and this time, it’s Death Walk 3000. Will they walk 500 miles, and then walk 500 more?
In a dystopian America, thousands of teenage boys annually apply to take part in the titular event – with just 50 being randomly selected to take part, where they’ll all walk until there’s just one left, with the winner scooping a stack of cash, and can have one wish fulfilled.
So, a simple premise as the jumping off point, starting with the various lads meeting up as the event starts, the cast led by Cooper Hoffman (Saturday Night) as No.47, Raymond Garraty, and David Jonsson (Alien Romulus) as No.23, Peter McVries, and it doesn’t take long before they can say goodbye to their eardrums, as The Major (a fairly well-disguised Mark Hamill, also in The Life Of Chuck) starts shouting instructions at them.
Such as, once you start walking, if you fall behind and walk under 3mph, you’ll get a warning. Three warnings, and you die. However, for each hour you can walk at that pace after that, you’ll have one warning removed. And for toiiet breaks? Erm…
Along the way, there’s a lot of conversation between them all, making me think they’d be better saying nothing, so they can conserve their energy, and one moment which I’ll put behind a spoiler header, even though I won’t reveal to whom it relates…
Overall, The Long Walk is pretty engaging, but it’s also quite a long slog. I enjoyed it to a point, but it’s one of those films where it tells its tale and then you’re done with it. It’s certainly nothing I’d need to see again.
Additionally, there’s initially from what I’ve gleamed of the original novel, there’s some minor changes, such as how the boys have to maintain a slightly faster speed of 4mph, and there’s 100 of them at the start. There’s also another change, which I’ll put behind a spoiler header:
But while Stephen King can master some horror, there was something even more horrific to come… Close Encounters of the FEET Kind!
What in the world is going on with the rise of people either putting their feet on the top of the seat, as if it’s a footrest, or worse still – since they keep rearranging themselves – putting their feet AGAINST the back of the chair in front of them, which comes across as the seat being kicked! In recent memory, this has happened twice from men and twice from women.
I obviously can’t name and shame this individual because I don’t know her name, but if you were in The Long Walk at 5.45pm on Sunday, screen 5 Trafford Centre, this one’s for you. This might now sound like a game of chess.
When I came in, she was in D5, I took my seat in C5, she moved to D6, and then I realised why. A few minutes into the film, and I can see bare feet creeping over the top of the chair to my left! I said, “Can you put your feet down, please?”
She did, but then did the other thing of regularly putting her feet against the back of that chair, making the ENTIRE ROW SHAKE! That will happen ANY time someone does that. After about 20 mins of this happening occasionally, I turned round and asked her to stop for that reason, held my gaze for a few seconds, during which, she looked at me, then all at the screen, then all around as if it wasn’t really happening and she’d done nothing at all. Then I turned back, and a few mins later, she moved back across to D3.
She did the same again, and short of standing up and literally shouting to stop, there are some ignorant people who just won’t listen. If you can’t sit properly, don’t come out of the house! Or sit in the front row, where you have legroom for days!
There was also a guy in C1, so he’d also have felt this as it went on.
I could also detail a recent This Is Spinal Tap showing with TWO men (one at each end) doing this – in the EXACT same screen, and in others, another with female bare feet in Barbie, and a man’s big boots put up on the seat next to me in Clown in a Cornfield!
NOTE: There’s no mid- or post-credits scenes as such, other than brief moments as the credits scroll up, showing various families in the franchise respectively settling down together for the day.
The Long Walk is in cinemas now, and is available to pre-order on Blu-ray and DVD.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 108 minutes
Release date: September 12th 2025
Studio: Lionsgate
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (ARRIRAW (4.6K), Anamorphic Panavision)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 6.5/10
Director: Francis Lawrence
Producers: Francis Lawrence, Roy Lee, Cameron MacConomy, Steven Schneider
Screenplay: JT Mollner
Novel: Stephen King
Music: Jeremiah Fraites
Cast:
Raymond Garraty #47: Cooper Hoffman
Peter McVries #23: David Jonsson
Stebbins #38: Garrett Wareing
Arthur Baker #6: Tut Nyuot
Gary Barkovitch #5: Charlie Plummer
Hank Olson #46: Ben Wang
Richard Harkness #49: Jordan Gonzalez
Collie Parker #48: Joshua Odjick
The Major: Mark Hamill
Curley #7: Roman Griffin Davis
Ginnie Garraty: Judy Greer
Mr. William Garraty: Josh Hamilton
Ewing #1: Noah de Mel
Rank #19: Daymon Wrightly
Ronald #45: Jack Giffin
Pearson #8: Thamela Mpumlwana
Larson #14: Keenan Lehmann
Percy Grimes #31: Dale Neri
Patrick Smith #4: Teagan Stark
Tressler #24: Samuel Clark
Zuck #50: Emmanuel Oderemi
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.