Movie review: The Long Walk

Damn, this is bullshit.

That was my first reaction when the changed ending of The Long Walk (affiliate link) movie started to be revealed.

This article contains some plot spoilers.

50 young men participate in a walking race. Only one makes it to the finish line alive.

I had worked hard and painfully to protect myself from spoilers. I knew that the ending had been changed, and that people thought the new ending is crap. But I didn't know what the changed ending would be.

At some point, I first hoped and then feared that the ending would be a dream or hallucination of a character, but no. Fortunately, the very last seconds were faithful to the book, meaning the character's final fate was left open.

Making a character evil (and stupid!) who only thirsts for revenge and corrupts his friend into the same thing is not good. Making everything and everyone's deaths pointless in the end, even the father's. Of course, it was all pointless from the start. The point is that no one ever really wins the Long Walk.

And one character has been made into a saint, representing all that is good in the world. Well, he certainly wasn't like that in the book. On the contrary, he got his scar from trying to rape his girlfriend.

And I didn't think it was believable that the main character would suddenly just give up and betray his mother, especially after he had just realized that she was right. Mothers are always right about everything.

And then there's the fact that an alternate ending has been filmed, because an upcoming home release 4K will have it. 

 

 

Of course, I understand that the book's ending had to be changed. The ending of the book would have been too bland, more drama was needed, and that's certainly what's at the end of the movie.

Besides the ending there are of course a lot of other differences between the book and the movie.  

I'm not a fan of blood, gore, and guts, not to mention (diarrhea) crap. I knew in advance that the movie was going to be incredibly violent, and I kept my eyes closed at many points. There was also a lot of swearing, even the f-word was only used a few hundred times.

I liked it when the major said "Good luck, son" to one of the characters right at the beginning. 

But the true star of the movie was of course the eyeless cat, which I wondered already in the trailer.

 

  

 

The Long Walk is one of my favorite works by Stephen King, and I had been waiting for decades for it to be made into a film. Still, it was hard to find time in my busy schedule to go see it, and it was almost a month after the premiere. There were a total of 8 people in the audience at a Tuesday night screening. 

 

Ps. One of the trailers shown was for The Running Man, which will premiere in November. That's also one of my favorites from King's books, but I don't like the fact that this film has gone in a more comedic direction. And the ending has been changed from the book, apparently because of WTC...