The Long Walk Stumbles in King’s Latest Journey to Nowhere

The Long Walk

★ ★

The Long Walk is based on a Stephen King novel written under his pseudonym Richard Bachman. As Bachman, he wrote Roadwork, where a grieving father has a mental breakdown and snaps against the government bureaucracy that aims to demolish his home to pave a highway.

He also wrote The Running Man, which later became a film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, set in a future where contestants are hunted for sport—if he survives, he wins one million dollars. The Long Walk follows similar themes, set in a dystopian world where every five years 50 late-teen-to-young-adult people must walk until only one remains. The winner is granted a wish, so long as it doesn’t upset the current government structure.

Cooper Hoffman as Raymond #47 and David Jonsson as Peter #23
© 2025 Lionsgate / Vertigo Entertainment

The rules of the walk are fairly simple. You must keep a pace at or above three miles per hour. If you fall below that, you’re given a warning every 10 seconds. After your third warning, you’re removed from the competition by way of execution—a bullet to the brain. You can walk off your warnings over time by continuing your pace and not receiving any warnings. Eventually, you get a clean slate. The walk is nonstop, lasting several days and covering hundreds of miles.

As part of the premise, this walk historically inspires the nation. Once the competition concludes, GDP increases, morale improves and people, for some reason, feel inspired to work harder. The film doesn’t do a good job of explaining this. Had the film addressed the inevitable question, “How do 50 young men walking in a brutal competition inspire a nation?” we might have had something emotional to latch onto.

The Long Walk feels like a mashup of two King concepts, Stand by Me (based on the King novel, The Body) and The Running Man. In Stand by Me, several teens make a long walk to find the dead body of a local kid who went missing. There’s a dynamic that symbolizes their passage from childhood into a loss of innocence. In Running Man, it’s one man against an oppressive dystopian government system using brutal entertainment for public complacency.

Cooper Hoffman as Raymond #47 and David Jonsson as Peter #23 walking at night
© 2025 Lionsgate / Vertigo Entertainment

Our main walkers, #47 Raymond Garraty (Cooper Hoffman) and #23 Peter McVries (David Jonsson) become fast friends and allies, working together for each other’s benefit. Their bond also helps to inspire other walkers and helps them go further than they normally would. #46 Hank Olson (Ben Wang) rounds them out as a trio—adding his wisecracking antics for some comic levity.

Leading the walkers is The Major (Mark Hamill) who rides in a tank, emerging every few miles to bark orders. The Major is sort-of hard to take seriously, because Hamill’s barking seems to mix in elements from his role as The Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. It worked in Batman, but here it was more of an annoyance than a menace.

Mark Hamill as The Major
© 2025 Lionsgate / Vertigo Entertainment

The acting would be better if the cast had more emotional brevity to play off. For one, we don’t really understand the stakes. Yes, if they stop walking, they die. But that’s the rule, not the motivation for signing up for the brutal contest. Yes, if they win they get a wish, but what does that mean in the grand scheme of things? How do 49 deaths and one granted wish inspire a nation to work harder?

It’s never explored deeply, only presented as “Here it is, them’s the rules. Keep walking or die. Go inspire the country, young man.”

The novel is supposed to be an allegory to the anxieties and fruitless endeavors of the Vietnam War. From patriotic volunteers to drafted young men, it begs the question—to what end? I imagine the novel explored this theme more deeply than the film.

Roman Griffin Davis as Curly #7
© 2025 Lionsgate / Vertigo Entertainment

There’s a willing suspension of disbelief required too, and for me, I didn’t quite get there. The odds of one person walking nearly five days straight at three miles per hour is astronomically not in their favor. Let alone, two. Sure, they’re given rations and water—to be consumed during the walk—but the physical limitations of the human body, combined with extreme exhaustion from sleep deprivation make this pretty hard to overlook.

And just so you’re properly warned, we even get the answer to the question we may not want: how do they manage bowel movements while keeping their walking pace.

With a more centered deep emotional connection with the characters and a better presentation of what’s at stake, this film could have matched the brutal nature it aspires to. As it stands, it plays more like a sophisticated poop joke.