The Long Walk - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Amazon Exclusive SteelBook

If there’s one thing that can be said of Stephen King’s books, the man can come up with some seriously messed-up stuff. Equally true, the author can create poignant, heartwrenching, thought-provoking material to fill those pages. And when he’s at the top of his game, you get the best of everything - in this case, The Long Walk. Written under his ill-fated pseudonym alongside the similarly themed dystopian science fiction story The Running Man, King explored prescient ideas of fame, wealth, and our cultural fascination with violence and bloodshed against the backdrop of a dystopian landscape. Several changes were made from the book, but I think director Frances Lawrence and his writer, JT Mollner, delivered a harrowing cinematic experience from a story deemed unfilmable for decades. 

The game is simple: fifty young men - one from every state - volunteer to enter a lottery to join the Long Walk. Young men like #47 Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman, #23 Peter McVries (David Jonson), #46 Hank Olson (Ben Wang), or #7 Curly White (Roman Griffin Davis) will be joining the annual contest. The rules are simple: maintain a three-mile-per-hour pace, go for as long as you can, and if you’re the last man walking, you’ll receive untold riches and have one wish granted. But there can be only one winner; everyone else will die. Fall below that pace, and you get a warning. After three warnings, you’ll be executed on the spot in front of live TV cameras so the world can watch you die.

Without needing to get into the nitty-gritty of events, I’ll say that The Long Walk had the misfortune of opening when it did. Talk about a fraught few days for a film about people being shot on television to open in theaters! I almost didn’t go, but I had preordered my ticket, and I desperately needed to just get out of the house. What followed was one of the most harrowing, but also one of the most immediately relevant, movie-going experiences I ever had. After days of people showing videos of one man being shot and killed, we see a film that taps into that bloodlust mindset. 

The story is a competition. In the eyes of those watching, the Long Walk is a game. Even for the contestants, they know what’s coming, but there’s a big difference between knowing and actually experiencing that reality. I’m not one to condemn violence in entertainment; between video games, comic books, and a large chunk of my film collection, I enjoy stories that feature extreme violence. But as a particularly bloody video made its rounds last September, I left the theater feeling frustrated and dismayed by those seeing some perverse form of entertainment value in horrible acts of real-life violence, even going so far as to celebrate it. 

Now with that particular vaguely-drawn elephant out of the room, I can focus more on the film itself. Upfront, King’s The Long Walk is one of my favorite books. It’s one of the few novels I ever read front-to-back in a single sitting (it was a very long night). And I thought this was a brilliant adaptation. As written, the novel is very much unfilmable. Franice Lawrence and JT Mullner wisely made necessary cuts and trims to keep the story focused on the core of the men on this journey. Getting into people watching the killings on television and other aspects of this dystopian society would have knocked the pace and focus away from the men and the moment. I will say they could have strengthened the presence of the cameras and that people are watching the live feed as each man dies, but that’s a relatively minor quibble against the whole. I won’t go into detail about the ending, but it’s another case of a Stephen King ending being too ambiguous for its own good and the filmmakers having to pivot. I, for one, actually like this cinematic ending a lot. I thought it moved away from being something ambiguous or too esoteric to something steeped in its own form of tragedy. But that’s just me. Feel free to comment if you’d like to discuss that point politely and without spoilers. 

And, it’s a hell of a cast. Cooper Hoffman and David Jonsson were perfect foils as Ray and McVries. The pair has that spark of natural friendship that makes the characters feel immediately relatable. Hamill was an ideal choice for the Major, delivering a cartoonishly chilling performance. He’s a presence, never a human or humane individual, moving these men like pawns in his scheme for control through both inspiration and terror. As for the rest of the squads, Ben Wang, Garrett Wareing, and Charlie Plummer were welcome standouts as well.

The Long Walk was a hell of a film. After being bounced around for so long between filmmakers ranging from the likes of George A. Romero to Frank Darabont, I honestly never thought we’d see a good, proper adaptation of this novel. Leave it to Francis Lawrence, the guy who has owned young adult dystopian murder competition films for the last decade (with another on the way) to get the job done. Initially, I was worried that too much of The Hunger Games flash and pizzazz would slip into this project, but he surprisingly kept it small, localized, and populated it with characters that felt real. I don’t know how often I’ll come back to The Long Walk, twice inside of three months is enough for quite a while, but I’m glad to know it’s on the shelf whenever I need it (and don’t feel like rereading the book). 

Vital Disc Stats: The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray 
The Long Walk takes a stroll onto physical media with a two-disc 4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital SteelBook from Lionsgate exclusively available at Amazon. The 4K is pressed on a BD100 disc with a Region A BD50 serving the 1080p materials. The discs are housed in a slick SteelBook with the visage for Mark Hamill’s Major; a plastic slipcover completes the image, offering the silhouettes of the men walking against the sun in the lenses. The discs load to an animated main menu with standard navigation options.

The Long Walk journeys through dystopian America (by way of Manitoba shooting locations) with an excellent 2160p Dolby Vision transfer. Given that the entirety of the film takes place outdoors, there are some often breathtaking vistas to enjoy, you know, in between all of the horrifying deaths. Facial features, clothing, the army vehicles, the weathered farms, and small town shops all offer an impressive range in clarity. In fact, I think it’s almost too good-looking in places. If I have a lingering complaint about the film, it's that I always felt it should have been shot on low-quality film stock; 16mm would have been a hell of a look. That niggle aside, this does look excellent in high resolution. The Dolby Vision grade gives a little more nuance to the lighting and colors, letting the image’s sense of depth feel expansive. 

Looking at the included Blu-ray, clarity is pretty consistent across the discs. Facial features, clothing textures, and production details for that late-1960s dystopian Americana vibe hold firm. But the 4K is the stronger presentation. I felt the 1080p disc could look surprisingly flat at times, especially in some wide group shots where you could see people marching fifty feet behind our main characters, but the sense of depth was missing. Overall, if Blu-ray is all you need, it’s pretty good, but if you’re a fan and so equipped, the 4K is where to focus your collection.

On the audio side, both discs arrive with an impressive Dolby Atmos mix. While much of the presentation can feel very front/center channel focused, there are notable moves through the soundscape to keep the sides and rears fully engaged. From clomping feet to the slow, ominous, crunching crawl of rubber tires on asphalt, there is a dynamic presence for all of these key sound effects. Height channels also help set the stage. Given the open-air setting, the overheads carry mostly incidental effects, but when a contestant is executed, that echo drifting into the overheads is damned unsettling. Some storm scenes with pouring rain and other inclement sound effects certainly fill that overhead space nicely. The excellent score from Jeremiah Fraites fills the mix nicely without overpowering (the track “Olson” from the soundtrack is actually my wake-up alarm tone now). Throughout, the dialog is clean and clear without issue. Not the most aggressive Atmos track ever, but it’s perfectly effective for what it accomplishes. 

On the extra features front, we see an excellent arrangement of materials. First interesting tidbit for fans will be the alternate ending, which I understand the direction is to attempt, but it’s also a bit dramatically flat, in my opinion. The biggest and best piece is the multi-part documentary Ever Onward: Making The Long Walk. It’s a fabulous, well-produced look at the making of the film that goes far beyond the usual assortment of EPK nonsense we so often see with most disc releases these days.

• Alternate Ending (HD 7:56)
• Stephen King: An Appreciation (HD 5:05)
• Cooper & David Scene Read (HD 2:45)
• Ever Onward: Making The Long Walk: (HD 1:14:52 Total)
• Chapter 1: Walk or Die
• Chapter 2: Raring to Rip
• Chapter 3: Another Time/Another Place
• Chapter 4: Adjustments are Key
• Chapter 5: Fulfillment
• Theatrical Trailer
• Theatrical Trailer 2

The Long Walk isn’t an easy film. It was an emotionally tough read, and it’s just as harrowing to watch as a film. Some folks may want to debate the changes from the novel to the film, the end will certainly spark some conversations. But I have to give credit where it's due. Lawrence delivered an excellent adaptation of King’s novel that cut to the core of the work. With Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, and the rest of the cast, the characters finally come to life (at least for a little while, at least). Now the film is available on physical media, where I hope folks will give it a real chance. It did well theatrically, but it deserved to do much better as one of the better King adaptations. On 4K the film looks terrific with an often stunning Dolby Vision transfer with an effective Atmos mix to match. Bonus features are just as impressive, with an excellent making-of documentary giving us a full look at the production. I thought this was a terrific feature, but I mean it in the best way that I hope I don’t watch something this emotionally heavy for some time, let alone twice inside of three months. Fans aiming to add the film to their shelves should consider this 4K disc an easy one to call Recommended. ,