The Long Walk
With the possible exception of David Jonsson, this is one of the worst acted movies I’ve seen. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is one of my all-time favorite actors, but at least for me, his son Cooper doesn’t have the same appeal. Mark Hamill was also wildly poor casting, and his performance was just strange. Besides the acting, the dialogue was bizarre and the bickering between the boys felt so unrealistic. The trailer made this seem like a horror, and had they leaned into that with the movie, I think it could have been great, but instead they went more drama / trauma-bonding / metaphorical that just didn’t work for me. Unless you’re a Stephen King truther, this is a skip.
-Z
Sadly, this was a case of me thinking the trailer looked a little dumb and gave away the entire plot…and that basically was the case. The ending also felt quite out of place, but I had kind of given up hope that that might turn it around at that point. A lot of this movie focuses on conversations, and the dialogue/delivery just did not feel natural. The world they built seemed really intriguing, and I’m sure there was a purpose in not giving away too many details about it and focusing just on the walking, but that led to this feeling more like a play than a movie.
-E
From no expectations, to a potential banger in terms of reviews from people I trust, it created quite the expectations going in. Right when I saw the trailer I was intrigued, but Z and E seemed very skeptical. Overall, I did really enjoy the movie and it did have some emotional parts. I do think the writing was very poor at times, which made the flow tough to be a part of, but I think some good monologues helped me. Overall, its downfall was the anti-climactic and confusing ending. I usually try to stop bad endings from affecting me too much, but this one was objectively bad. Sadly, it had the bones for a great movie, but finished average.
-J
