survival | Eavesdropping at the Movies

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Cheap, simple, high-concept and reasonably graphic, The Long Walk is a throwback to the days of the B-movie. In its dystopian, totalitarian version of the USA, an annual event, the Long Walk, is designed to inspire a work ethic and national pride in the citizenry, and in so doing restore the country to that self-defined global number one status it craves; to make America great again. The televised competition sets fifty young men, one from each state, against each other in a test of endurance: they must walk for as long as they can, maintaining a speed of over 3mph at all times, with success rewarded with unimaginable riches and the fulfilment of a personal wish, and repeated failure to keep up punished with on-the-spot execution. There is one winner.

What promises to be quite dumb is not quite as dumb as Mike anticipates. The worldbuilding is fairly thin, and the premise of the competition an immediate hurdle for the audience to clear, but The Long Walk is able to develop thematically in surprising depth through the interactions and conversations between its competitors, who share their thoughts on the event, the personal histories that draw them to it, and their intentions if they win. With a number of reservations – we find its visual direction lacking and differ on how good the performances and screenplay are – it’s easy to recommend The Long Walk, which shows us an America in need of revolution, and asks its characters what it might take to achieve it.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

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The absence of presence that is Idris Elba, who we’d like to like one day, stars in Beast, a Jurassic Park knock-off that pitches him against both his distant daughter and an excessively affectionate lion. It’s a film that Mike enjoyed unironically but can’t claim to find much quality in; José, showing off, provides a coherent response, seeing the film’s weaknesses and having no fun.

It’s a mechanical film in more ways than one. The character relationships crash inelegantly into place, the action hasn’t met an idea from a better film that it didn’t try to copy – and the seats share the load, tilting and rumbling along with the images. For reasons beyond our understanding, our local Cineworld offered Beast only in 4DX, the theme park-style augmented exhibition format that purports to enhance the cinematic experience through practical effects such as moving seats, wind, and strobe lighting. It’s a technology that José despises to its core, arguing that it betrays a lack of trust in the film’s own ability to excite its audience, while Mike, who is in his thirties, likes filling himself up with fizzy liquid and sugar and being shaken around all afternoon.

Still, no amount of physical animation can either distract from or add to the vacuum of cinematic substance that is Idris Elba, Beast‘s central problem and central lack. It makes for a film you won’t regret ignoring.

With José Arroyo of First Impressions and Michael Glass of Writing About Film.

Eavesdropping at the Movies

Tag Archives: survival

458 – The Long Walk

371 – Beast