RubyMouse

In the book the horror of watching young men get shot is highlighted by the unfeeling, voracious crowds lining the street, the betting rings encouraging people to gamble their savings on their favourite, the desperation of some ghouls for a ticket where they sit. This is left out of the movie and, given the lack of action in the conventional sense, I don't see why. What we get instead is a long chat.

The ending is also rewritten and is unsatisfactory in my opinion. It is an ultimately disappointing movie despite the strong cast.

If you film a much loved book, say Lord of the Rings for this example, and, at the council of Elrond, Gandalf says "Oh, you want to take the ring to Gondor Boromir? OK then", fans of the book are going to be disappointed. And that's how I feel right now. Unlike LOTR, The Long Walk does not have a great deal of action in the traditional sense, so why remove what important moments there are: an adolescent who's never had sex risking everything for a kiss? The barbaric nature of huge crowds gathered to cheer on boys about to die? Or to gamble what small funds they have on who will survive? Why remove all the things that made a novel so special and decide your scriptwriter knows best?

The ending is changed and not convincing and while I can imagine Hollywood require more resolution than the original text, I don't think this was the way to go personally.

Apart from the changes, I thought most of the cast did well but were a bit too well fed and healthy for the supposed economic misery this US faced.

First off Pierce Brosnan should never be asked to do accents: he can't and it's dire. Given the quality of the acting from the other three main characters, he stands out like a sore thumb. Second, I'm really not sure that the whole "murder is not that bad if the person you kill is a git" tone fits with my own philosophy. Third, Chris Columbus colours the internal shots like a 2010 iPhone with it's retro HDR and vignetting and I don't like that. These seems trivial complaints in some respects and yet I find myself wanting to score this a petulant 2 and having to resist. I will not be watching or reading any more that's for sure.