Review: The Dark Tower

Stephen King's long awaited film adaptation of his magnum opus finally hits theaters and the results are not as exciting as we all hoped.

Welcome to the very first post here on Tommentary and it's certainly a good one to start with. I am a HUGE Stephen King fan. I've read over twenty of his books and I enjoy pretty much all of them. However, I am guilty of not having read the Dark Tower series. The Sci-Fi/Western eight-book epic is described by King himself as his masterpiece. I tried my hardest to finish the first novel in the series, "The Gunslinger," before going to see the film adaptation but I failed miserably so I cannot judge this film by those standards.

Going into this movie I didn't have super high expectations. There have been fantastic movie adaptations of Stephen King stories (Carrie, The Shining, Misery) and then some really not so great ones (Maximum Overdrive, Dreamcatcher, Cell.) Knowing how much Stephen King loves this series though, I did have some hope that the movie would live up to his masterpiece. Unfortunately the results were just okay.

The film, which stars Idris Elba and Academy Award Winner Matthew McConaughey, centers on 11-year-old Jacob Chambers who has vivid dreams of a man in black who is on a mission to destroy the titular dark tower in order to unleash Hell on infinite earths. Jake also dreams of a gunslinger who is on his own mission to kill the Man in Black to avenge the murder of his father. Jake's visions lead him to Mid-World-an alternate dimension that seems like a cross between the wild west and another planet-where he joins the Gunslinger on his quest to defeat the Man in Black and save the tower.

It's important to note that a basic background knowledge of the book is very helpful before going into this movie. I was about two thirds of the way through the first book when I saw the film and it gave me just enough foundation to understand what was going on in the grander story being told. Which leads me to the movie's biggest problem: There was simply too much going on and not enough time spent on explaining it. I'm not surprised that audiences were left confused and wondering why everything they were seeing on screen was happening. At a run time of only 95 minutes the film tries to do too much without explaining a whole lot. Character motivations are barely fleshed out at all and the movie moves so fast from one scene to the next that there's not enough time to digest what's happening. What really is the dark tower? Why does the Man in Black want to unleash Hell? What's the story behind the gunslingers? These are just some of the questions you may find yourself asking after the movie is over.

On the brighter side of things, the three leads really do make the most of the lazy script they have to work with. Idris Elba brings a rough, no-nonsense, grit to the role of the Gunslinger that I actually found pretty spot on to the character from the novel. Keep in mind I'm only two thirds of a way through the first one though. His expressive eyes and tone really made me believe what he was putting up on that screen. Matthew McConaughey plays the evil Man in Black with a devilish charm which tells me that he obviously had fun with the character. His dialogue isn't as good as Elba's though and about half of his lines come off as generic evil guy banter.

The actor that really stands out though is Tom Taylor in the role of young psychic Jake Chambers. Taylor is pretty much new to the big screen and I was impressed with his acting chops. Frankly he outshined (pun intended) both Elba and McConaughey. The raw emotion he puts into some scenes feels authentic and he made Jake both relatable and sympathetic. I'm sure this kid has a future in this industry.

In addition to the actors, I have to give credit to the effects team. The movie is visually impressive in every scene that takes place in Mid-World. The sprawling landscapes have a distinctive wild west look but also a tint of otherworldly strangeness which is exactly the feelings your supposed to get when reading the Dark Tower novels. The film's action sequences are also fun to watch without being too campy or over the top. However they don't make up for the poor pacing and character development which makes it hard to care about what the outcome of a particular shootout will be.

I could probably spend a whole different post simply trying to explain the motivations for each character in this movie. I hope the film brings in enough money to justify a sequel so filmmakers could have another try and doing it right. You simply can't cram eight novels worth of story into one 95 minute movie. I hope it's not too much of an insult to Stephen King and here's hoping the upcoming remake of IT proves a more faithful and better made adaptation.

Final Thoughts: Despite three solid actors and visually impressive settings and action sequences, the lazy script and spotty pacing is enough to bring The Dark Tower crumbling down.

Overall Grade: C-

#movies #reviews #stephenking #idriselba #matthewmcconaughey #tomtaylor #darktower