The Dark Tower Movie Review

Released: 18th August 2017 (UK)

Length: 95 Minutes

Certificate: 12A

Director: Nikolaj Arcel

Starring: Tom Taylor, Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey

Stephen King’s fiction has achieved many followings over the years, resulting in countless film adaptations that have reached varying success; following in the footsteps of The Shining, It, and Children of the Corn, The Dark Tower could well be the worst adaptation released in the author’s long ventures in writing.

In modern-day New York, young Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is plagued with mysterious visions of a tower, one which guards the realms of Earth and other dimensions from demonic forces of darkness. There are the Gunslingers who work to protect the tower and those who wish to destroy it using the minds of children, personified by the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey).

After heading into another dimension, Jake finds the Gunslinger (played by Idris Elba) from his dreams and together they work to stop the forces of evil from laying waste to the titular structure. The Dark Tower commits the worst mistake a film adaptation can make: it poorly introduces every aspect of its fictional tale.

Everything from the characters to the world they inhabit is just “there” without any sort of development or building. Without any effort to draw the audience in, The Dark Tower trudges along, never becoming interesting until the end.

There’s a scene taking place in a village made vulnerable by the Man in Black’s around halfway into the film and instead of fleshing out the world, all it does it bring the film to a halt.

This is the kind of adaptation that expects its audience to be familiar with the source material and haphazardly ploughs through the lore of its universe without any time for the audience to take it all in. It all rings so hollow, that by the halfway point, you’ll be disconnected from the proceedings completely.

The performances in The Dark Tower are almost completely flat, generally wasting the talent brought on board. We learn next to nothing about these characters so we don’t care about any of them.

Jake is a blank slate with nothing interesting about him; even the central notion of his troubled childhood is meaningless because there’s no time dedicating to characterizing it.

Equally frustrating is the near complete lack of chemistry between Jake and his mother (Katheryn Winnick) which could have formed an emotional anchor.

Matthew McConaughey is horribly generic here, a villain whose finest quirk is running his mouth off about how scary his plan to destroy the tower is. Other pointless or underdeveloped side characters include Jake’s friend and the people of the aforementioned village scene. You simply don’t believe in any of the characters or their motives, making the plot even more uninviting.

The only redeeming actor here is Idris Elba, who makes the best of the basic material given to him; while it’s all pretty cliched, he does a capable job of selling the roguish figure.

The visuals of The Dark Tower are mostly colourless and drained, but rather than working to sell a foreboding landscape they instead serve to highlight just how bland and lifeless the entire film is. The use of multiple dimensions could have created a unique identity for the film, but because it does nothing to distinguish the two locations apart from a few cosmetic differences the sense of immersion is lost.

Its costume design is equally unimaginative with The Man in Black’s plain shirt and trousers being the worst offender. Many of the action scenes are too fleeting to make an impact and don’t contribute anything to the plot; for example, there’s one point where Roland and Jake are attacked by some unnamed computer-generated creature but it’s never referred to or mentioned ever again.

At least the last action scene does feature some free-flowing, rapid-fire choreography, even if it has no investment or context; Elba blasts his way through the enemy while dual-wielding revolvers. Sadly, it’s probably the only time you’ll get into the film’s failed ambitions.

Outside of Idris Elba’s serviceable performance and a decent action scene near the end, The Dark Tower is a massive let-down. It’s easily one of the shallowest adaptations in a long time; one that just can’t make effective use of Stephen King’s wild imagination to create an enticing adventure. You’re better off sticking to the original literature.

Rating: 1.5/5 Stars (Bad)