The Dark Tower

photo courtesy of screenrant.com

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW

     The Dark Tower adapts Stephen King’s widely acclaimed novel series of the same name. In truth, the movie is a sequel to the series, picking up in the middle of the enduring conflict between the gunslinger (Idris Elba) and the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey). When the movie begins, a young teenager named Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) begins having visions of another world. Unbeknownst to him, his visions make him a target crucial to both sides in the fight to save the Dark Tower—and the universe itself—from destruction.

     There’s nothing exceptionally wrong with The Dark Tower, but there’s not much to set it apart, either. Despite being the object of high expectations from many Stephen King die-hards, the movie manages to be more generic than anything else—hard to distinguish from a host of other blockbuster sci fi movies.

photo courtesy of io9.gizmodo.com

     The main source of disappointment, at least for King fans, is that the film fails to live up to its source material. In contrast to the richly populated world of The Dark Tower series, The Dark Tower film characters are closer to copy-and-paste clichés, stripped of everything that made them stand out. Tasked with approaching a complex and unique world, it seems, the filmmakers opt to avoid those traits altogether.

     Viewed on its own, however, the movie isn’t quite so criminal as fans of the series appear to think. A casual audience member will probably enjoy it, even if they won’t find it particularly memorable. To its credit, the film betrays a number of thought-provoking ideas and themes that inform the story—probably vestiges of King’s imagination that worm their way to the top.

photo courtesy of cinemablend.com

     The primary villain, McConaughey’s Man in Black, is one example: he’s a character with real potential, both merciless and overwhelmingly powerful. It’s just that (as with the movie as a whole), the filmmakers make some questionable choices that take the punch out of him. That hairdo? Casting McConaughey? Odd decisions, to say the least.  

     Like nearly all franchise starters these days, The Dark Tower desperately wants you to know that it aspires to be part of a growing cinematic universe (in this case, a Stephen King-verse), which will quite possibly include the upcoming remake of It. References to that film and to The Shining come fast and furious, at times shoehorned into the plot. But the most direct follow-up will be a Dark Tower TV show, starring the leads Idris Elba and Tom Taylor as their characters from the film. It’ll be fascinating to see how that unusual next step ends up factoring into franchise-future.

     FINAL VERDICT: Trading in King’s source material for blockbuster fixtures, The Dark Tower is okay as is, but it should have been much more ambitious.

photo courtesy of cnet.com