Review of The Dark Tower (2017) by Evan O — 17 Aug 2017

If this were a stand alone summer action movie, not attached to years of faithful reading and doubt that it would ever truly be realized on the big screen followed by the excitement and anticipation that it was actually going to happen, it would not be a terrible film. Objectively, the story is no worse than some of the teen/young adult films that have been popular of late(i.e. Hunger Games, Divergent, etc.). Idris Elba is a fine actor and actually portrayed Roland fairly well within this version. Mcconaughey was decent and can't be blamed for his poorly scripted version of Walter. The effects were solid and the story arced well and was cohesive.

However, we can't pretend there is not more to it than just a one off summer blockbuster. The Dark Tower epic is made of 8 books now, all of which contain more material than this film provides. The changes are not unexpected, or necessarily unwelcome, I sat through the film giving it the benefit of the doubt the entire time. But by the end, the characters end up feeling frivolous and shallow, the story seems buttoned up and bookended, with no real anticipation of what's next. The film is called The Dark Tower, but Roland is not even interested in the Tower, as he is too busy being obsessed with the man in black. The whole reason the character in the books once to catch the man in black is to find out how he can reach the tower!

Perhaps with the planned tv series and a future film or two they can salvage the live action adaptation, but if this is all we get, it's a miserable failure.