Review of The Dark Tower (2017) by Mojito — 04 Aug 2017

Is this movie an entertaining 95 minutes? Yes.

Good casting choices? Yes, I loved the actors.

Does the film have other good qualities...?

Not many. This was one of the worst film adaptations of a novel I've seen. When you consider how long this adaptation has been a concept, how many attempts have been made, and the effort spent to achieve this in 2017? I seriously just don't get it. #CashGrab #AudiencesAreStupid #JustGetItDone?

All right, only 5000 characters I can post. Let's get this over with:

1) Tone & Mood. Mostly wrong throughout the film. The books are epic in scale, very dark and brooding. Post-apocalyptic, lonely, desolate, etc. While the film occasionally makes you feel that way, mostly it's "Just Another Action Film". Many scenes feel forced. Many scenes feel totally artificial. Not sure what the director was looking for, but they failed.

2) Story. The film's title is misleading. It should have been titled "Jake's Adventure feat. Roland". This film was really all about Jake. Everyone else is a guest star.

3) Roland's motivation for pursuing the Man In Blank is *completely* different than the novels. It's nonsense.

4) Roland is supposedly *not* a Gunslinger anymore due to the above point. I cannot even begin to describe how much this irks me.

5) Roland embraces Jake as a friend too early/easily and divulges personal information. I'll just blame the 95 minute length for this one.

6) Walter cannot harm Roland *directly* with magic. However, apparently he can harm Roland *indirectly* with magic, by throwing very sharp and fast objects at him. So while Walter *could* have very easily dispatched the Gunslinger these past dozens of years, or when he killed his father, he didn't...because why not???

6) Not sure why Jake needs an evil stepfather when his equally careless and inconsiderate father from the novels would have sufficed. Unnecessary script change.

7) Post-apocalypse villagers apparently still have working generators for inter-dimensional portal technology? Wow. Besides blatantly violating the novels, you'd think with such portals and technology at their disposal, they'd have better defenses. Why not zip over to Earth and steal some firearms?

8) No explanation of what Gunslingers actually are. Audience is left wondering what's the point of them.

9) Jake's "shine" powers are drastically over-mentioned, over-used, overblown compared to novels. Besides cross-dimensional spying on people, he can maintain inter-dimensional portals? Amazing.

10) Apparently Jake killed the creepy house demon with his powers?!? This was not at all obvious during the "fight" scene. Good thing Walter mentioned it later, or I wouldn't have known.

11) Roland briefly teaches Jake to use firearms. Then immediately says Jake doesn't actually need them, because his powers are his mind. What was the point?

12) Random attacks of random things in forest, because we needed some action scenes. Roland, gunslinger supremo, doesn't hear Jake leave camp and wake up immediately?

13) Dark Tower will ultimately be *really* easy to find, since you can just follow the gigantic blue attack-beams made by the Breakers. Of course, they'll likely use one of the many high-tech portals just lying around everywhere...

14) Vampires hide from us the fact they are vampires? Would have make henchmen scarier. I guess we'll be surprised later.

15) Hospital treats Gunslinger for various unusual ailments. Neither he nor Jake have forms of ID. No police called, no security guards at hospital. Gunslinger and Jake just stroll out.

16) Firearms shop person easily ambushed by man with firearms.

17) Inter-dimensional portal in NY kitchen left standing open during latter half of movie? No FBI/CIA/NSA called? Chefs just continue cooking and ignoring gaping portal, until Jake and Roland return? Maybe more of Jake's mysterious mind-portal-control nonsense.

18) Jake is awarded title of gunslinger for staying strapped in chair, resisting mind control, and maybe keeping portal open? Whatever.

19) Does Roland reclaim title of gunslinger for himself? Why? His motivations were rescuing Jake, with a side-motivation of revenge on Walter? Yes, rescuing Jake *happened* to have good results for the Tower. But does Roland ever actually admit he cares about saving it and the universe?

20) Roland's father stands in for Cuthbert and Alain? Seems another unnecessary script change, but fine.

21) Besides the occasional comic relief, Roland seems pretty comfy in NY. Why? Totally different from novels when he sees it through Eddie. 22) Walter is supposed to be unpredictable, kind of crazy, chatty, psycho, never-know-what-he'll-do. In movie he's a pretty serious villain. Well, that's almost 5000 characters. So...