Review of The Dark Tower (2017) by Domgwy — 18 Dec 2017

He who trusts Sony with his franchise has forgotten the face of his father….

A film adaptation of Stephen King’s epic seven book series The Dark Tower has been along time coming. After languishing in development hell for decades with directors, stars and studios coming and going, 2017 has finally seen the story of Roland of Gilead and his existential quest for the mysterious Dark Tower brought to life on the big screen.

Except not really….

Although I haven’t yet reached the conclusion of the story in its original medium, I know enough to know that this film is for the most part completely divorced from the source material.

From the opening text its clear that the filmmakers have decided to simplify and streamline the (admittedly meandering) plot of the books into a more straightforward ‘Macguffin’ plot involving the use of children for evil purposes.

From there we get a fairly generic ‘save the world’ story revolving around a young boy from modern day New York (Jake played by Tom Taylor) as he journeys to strange new worlds and meets ‘The Gunslinger’ Roland (Idris Elba) all the while pursued by the sinister agents of The Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey).

Making Jake the protagonist of this first attempt to adapt The Dark Tower makes perfect sense. In a complex world of parallel universes, ancient cultures and high fantasy, having a character from ‘our world’ to ask the questions is a tried and tested genre trope (think Neo in The Matrix or any of the Doctor’s companions in Doctor Who).

Unfortunately, Jake’s attempts to understand just what the hell is going on are met with vague answers, mountains of exposition and throwaway lines that deserve much more explanation than they are given (did he just say ‘Excalibur’?).

For some bizarre reason the filmmakers have decided to try and cram the full story of The Dark Tower, complete with a final confrontation between The Gunslinger and The Man in Black, into one 90 minute film. In a world in which EVERYTHING wants to be a multi-film franchise and The Fast and Furious series has no less than eight entries with a ninth on the way…this choice makes no sense on any level.

The film itself doesn’t make a lot of sense either, image if someone tried to edit the entire Harry Potter series into a 90 minute fan film on youtube and then put it out in cinemas — there you have The Dark Tower (2017).

One of the most frustrating things about the whole debacle is the casting. Idris Elba is great as Roland, with an unspoken world-weariness coupled with a magnetic screen presence, he is an inspired choice for the part (and another reason I was excited to see the adaptation). Likewise McConaughey brings a detached menace to The Man in Black reminiscent of David Tennant’s Killgrave from Jessica Jones, only this time he has the whole universe at his fingertips. Unfortunately both actors are held back by a thread-bare script with very little in the way of ‘character’ to work with and minimal screen time together.

In terms of the plot the stakes couldn’t be higher with the Man in Black seeking to bring about THE END OF THE UNIVERSE by destroying The Dark Tower of the title.

This should feel like a big deal, but as the film barrels-on, motivations become less and less clear and the point of the whole thing gets lost in amongst conflicting lore and strange tonal choices. As a comparison, The Lord of Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring did a great job of setting up the potential horror of the world under the rule of Sauron, making it very clear what our heroes were fighting for and setting up their motivations for the next 7 hours of screen time. The Dark Tower instead chooses to make Roland and Jake’s quest to take down the Man in Black far more personal, so much so that by the end, the pair seem fairly apathetic about the whole ‘end of the universe’ thing.

More than anything The Dark Tower is a massive wasted opportunity. As a book reader (sort of) it’s hard to know what general audiences with no exposure to the series will make of this cinematic mess but judging from the poor box office it doesn’t look like they thought much. What could have been a epic story spanning over a decade in film or TV has fallen at the first hurdle.

While some Stephen King’s fans are understandably angry at the failures of this adaptation I can’t say I feel the same way. I think the negative buzz combined with the short run-time prepared me for the worst. I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed.