The Dark Tower is a 2017 adventure/fantasy film directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel. The film is based off of the Stephen King novel series of the same name, and stars Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor. The story follows a young boy who has been having visions about a Man in Black who seeks to destroy a Tower and bring ruin to the world. After finding out his visions are true, he seeks help from a Gunslinger who might be his only chance at saving both his world, and the entire universe.
So.. wow.. that was nothing like I would have expected. Quite like The Circle, The Dark Tower brings a lot of promise from its textual origin, but fails in its execution on the big screen. Although this film was incredibly forgettable from the very moment it started, I wasn’t completely dissatisfied with everything that it had brought to the table. Yes, I will say that this isn’t a good film, but I will also say that it had some enjoyable aspects to it as well.. just not a lot.
But before jumping into my review I did want to state that I have been following this film for quite a while now. In fact, this was almost my choice for theVade List back when The Circle failed to present a good narrative. Although I did announce that it was eventually my choice, it had broken all rules I had written for the list pick anyways. So what? Well, just know that I had a lot of insight going into this film, and I guess you could say that my expectations were heightened due to my early interest in the film. Also note, this is no longer my choice for theVade List, as the choice was given to another contender that fit within the specified guidelines of theVade List back in June.
So starting things off, this movie did have some enjoyable parts to it. Idris Elba is a freaking national treasure. Honestly, this guys stole the show and because of him this movie went up a rating due to his fantastic performance. Even McConaughey had his moments where he felt truly intimidating, but I also felt like he lost a lot of that towards the end of the film. Anyways, Elba kills his role and proves that one person can do a lot when it comes to making or breaking a film.
As for the rest of the cast? Eh.. Tom Taylor, the main protagonist kid, just never connected with me the way the screenwriters intended. Sure he wasn’t horrible at his performance, but he also didn’t blow me away either. Like I mentioned above, McConaughey was never really bad or fantastic. There were a couple of scenes where I might have thought, “Yeah, I’d be afraid of this dude,” but for the most part he almost seemed a little too cheesy. Even at the end where he starts manipulating his surroundings.. just wasn’t convincing enough. As for anyone else? Well, there really wasn’t anyone else in this film. Sure there were a bunch of other people in the film, but none of them meant anything except for the main character’s mom, and even her character was pretty lackluster.
One of the biggest issues I had with this film was its editing. Jesus Christ there were so many issues with matching actor’s dialogue with their lips that it almost started to become unbearable. I honestly just don’t understand this. A movie with this big of a budget should have no issues with that, yet I could call out a couple dozen instances within the first hour. There was one scene where McConaughey begins speaking while the camera is on him, and you can distinctly tell that those aren’t the words that the audience is currently hearing. What a disappointment.
A smaller issue I had with the film was the lack of emotion through danger, and remorse. On the lack of danger side of things, I never actually felt like there was threat against the main characters. Sure, if the tower falls they all die, but nothing really showed me why I should fear that. Sure we get a scene in the film which shows us a glimpse as to what might be unleashed, but the film never spent enough time on those antagonists to show the audience the real threat beyond that of McConaughey’s character. There also wasn’t enough of an emotional connection to characters to the point where when people die, we just don’t care. This is probably one of the saddest downfalls of this film, as there are some heavy scenes presented in this movie. One could ultimately blame that on the actors, but I honestly think it was more of the screenwriters faults, as the actors did a fairly good job at portraying the emotions necessary for those scenes.
The story was also another major flaw with this film as it featured one of the most basic storylines in all of cinema history. I wholeheartedly believe that the reason why this film is so forgettable is because we’ve already seen it a thousand times before. None of the characters are humanized to the point where the audience can relate to someone, and because of that we never really feel like and active audience during the screening of this film. This movie has so much detail to show and to tell, and it’s not the fact that the movie throws too much onto the audience, it’s the fact that the movie doesn’t give us enough. From what I’ve read about this film was that this was supposed to launch a TV series with the same cast, but why make a movie if you’re just going to make a television show out of it afterwards.
With all of that being said, the major disappointment was that The Dark Tower was just plain boring. Never enough information for us to care about the protagonist, and too little attention to detail for us to connect with him either. The Dark Tower features some of the worst editing in a film I have ever reviewed, and its visuals are just mediocre apart from a couple of scenes. Idris Elba is the saving grace to this film through both his performance and character, and McConaughey brings some effort to the table as well. There really isn’t much more to talk about when it comes to The Dark Tower as it is just another attempt at taking a novelized series and trying to paint it on the big screen. In the end it turns out to be another boring and forgettable film, as its lack of detail and emotion kills any form of enjoyment from this movie. Although I’ve been pretty harsh on this film, I decided to give The Dark Tower an “Alright” on theVade Review Bar. Elba really does give his all to keep this tower standing, but in the end there is nothing going to stop this spire from crumbling all the way to the ground.
