Where to watch The Dark Tower
1 1/2 Stars
11-year-old Jake Chambers experiences visions involving a Man in Black who seeks to destroy a Tower and bring ruin to the Universe while a Gunslinger opposes him. However, Jake’s mother, stepfather and psychiatrists dismiss these as dreams resulting from the trauma of his father’s death the previous year. At his apartment home in New York City, a group of workers from an alleged psychiatric facility offer to rehabilitate Jake; recognizing them from his visions as monsters wearing human skin, he flees from the workers who give chase. Jake tracks down an abandoned house from one of his visions where he discovers a high-tech portal that leads to a post-apocalyptic world called Mid-World..
The Dark Tower is a soulless concoction that is razor-thin in all aspects. Stephen King’s massive literary universe dedicated to the struggle between The Gunslinger and The Man in Black is given a haphazard adaptation that reveals the rumored behind-the-scenes struggles were accurate. Long deemed unfilmable, The Dark Tower hits screens with a 90-minute running time. It’s a rare project that needs more time to develop its characters and world, although even with these inclusions, this still wouldn’t be a good movie.
Idris Elba is a compelling action hero leading man, while Matthew McConaughey has a mischievousness that is appropriate for the character, and his villain has murky motives. The visuals are impressive, and the actors are up to the task if only they were of service to a worthy story. Rarely are King’s novels made into good movies; on occasion, there is Misery, Hearts of Atlantis, or Green Mile, but more often than not, audiences must endure inferior adaptations like The Dark Tower.
Directed by: Nikolaj Arcel
Written by: Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen
Starring: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor