Nov 192017
 
one reel

Teenager Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is psychologically disturbed by the death of his father and by his dreams of another world where a Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) and his minions are trying to destroy a tower that holds the universe together and are opposed by the last gunslinger (Idris Elba). After some mind-numbing family drama, Jakes finds a magic portal and travels to the world of Roland The Gunslinger, who has grown bitter. Jake’s dreams are a indication that he has the “shining” (yeah, like in the movie The Shining), and so is both the magic boy the Man in Black needs to destroy the tower and the key to the gunslinger’s victory.

Based on Stephen King’s elaborate gunslinger series, The Dark Tower is not an adaptation, since the filmmakers claim (after the fact) that it is a sequel to the books. Well, that at least makes discussions of the books irrelevant, which is to the movie’s advantage as no fan of the books is going to have anything nice to say about this movie.

Since they’d thrown out the books, there is no reason for Jake to be in The Dark Tower (something the PR department picked up on as he is absent from advertising) except that young adult movies are—or were—very popular. This is the story of a gunslinger verses the Devil; everything with Jake is unnecessary, and worse, uninteresting. While it might be relevant in the books that children are magical batteries, it is a plot point that needed to have been dropped. With super-battery-kid as the lead, Roland, the powerful gunslinger out for revenge, is reduced to a bland babysitter for a generic magic child. Neither he nor the kid can support a film.

McConaughey does better as the Man in Black (also known as Walter). He’s a sleazy kind of evil that is entertaining and deserves a better film. His techno-magic hints at a more appealing universe that we are never shown.

The Dark Tower isn’t interesting enough to be a disaster. Its failing is in lack of imagination. It doesn’t try to be much of anything and in that it succeeds.

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