The Dark Tower (2017)

The Dark Tower (2017)

IMDB Rating : 6.0 (as on 05.08.2017)

PG-13 | 1h 35min | Action, Adventure, Fantasy

The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O'Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black

Director: Nikolaj Arcel

Writers: Akiva Goldsman (screenplay), Jeff Pinkner (screenplay)

Stars: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor

IMDB link Here

The Good, the Bad and the Stupid in ‘The Dark Tower’

 

 MANOHLA DARGIS

  

Every so often in “The Dark Tower,” you catch a glimpse of what might have been: the might-have-been narrative ambition, the might-have-been pop mythology, the might-have-been genre assemblage. Based — loosely seems altogether too generous a word — on the Stephen King series, the movie is an unappealing hash of moviemaking clichés that, after much scurrying and blathering, devolves into a generic shoot’em-up. About the only thing holding it together is Idris Elba, whose irrepressible magnetism and man-of-stone solidity anchors this mess but can’t redeem it.

The title refers to a mysteriously woo-woo, sky-piercingly tall spire that somehow holds both the universe’s various worlds and its monstrous threats in check. Walter wants to destroy the dark tower; Roland intends to protect it. Jake, who tends to look as confused as the audience may feel, doesn’t yet have a mission, though giving this twerp a purpose — a kind of wee hero’s journey (“Surrender, Jake”!) — seems to be the endgame. It’s a default solution, and reads like a cop-out. After all, if Stephen King hands you a complex fiction that turns pulpy tropes into a dense mythology with its own language and heavyweight heroes like Roland, wouldn’t you run with at least some of it?

The “Dark Tower” series can be traced to Mr. King’s love of, among other inspirations, J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” novels as well as Sergio Leone’s masterly 1966 film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” which I suppose explains the duster Roland wears and an empty nod to spaghetti westerns. So, there’s that. Mostly, there are clotted action scenes, gun fetishism, bad writing and stop-and-go rhythms that suggest a longer version may once have existed. The director, Nikolaj Arcel, shares screenwriting credit and blame with Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner and Anders Thomas Jensen; whatever they thought they were doing here remains as mysterious as Walter’s hair product.

 Read full review at New york times

This Is One Movie That Isn't For The Fans

Scott Mendelson

Like Wonder Woman, The Dark Tower is an adaptation of/sequel to a property that has a decent-sized fan base which has been eagerly anticipating a movie version. So, it’s entirely possible that the fanbase (as well as general Stephen King fans) will show up accordingly, or at least to the extent that Sony needs for a $66 million production. Moreover, if you’re one of those folks who fan-cast Idris Elba in every single would-be franchise lead, this is a chance to put your money where your mouth is.

The Dark Tower is the very definition of an “adaptation.” It takes the broad outline of The Gunslinger, throws in bits and pieces of Stephen King’s eight-book series and remakes itself into a sequel to the books. Even without having read the books, I can only imagine the outrage and frustration that will be felt by fans of the source material. But as a movie, it more-or-less works as a lean, mean fantasy adventure, operating less as a spectacular epic and more like a 1990’s-era TV pilot. In that sense, it’s not unlike Star Wars: The Clone Wars, where a disappointing theatrical movie led to a terrific animated series. I enjoyed it on its own merits, but I imagine fans of the books are going to be horrified, and not in the right way.

The screenplay, courtesy of Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen, Nikolaj Arcel, pares down what I assume is a vast and mythologically-rich fantasy world into a relatively simple 86-minute adventure story. Oddly enough, in this era of cinematic universes and sprawling franchises, The Dark Tower operates as a relatively self-contained story, one that to its credit makes complete, coherent sense and has a beginning, middle and end. It does feel like a picture that prizes general audience accessibility above all else, which again makes it feel like a relic of the 1980’s or 1990’s when hardcore source fidelity was less of a concern. In that sense, I’ll be amused if the studio/filmmakers try to pull the “It’s for the fans!” gambit, since more than any franchise adaptation I’ve seen in ages, it’s not for the fans.

As surface-level entertainment, The Dark Tower is halfway decent. That’s not high praise, but the second half works in a way that the first half does not. I imagine readers of the books will be horrified at what’s been done to their favorite series, particularly since A) they’ve been waiting for a Dark Tower movie for decades and B) this is probably the only Dark Tower movie we’re going to get.  It revamps the sprawling fantasy and changes character arcs and motivations into a more conventional stew that itself borrows from other fantasy sources. While what’s on screen looks sharp, it’s clear that the $60 million budget was a limitation. It comes off like a very old-school fantasy movie (think Highlander or The Beastmaster) that doesn’t have the budget to match its imagination.

If you can divorce yourself from what you wanted, The Dark Tower delivers Idris Elba as an action hero, Matthew McConaughey as a supernatural baddie and just enough horror and violence to get the blood pumping. It is the definition of King’s old line about how the movies can’t ruin the books because the books are still on the shelf unmolested. It feels like a pre-CGI era fantasy, one which would be an agreeable time-killer on a Sunday afternoon on basic cable or old-school network television. Heck, with a 95-minute running time and an unfortunate PG-13 rating, it could run unedited for its broadcast network premiere. But as the much-anticipated feature film adaptation of a defining piece of modern fantasy fiction, it’s the kind of micromanaged disappointment that makes Film Twitter distrust Tom Rothman on general principle.

Speaking of “defining piece of modern fantasy fiction,” The Dark Tower suffers from “John Carter Syndrome” (previously known as Bicentennial Man Syndrome), in that what was once a definitive piece of art now comes to the screen looking like a pale imitator of its imitators. As a movie, The Dark Tower plays like a mix of End of Days, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones among others. It comes to life when the Gunslinger does, and it works as surface-level entertainment. If you’re a fan of the books, I imagine it’ll break your heart. But if you can divorce yourself from the source material, it’s an enjoyable Saturday afternoon matinee from a time when movies like this didn’t make or break a studio’s bottom line.

 Read full review at Forbes

Movie Rating ★★☆☆☆  

 Interminable Stephen King adaptation a uniquely flavorless slog

Charles Bramesco

Anterograde amnesia, best known as the affliction Guy Pearce suffers from in Memento, is defined as a mental disorder that blocks the formation of new memories. Known causes include blunt-force trauma and The Dark Tower, a film that is not only forgettable but militantly memory-proof.

While sitting through this uniquely flavorless slog, a viewer jolts out of a waking sleep every five minutes or so to realize that they have not internalized a thing. Nikolaj Arcel’s efforts to translate and condense Stephen King’s long-running series of densely mythologized novels amount to being a western without the majesty of the west, a fantasy without anything even coming close to being fantastic.

The script amalgamates story elements from across the seven-installment series into one bowl of reheated Joseph Campbell’s soup, a transparent bid to be the next Lord of the Rings that can’t back up its sense of portentousness with the required epic sweep.

There is a scant handful of moments during which the film threatens to become marginally interesting; they all pass. Narrative turns flit through the story without rhyme or reason, betraying the seams of behind-the-scenes meddling that have already commanded headlines in the trade papers. It’s rare that a film so convoluted also manages to be so determinedly boring.

There’s a point somewhere in the misshapen second act that an attentive viewer can feel all the parties involved giving up and resolving to get the rest of the movie over with as soon as possible. Arcel directs through the path of least resistance, pointing his camera at people as indifferently as he shoots the half-baked CGI sequences. The shambolic script collapses when it lurches out of its first half-hour, unable to provide such basic foundational components of storytelling as “stakes” or “character motivation”.

McConaughey looks faintly amused by his own performance, perhaps because he’s imagining the boat he’s going to buy after production wraps. Poor misused Elba, meanwhile, looks like he’s searching for a way out of the movie. We can scarcely blame him.

Read full review at Guardian

Movie Rating ★★☆☆☆ 

‘Dark Tower’ feels derivative, even generic

Ty Burr  

There are two ways a critic can approach a film based on a popular book series: read some or all of the source material beforehand or just go in and experience the movie as a movie. Stephen King has written eight “Dark Tower” novels over 25 years, and now that “The Dark Tower” the movie has arrived — prelude to “The Dark Tower” the TV series — the books’ many partisans are busy parsing what made it into the feature and what got left out.

That’s a fan’s preoccupation, necessary to keep the entertainment-industry culture churning and the profits coming. If, like me, you haven’t read the “Dark Tower” books, the more pressing question is: Will the new film make sense? Is it worth your time?

Yes and no, in that order. Even without having read the books, a reasonably sentient outsider can see what King is up to in his series: interweaving many different elements from the Joseph Campbell playbook into the quest saga to end all quest sagas. There’s a young “chosen” outsider with special powers he only half understands. There’s a conflicted knight-errant and a villain who’s the personification of all evil. There’s an unseen otherworld right next to ours, accessible by a hidden portal, and there’s an ultimate battle between the forces of darkness and light.

We’ve been here many times, in the “Harry Potter” books and “Star Wars” movies, via Narnia and Middle-earth, and all the way back to Arthurian romances and beyond. It’s a great idea to mix it all up and start fresh, and I bet King has a ball with it. But the plain, ironic truth is that the movie itself feels derivative, even generic.

The early scenes are the best, with adolescent New Yorker Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor, appealingly haunted) unable to shake his nightmare visions of a satanic Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey) and a Dark Tower at the center of the universe. The Man in Black (his name turns out to be Walter) is harnessing the energy of kidnapped children in an effort to bring down the Tower — we are to understand that this would be a very bad thing — and the only person who might stop him is a mysterious Gunslinger (Idris Elba).

Director Nikolaj Arcel (“A Royal Affair”) cobbles all these elements into a cohesive, coherent story, but they barely add up to the sum of their parts; the movie’s an edible hash and little more, and the climactic fight scenes are just nonsense. Elba conveys the conflicted weariness of his knightly sharpshooter and Taylor is spooky and sardonic in the right balance — both actors are slated to reprise their roles in the TV series — but McConaughey is back in slumming mode after a few years in which he actually roused himself to act. The man’s simply too relaxed to be the devil, unless we’re all prepared to go to hell in a Lincoln.

I will say this, though: The movie makes me finally want to test-drive one of the “Dark Tower” novels, if only to see what King himself was able to bring to the party. Maybe that’s been his evil plan all along.

  Read full review at Boston Globe