The Dark Tower

It's a mystery to me why they didn't do a better job with this. The premise calls for mature serious fantasy by Peter Jackson, not just a maturely told children's tale where everything is too simply outlined and resolved. I certainly wouldn't call it a dud – for that the film is under control directorially and there are a number of nicely and stylishly edited scenes; but it should have taken a different, darker and more varied route. Elba is a proper good guy, McConaughey as the bad guy the best thing about the whole film. I want an expensive and similarly cast TV series. (06/02/2018)

I haven't read the book, but I believe that it is definitely more interesting. The film feels very rushed in places and what can we say, cramming seven books into ninety minutes is impossible, a longer running time would have been better. I have no complaints about the acting, Idris Elba is a proper hero and Matthew McConaughey as the bad guy is excellent – it's a wonder that A-list actors are in such a B-movie. The action is decent, nicely shot, only the scene with the demons was too dark. There’s almost no atmosphere, so I wouldn't describe the film as horror even though it is labelled as such here, but for one viewing I think it's decent, inoffensive fun. 65% (09/10/2017)

King's seven-part saga is unique in the way it has evolved in genre and literary terms over more than two decades, during which Stephen has managed to write dozens of other books, confess his love of Westerns and pop culture, and come to terms with his own drug past. It's a fascinating dose of the truly epic and bizarre, but the year I spent reading it was nourishing for me, literarily speaking, in the best sense of the word. The series offers about two dozen themes that could be turned into a proper blockbuster. But what they did here is in every way the worst possible option. This The Dark Tower took a few random motifs that seemed apt, but they are put together in a completely nonsensical whole. It lacks any dramatic arc. Jumping between locations, he pounds on the editing room door, desperately searching for the rest of the filmstrip. At best the characters have no chance to stand out, at worst they are annoying. Elba relies on a charisma that will engross even those for whom Roland Deschain is still a blue-eyed blond, but McConaughey played perhaps the most idiotic role in a decade. Taylor's Jake Chambers is a tragedy. This is a creative failure on all fronts that someone tried to salvage at the last minute by selling it as an action B-movie. Even decent special effects can't save the fact that before the first scene, someone should have vigorously yelled stop and turned it over to the cable people, who would have made four rich seasons of ten episodes each out of it. (14/10/2017)

This movie has an incredible capacity for unwatchability. Everything in it is so colorless and dry that connecting to it is a superhuman task even for Shaolin masters of empathy who eat Lasse Hallström marathons for breakfast. Until the last action scene, there is not a single shot more interestingly constructed, character presented, or piece of information spoken. Nor is the eventual madness monumental enough to snap you out of an unpleasant apathy, comparable only to being handcuffed somewhere while someone tries to beat you for hours with the plastic hammer from the Little Builder set. In the end, it pokes the little horns of videogame action, where the fight with the Man in Black in particular is reminiscent of boss fights in videogames, aided in particular by frequent over-the-shoulder shots and a small operating space where the hero can only hide behind columns to dodge the increasing attacks of his opponent, using the interactive environment as the key to defeating him. Still, I can’t help but ask: is that enough? Whatever. Enough is just a word. (18/11/2017)

Mixed feelings about this one. On one hand, its fine that they filmed it, on the other they filmed it so freely that it sometimes really got on my nerves, and also the way they eat meals in one location after another, killing any potentially productive storylines. Elba is really good, McConaughey is super, several cuts above the rest. His version of Flagg is cynical dark and you can see that he really enjoys himself. King’s essence of evil is presented just right. What isn’t ok is character motivation. Roland’s quest is the tower, not revenge. The point of the book is gone. They just left the gravy. Why was the one-volume Hobbit made into three long movies, while the eight-part Tower get just one short one. It’s makeshift, like a series pilot, but it made me want to read the book again. Perhaps they’ll filmed right someday. (30/08/2017)