The Dark Tower - 90 minutes of NOTHING

The works of Stephen King have had a very strange and often hilarious relationship with the silver screen. Everything from "Kujo" to "The Tommyknockers" have been met with a less than warm reception mostly due to their silly execution and bad acting. Part of this, at least in my opinion, is King's fault. By King's own admission, and I quote, "A lot of what I write is $#!@". His works have mostly been disturbing and often silly horror stories most of which have reoccurring elements. A character who's an alcoholic, a child with psychic powers, a disappointing resolution, and, most importantly, the story usually takes place in Maine. Not to mention, a lot of things in his books are things that literally sound good on paper but don't really work well on the screen. Case in point, in the book "The Shinning", one of the recurring scary things was hedge animals that would come to life and attack people. While in the film adaptation, (the one by Stanley Kubrick and not the made-for-TV mini series) they're nowhere to be found. Why? Because hedge animals are simply not scary. This is just one of many things found in King's works that might scare a reader but not a movie goer.

However, not all of Stephen King's works are bad and not all adaptations have been silly. Stephen King is a talented writer when he wants to be, and some of his good works have been put to screen. His most successful silver screen ventures have mostly been the ones directed by Frank Darabont, specifically his adaptations of "The Shawshank Redemption" and "The Green Mile". Both of which are beautiful films and are true showcases of Stephen King's real writing talent. The best Stephen King stories, at least the ones put to film, are not the ones about the big scary monster, but rather the ones about people and the human spirit. Even the fantastic Netflix series "Stranger Things", which is not based upon anything Stephen King has written but obviously takes a lot of influence from his works, understands that what makes these stories good are the people and their contribution to the human condition.

The Dark Tower series, which I have not read, is arguably a series that is a bit of a step outside of King's usual storytelling. From what I understand, The Dark Tower series is a collection of eight books that take place in an alternate universe. It is one full of rich mythology and epic storytelling the likes of which would likely require its own HBO or Netflix series, or so I'm told. The gist of it is that there is a tower that protects all of the different worlds from evil, and, should the tower fall, darkness and fire will reign over all worlds. Said tower is protected by warriors known as gunslingers. Who are basically bad-ass cowboys with super special gun powers. This series has been adapted into a graphic novel titled "The Gunslinger Born", which I currently have a copy of resting on my night stand. After only a few pages, I am hooked.

Now, with all that in mind, how does this film adaptation stand? Well, as I have likely made clear, I cannot attest to the films accuracy to the books. I can really only judge it as a film. As such, this film is, quite literally, empty. It has the skeleton of a very interesting idea and the semblance of something epic and worth putting to the big screen...but it ultimately falls short. The other reviews you probably have read in which they call this film a ninety minute trailer are correct.

I was honestly disappointed in this film. Despite not having read any of the books, I was fascinated by the universe and stories from it. A lot of my friends who were reading the books at the time were telling me how amazing they were. How they were really good stories with rich & deep characters and mythology. How they were also really fun allegories for things in modern day, like the forgotten mythology of the cowboys, and the importance of child like perception. All of which sounds like awesome stuff that I was really looking forward to seeing in this film. Sadly, none of that was really present. I mean, it was kind of "there", but it didn't really have a presence.

The number of problems with this film are too many to count. So allow me to go over the main issues I personally had with it.

First, the characters. I get the impression that all of the characters are deep, rich and complex. I feel like they all have a lot to show and a lot to say. Yet, the film never gives any of them the chance to do so. There's a young boy, played by Tom Taylor, who has psychic powers and is powerful enough to destroy the dark tower, but we never learn anything about how he got these abilities or why. All we ever learn about him is that he's sad because his father died in a fire and...that's about it. Then there's the villain, the man in black, played by Matthew McConaughey, who really is a very cool villain and plays the part well, but we never really learn anything about him outside of the fact that he's evil. We never learn why he's evil, why he wants to destroy the dark tower, or even the nature of his relationship with the films hero. Speak of the Devil, there's arguably the most important character, The Gunslinger, played by Idris Elba, who, despite not being given much to work with, plays the role as well as he can. He has arguably the best moments in the film, wherein he shows off his gun fighting skills by reloading his Colt 45 by hand in less than two seconds, aims with precision constantly and does all kinds of fantastic reloading moves by catching preloaded cartridges in mid air with his gun and firing. Yet, none of that is as cool as it really deserves to be because there is nothing to this character in this movie, outside of being upset that the villain killed his father and that he's immune to the villains magic. Oh, yeah, almost forgot, the villain is a sorcerer who can catch bullets in mid air and has the power to simply tell people what to do such as stop breathing. He's basically Killgrave from "Jessica Jones". Only not as interesting.

Second, the script. This film, from what I understand, is an amalgamation of three of the books in the dark tower series. Specifically the ones that take place towards the end of the main story. As such, the film feels less like a story and more like a visual cliff notes. Nothing about the world is given any time to develop. There's one point in the film where the kid goes to a house and finds a portal to the other world only to be confronted by some kind of magical creature that he's able to destroy simply by yelling at it. This is never explained or utilized again. Furthermore, this is only one of the many things that just sort of happen in the film with no explanation or reoccurrence. The justification being, according to the films director, Nikolaj Arcel, that this film was to be a big introduction to things that would occur in later films. Which, anyone worth their salt will tell you, is NEVER a good idea. If you're only able to make one film at the moment, and can't guarantee that you will get to make more in the future, don't brush things off with the excuse of "We'll touch base on that in the next film". Concern yourself with what you are able to do here and now, not later down the line.

Finally, the runtime. This story appears to have so much mythology and character development that it seems it would benefit most from a full two hour running time. Maybe if the characters and the story were made interesting enough, a full two and a half hours. After all, if what we're presented with is interesting and compelling enough, we will gladly give it all the time it deserves. Sadly, that's not the case here. The director of this film insisted on keeping the film at a tight ninety minutes. His reasons were to ensure that the film didn't overwhelm the audience with it's mythology. Combine that with the fact that he tried to present everything in a way that would introduce the world to a new audience as well as try to accommodate fans of the books, and it just creates an unfocused mess. Everything moves too fast to be appreciated, none of the jokes are given time to land, character development is virtually nonexistent, and there are not enough action scenes to justify the lack of texture. And even when the action scenes do come around, they are just boring due to the lack of a reason to care.

Now, on the positive side, the production design is cool, the special effects are admirable, the acting on everyones part is good, the cinematography is pretty, and Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are clearly having fun with there respected roles. Plus there is some good chemistry between Tom Taylor and Idris Elba. They are clearly working well together. Which is more than I can say for anyone else on the creative team.

Sadly that is not enough for me to recommend this film. It has so little meat on its bones that, despite the effects and action being pretty cool, it's just not interesting because we're never given a reason to care. That is, outside of the usual "save the world" shlep. Which, as I have said before, is NOT ENOUGH for an audience to invest in a story. If you want us to care about the world, then give us characters from said world we can invest and sympathize with. Give us characters we want to see survive the ordeal. Make us root for people to save the day. Because if we don't have that, none of the pretty visuals are going to mean anything. Take a note from "Mad Max: Fury Road" and do more than just be cool. Give us the REASON fore being cool.

In other words, just read the books, or, in my case, pick up the graphic novel adaptation. I'm only a few pages into it and it's already better than the movie.

Here's hoping the upcoming remake of "IT" turns out better.

Ladies & Gentleman, I am TheNorm, telling you when Hollywood gets things wrong, and when they get things right. Thank you all for reading.