Movie Reviews: The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower
directed by Nikolaj Arcel

This film is both based on and in some aspects a sequel to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. King has alternately described the series as his magnum opus and stated that sequels to many of his other works can be found within. I haven't finished this book series though it is one of my sister's favorites. King has placed references to and explanations of this series in many of his other novels. This series, or at least the books I've read, combines King's gifts for both High and Low art. In fact you could even say that it blows away those arbitrary distinctions. It's pretty complex stuff  with dense plot, conflicted characters who don't necessarily fall into neat boxes of good or evil, detailed universe building and intricate mythologies with lots of backstory. As with the Gormenghast or A Song of Ice and Fire works, some people thought that The Dark Tower series was essentially impossible to adapt to the screen. Almost by definition someone working in the visual arts would be unable to translate the soul of King's words to the big screen.

Because I have not completed The Dark Tower series I didn't have a solid idea in my head about what should be included in a movie adaptation. I had no fierce feeling about which characters should be included or dropped or how they should look or act, with the exception of the primary good and bad guy, Roland and Walter O'Dim. Probably if I had read all of the books I would have much stronger ideas about what the director and writers should have done with the source material. But in this case ignorance was bliss. Or at least it could have been. 

Because even as a non-expert of the source material I could recognize that there were large swaths of information and motivation left out. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this film was incoherent but I would argue that it failed to tell a deeply compelling story or create characters which I appreciated. The lead adult actors did the best with what they had but this movie was all sizzle no steak. It felt like an extremely dumbed down and abbreviated version of King's work made for people with very short attention spans. 

And again, I write that as someone who is only vaguely familiar with The Dark Tower series, primarily through King's other works. So I would imagine that if you've read this series from beginning to end, you would be even more disappointed. It seems to me that not only would King's work have been better served by being adapted into a film series but also the director and writer should have taken their time and adapted some of the slower or talkier portions of the series as well. That would have made the inevitable "heroes win moments" much more impressive and cathartic. Instead because the characters are pretty flat you just can't invest too much in the story. If someone has fallen from grace and lost sight of who he is I need to know exactly WHO he was before I can care about him finding his mojo again.

Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is a NYC pre-teen boy who is troubled. He has visions of the apocalypse, a man in black, and a gunslinger. Jake thinks that his visions and dreams are related to the strange series of earthquakes which have been taking place. His father recently died. He lives with his mother Laurie (Katheryn Winnick) and stepfather. His stepfather is not a bad sort but would just as soon weird little Jake wasn't around. Jake is cramping his style you know. To that end he's been suggesting to Laurie that Jake be sent to a psychiatric facility for children. Laurie has been resistant but comes around to her husband's pov when Jake gets into another fight at school over his drawings and visions. Jake gets warnings from hobos about things that look human but really aren't. These things are looking to kidnap special children like Jake. And wouldn't you know it but Jake notices some tell tale signs in the social workers sent to take him away. They're not human.Jake escapes. Tracking down a real life house that he's seen in his dream Jake goes through a portal from our world to the parallel world of Roland/The Gunslinger (Idris Elba) and Walter O'Dim/The Man In Black (Matthew McConaughey).

All of existence is linked in an infinite multiverse. The linchpin of this linkage is the Tower. It's not explicitly explained in the film but a being known as the Crimson King wants to destroy current reality so that it can rule the chaos which follows. As the Crimson King is outside of reality, generally speaking, it mostly works thru agents such as The Man in Black, who is an alter ego of (or the same character as) King's villain in The Stand, Randall Flagg.

The Man in Black is kidnapping psychic children from across the multiverse. He enslaves and tortures them to harness their power to destroy the Tower. So far he's been unsuccessful but the Tower takes more and more damage with each strike. Jake is so powerful that he might be able to destroy the Tower all by himself. So the Man in Black wants to find Jake. Badly.

Roland wants to find the Man in Black in order to kill him in revenge for his murder of Roland's father (and other things). Roland is the last of the Gunslingers, an order of warriors with the highest authority who are sworn to among other things, protect the Tower. Roland, a descendant of King Arthur, wields revolvers made from Excalibur. His skill at shooting is unmatched. But Roland isn't feeling knightly these days. As Roland has seen defeat after defeat after defeat at the hands of The Man in Black, Roland has become cynical, pessimistic and depressed. And that's on a good day. When Roland happens upon Jake he's not sure what to make of him. Elba does his baritone bada$$ to perfection while McConaughey shines as the whispering world weary wizard whose every movement and word drips with casual understated malice but neither character had enough to do. With the exception of the gunfights the special effects are pedestrian. Seen it, done it. And why is Roland immune to Walter's magic? What does that mean. What does it mean that Roland fights with a remade Excalibur?  This is a movie which hopefully might make you want to start or in my case finish reading the source material. But other than that this isn't something which is a must see in theaters. Flip a coin.