The Dark Tower (2017)

 

How do you faithfully turn an eight-book series into a film? Turns out, you don't. Well, not if you want to cram pretty much everything in there and then have your film be just the one outing and be just 90 minutes long. Egads, this was one heck of a missed opportunity. 

Our universe is but one of many, and they are all connected through the Dark Tower at the centre of it all. However, this tower is under attack from the evil sorcerer Walter, who uses children's psychic powers to try and bring down the structure and thus unleash hell across all dimensions. He used to be opposed by a group of people called Gunslingers, but now Roland is the only one left and he has only revenge on his mind. 

Meanwhile on our Earth, strange earthquakes rock the globe and a young boy named Jake has a plethora of visions of this other world. Unfortunately his parents think he needs psychiatric help. Jake finds a portal to this other realm where he meets up with Roland and they both set out to stop Walter. 

Yes, some more stuff happens, but that is the gist of it. 

If this was the first of a series, this could have been glorious. Sure enough, the first 30 minutes or so do a decent enough job of worldbuilding and introducing us to several characters. It all fits and seems to lead to something. After that, the makers decided to throw everything at the screen and what we are left with is an incomprehensible mess that pisses off fans of the books and befuddles people that have never read the books, devolving this into an extremely bland action adventure. 

This sort of thing just mightily angries me. 

You know why? Because the casting of our leads is pretty good. Idris Elba as Roland? Yep, that works. Matthew McConaughey as Walter? Hot damn, that works. And yet they waste these two actors by giving them the most asinine of quests and the dullest of dialogue. The showdown between Walter and Roland, built up as something epic? Massive letdown. No really. It gets preceded by a shootout that is probably the most exhilarating part of the film - which isn't saying all that much, alas. 

In every respect, this is an absolute and abject failure. They should have taken their time, spread it out across three films, which they could have. This would have made the characters better, given them time to grow and would have allowed for a much better narrative. As is, they race through 7 books with all the finesse of a jackhammer and none of the fun. Could you enjoy this as a mindless film? Possibly. But your expectation level should be set to 'ludicrously low'. 

This film makes me detest arsehat executives and studios with a vengeance.