The Dark Tower

I never thought an hour and a half could drag on like this. The Dark Tower has its moments, both Matthew McConaughey and Idris Elba fit their roles excellently and Nikolaj Arcel is confident in the action scenes, but unfortunately it's all pretty banal, ordinary and boring. Plot-wise, The Dark Tower never surprises with anything, which doesn't matter when it pretends to be an action B-movie. Unfortunately, however, it more often than not tries to pretend it's a grand fantasy full of fascinating worlds, other dimensions, terrifying monsters and mysterious creatures. And given that the ventures outside our reality end up in a desert with one theme park, one village, and a few completely uninteresting side characters, it comes across as a bit funny. The Dark Tower looks like a pilot for a more ambitious fantasy series that would like to show its world to viewers in the episodes and seasons to come. Unfortunately, it shows so little the first time around that I have no desire to be there the next time (though there probably won't be a next time anyway). It's not a disaster, but there really isn't much of the downright interesting stuff to send you to the cinema for. (27/07/2018)

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)

A fantasy flick akin to Equilibrium and Dark City, which have the stench of B-movies, but benefit from good casting, an effective fantasy atmosphere and, above all, deal with a really intriguing idea. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are well-suited to their roles and the little boy is also good. In other words, The Dark Tower is an okay movie in my opinion. (31/08/2017)

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. (13/10/2017)

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. (29/08/2017)