A towering anti-climax
I am a huge fan of the work of legendary author Stephen King; from evil clowns in It to crazed telekinetic teens ruining the senior prom in Carrie, I’ve spent many a reading session with the 69-year-old’s work biting my nails and wiping sweat from my brow.
However, I have never gotten round to his multiple-genre, eight-book-long Dark Tower series – but know enough about the books to know they are beloved by a legion of fans.
Given this and their dense subject matters and themes, it’s no surprise that a cinematic take on The Dark Tower has been trapped in developmental hell for a decade, with J.J. Abrams developing a film version back in 2007 and other directors and stars including Ron Howard, Javier Bardem and Russell Crowe being linked with the project at one stage.
The man to finally bring King’s opus to the big screen is Dane Nikolaj Arcel, best known for helming 2012’s A Royal Affair and co-penning the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s screenplay.
Excitement grew when Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey were cast as hero The Gunslinger and villain the Man in Black, respectively, and the trailers suggested this latest King adaptation could be one of the best yet.
Sadly something seems to have gone wrong, either in the editing suite or with too many cooks spoiling the screenplay broth – written by four contributors, including Arcel – as the finished product is a bit of a mess.
You can forgive those behind the project wanting to avoid condensing too much of King’s eight novels into one film and keeping things relatively simple but, in doing so, they have turned The Dark Tower into a run-of-themill actioner that doesn’t always make sense amid a whole host of sequences that feel like they’re missing something.
It clocks in at only 95 minutes – which is unusual for a modern day blockbuster, never mind a take on such expansive source material – and you wouldn’t be surprised to discover that lengthy scenes and plot points have ended up on the cutting room floor.
Lots of things go unexplained and we’re battered with a series of images and events that fail to register with our emotional core.
Elba cuts a charismatic brooding hero and helps keep the flick from diving off the edge of a cliff; it’s unfortunate that McConaughey is saddled with such a generic, one-note antagonist who could’ve been something special if he practiced the chilling words he preached.
Arcel’s action sequences are serviceable but suffer when compared to anything the likes of Marvel and DC can come up with.
The intriguing ending leaves the door open for a sequel, but after this towering disappointment it’s hard to see where this potential series goes from here.