The Dark Tower

PG-13, 1h 35min, release 4 August 2017
One thing should be clear – you cannot expect full coverage of Stephen King’s extensive and complex Fantasy story here. Do not even expect full coverage of book 1 in this multiverse-series, because this alone would require at least 2 full feature movies, and still would leave you with a bundle of open story lines, developing over several further 700-page-volumes, and far away from a possible conclusion…
Therefore I appreciate that the script writers Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen and Nikolaj Arcel – also the director of this movie – never even attempted that. Instead, they picked some essentials from book one, combined those with some elements from other books in the series, thus trying to weave a coherent, easy-to-follow plotline that even provides some closure:
The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O’Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle to defend the Tower from the Man in Black. A boy from New York named Jake Chambers finds himself drawn into this battle …

Partly they even succeeded to create a coherent plot for a decent Fantasy flick to watch. In my opinion it’s a nice introduction to King’s Dark Tower universe even for those who have not read any of the books or graphic novels. One of the reasons is the fine cast around Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, e.g. Tom Taylor as the boy Jake or one of our favorite „Vikings“, Katheryn Winnick, and the fact that there’s no CGI overkill.

The bad aspect – for those more familiar with the subject, it all seems so much reduced, slimmed and watered down that the result feels a bit stale, rushed, incomplete; as if a lot got lost on the cutting table, as if both Elba and McConaughey had much more to give but not enough screentime to do so. The Dark Tower as well as the dark forces behind the Man in Black do not get enough backstory here, they seem to pop up out of nowhere, hence the conclusion seems rather random instead of a peaking of events. As if you only get to see the shadowy reflection of the action outside the cave, the shadow of the movie it could have been, instead of „the real thing“. A pity because it could have been a nice opening to a new King franchise…