Year of Release: 2017
Director: Nikolaj Arcel
Starring: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Dennis Haysbert, Jackie Earle Haley, Fran Kranz, Abbey Lee, Claudia Kim, Katheryn Winnick, Nicholas Pauling, Nicholas Hamilton, Jose Zuniga
Genre: Action, Adventure
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
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Synopsis and Review
The adaptation of Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" book series was a long one, with many respected creative teams coming and going. Ron Howard, who stayed on as a producer in the project, was at some point going to direct, but the baton was passed on to Nikolaj Arcel, who achieved critical notoriety with the film "A Royal Affair". The film follows the story of Jake Chambers, a young boy living in New York with his mom and stepfather, who has visions of another reality/world, in which he witnesses a Man in Black destroying an immense Tower, while a Gunslinger opposes him. His family and his therapist dismisses the visions as nightmares related to the traumatic (and recent) death of his father. As it turns out, Jake's visions are illustrations of another reality, and a set of monsters from that domain crossover and pursue him. Jake manages to flee, and eventually finds his way to an abandoned house, where there's a portal to that world, a landscape that is named Mid-World. He soon encounters the Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, whom he saw in his visions. Roland is chasing the Man in Black, Walter Padick, who killed his father and other Gunslingers. Roland tells Jake that Walter has been abducting children with psychic powers for years, and using their abilities to destroy the Dark Tower. That tower is the only thing preventing monstrous beings from invading and destroying other realities. Roland takes Jake to a local village in order for his visions to be properly interpreted, but Walter soon realizes Jake is the key for destroying the Tower, and sends an arms of his acolytes to capture him and kill Roland.
"The Dark Tower" is a series of books which has gathered a considerable following. It introduces a fantastical world, and a series of iconic characters that Stephen King has expanded across 8 novels, a novella and also a children's book. This project was originally going to be adapted as a TV show in order to properly represent the journey in which these characters go through, until it was decided upon creating a film that would be the first chapter followed by a subsequent TV show, however the critical and commercial failure of the film has hobbled that intent. The largest issues with the film lies with the fact that while explaining the parallel universe, and some of the "logic" that exists in the Mid-World, the whole justification for why characters do what they do, or even the logical aspects of why certain actions are occurring, they all lack substance or even reasoning (and logic?). For all his reptilian and darkly menacing actions, Walter Padick, the supreme villain of the narrative, has no demonstrable motivation for anything, other than just wanting to destroy or takeover other realities? It's unclear what the motivation for most of these characters actually are, while whatever is happening in Mid-World, it's presented/illustrated as a mix of retro and futuristic styles, at times alluding to some aspects of Frank Herbert's "Dune", and then shifting into this post-apocalyptic Suzanne Collins' "Hunger Games" type of communal villages. The film is all over the place, and while it tries to anchor itself on the relationship between Roland and Jake, both reeling from the loss of their fathers, not much is every volunteered on either one of their journeys, their motivations, or even who they essentially are (does Roland have a family beyond his father for instance, is Jake's "shining" limited to telepathy and what does that have to do with the Tower). There are so many questions that go unanswered, supporting characters who have very little to do, that the film ends up feeling like a stunted experience on something that just needed additional breathing room for actual storytelling to occur. The cast tries their best with what they have, and both Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey are superb players, but even them can't quite elevate the material. The production team is solid, but highlights go to Tom Holkenborg's score and Trish Summerville's costume design. This was a missed opportunity to mine what could have been an introduction to an interesting universe.
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