The Dark Tower

A Film Review

The Trailer Was Better

Grade: C-

What it’s about?:

The Dark Tower stars Idris Elba (Thor, The Avengers) as Roland, the last Gunslinger, and Matthew McConaughey (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, We Are Marshall) as Walter/ “The Man in Black”.  

The story begins with young protagonist Jake (Tom Taylor) who has a bad home life and constantly dreams of a place that no one believes exists.  When Jake gets a visit from the Man in Black and runs away from home, he finds himself in another realm and confronting the reality of his nightmares.  He meets Roland, who he recognizes and tries to convince him to follow his duty as a Gunslinger to protect The Dark Tower, a mystical thing that holds the universe together.  Roland, who has been in a battle with Walter over the Tower for many years has trouble accepting this responsibility.

Thoughts:

This is one of those movies where I feel like the ideas behind it were solid, but the script and some of the acting choices really fell flat.  While Matthew McConaughey certainly looked the part of the villain, the delivery I had been searching for was nowhere in sight.  He’s done several too many rom-coms to show up in a film like this and expect people to take him seriously, when he obviously didn’t try very hard to improve his craft.  He serially plays the same character, and while I usually encourage actors to branch out and challenge themselves, this was pretty embarassing.  Quite frankly, he just doesn’t have the versatility required.  Adversely, while I think Idris Elba is a great actor, it seems like the script just didn’t allow for him to utilize enough of his character, which was disappointing.  Tom Taylor who plays Jake did quite well, considering his very limited work experience.  There were some cool lines, which seem to be pulled directly from the source material, Stephen King’s book of the same name.  There wasn’t very much time spent on world building, which I found odd for a sci-fi film, and what we did get seemed unimportant.  The costumes were cool, but not spectacular, pretty much like everything else in this film.  All in all, if you're looking for a sub par movie to play in the background of your evening, it's not bad. If you’re trying to decide between The Dark Tower and Wonder Woman to rent… You may want to book an appointment to have your head checked.

Content:

The Dark Tower is rated PG-13 for thematic sequences of gun violence and action.  My common sense rating would probably say this movie is appropriate for ages 10-12 and up.  It has some disturbing scenes where people wear faces that aren’t their own, and children are sucked of their life-force.  There is fighting and minimal blood, but not a ridiculous amount.  For more specific content, you can check here.