"The Dark Tower" Tries To Be Ambitious, But Fails

"The Dark Tower" is based on the book series of the same name by Stephen King and is a continuation of that series. The movie focuses on the Gunslinger (Idris Elba), who must do battle with the Man In Black (McConaughey) to stop him from destroying the Dark Tower which holds all the universes together and protect a boy Jake from the Man in Black.

I was not excited for this movie at all. The trailers made the movie looks very cheaply made but after seeing this at an advanced screening I have to say it was awful like I was expecting it to be. It also wasn't very good.

The Dark Tower

Idris Elba has and will continue to be a great actor and he proves it with his performance in this movie, arguably being the best of the movie even with the material he's given. Surprisingly, the child actors were serviceable. They didn't suck. I mean I'm not gonna write home about them or anything but they served their purpose and I found them to be decent while watching.

For the first 15-20 minutes of the movie, the movie sets up a really cool premise and story that you are hoping it evolves. This first act kept me invested and interested even if the characters weren't all that great. After this section, things started to go downhill.

I just lost interest in the movie after that. To be honest, it was a pretty boring and uneventful movie. It's just a series of action sequences and a villain with a big bad plan and little to none of the so-called "Dark Tower." My interest waned. It just became something I hoped it wouldn't.

Matt McConaughey is not good in the movie. I will give credit where credit is though because he tried, but it did not work. He is not a good villain. He's just not menacing at all, and the villain was pretty bland. 

This movie is also a very confused movie. Not it's not confusing, but it itself is confused at to what it wants to be. There were times I felt it was trying to be serious, and others where humor dominated the scene and the movie was trying to be campy. That really didn't work all that well either. 

This movie is also really, really short. Without credits, it's 88 minutes (95 minutes with credits). Like....what? It made everything seem really forced and rushed and the movie had no real flow to it.

I am going to give "The Dark Tower" a C-.

Here is my review on YouTube for a further and more in-depth analysis of my review of "The Dark Tower."