Directed by Nikolaj Arcel
Written by Akiva Goldsman & Jeff Pinkner and Anders Thomas Jensen & Nikolaj Arcel, based on the novels by Stephen King
Cast: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor, Claudia Kim, Fran Kranz, Abbey Lee, Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Haysbert, Katheryn Winnick, Nicholas Hamilton, José Zúñiga
Soundtrack: Junkie XL
Good versus Evil.
Or something.
Look, I’m going to level with you. I don’t know anything about Stephen King’s Dark Tower books, or anything else about where the story of this film comes from. All I really know is that it’s a movie, so that’s all I can judge it as.
Actually, one thing I do know is that The Dark Tower is writer/director Nikolaj Arcel’s Hollywood debut, after a quartet of features in his home country of Denmark, culminating with his breakout movie, A Royal Affair (solid period drama; worth watching), which was nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2013.
The Dark Tower, however, I have concerns about, if only because it’s a wide release film that’s not a comedy that clocks in around only ninety minutes. Maybe I’m overreacting, but the first thing that comes to my mind is 1998’s The Avengers, which was drastically edited down after poor test screenings, leading to an incomprehensible final cut that absolutely tanked at the box office.
I’m also concerned it could be like The Forbidden Kingdom, which was shamelessly marketed as a Jackie Chan vs. Jet Li marshal arts film, but in reality was essentially a children’s movie. Lies!
So, what is The Dark Tower?
Well, I can say with certainty that it’s not the worst movie ever made. It’s not even the worst movie of the summer (I also wouldn’t call it a children’s movie, despite a child protagonist).
In fact, I’d call it solid entertainment; roughly a mix of The Matrix, Thor, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Not that The Dark Tower is nearly as good as any of those, but it’s passable. If not for the recent run of quality summer pictures, I might give it a higher recommendation, but it’s low priority compared to Baby Driver, Spider-Man, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Dunkirk (not to mention Detroit, although that’s a different kind of movie).
It’s not perfect. It feels like a reverse Hobbit situation where they’re trying to pack too much into too little (ninety-five minutes for a story like this just isn’t enough time), but it’s far from a total train-wreck. I was never horribly confused as to what was happening or who each character was. Sometimes bits of dialogue here and there felt a little silly (in a John Carter sort of way), but I wouldn’t say there are any outright bad performances. I thought Matthew McConaughey was an interesting villain (in his cool, laid back fashion), and Idris Elba worked great as a disillusioned white knight out for revenge.
Also, based on the fact that there were a few Stephen King Easter eggs that I as a casual observer noticed, I’m going to guess this movie is chock-full of them; which, assuming you’re not horribly offended by this adaptation of his work, should be fun for fans of the author.
Other than that, the action (what little there is) is fairly well executed, there are some nice NYC bits (like, real, actual New York City), and a little bit of fish-out-of-water humor for levity’s sake.
So, yeah, I liked it. I can’t promise that you’ll like it, and if you’re a fan of the books you’ll probably have reason to hate it, but for me, going in totally blind, I thought it was fine.
It’s not worth full price, and it’s not worth seeing before a lot of other movies this summer, but it’s a fine matinee choice.
Rating: ★★★½ (out of five)
P.S.
No stingers.