‘The Dark Tower’ And The Danger Of Making Movies By Committee (FILM REVIEW)

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Stories of The Dark Tower, its near-decade in development hell, and the notoriously troubled production process have certainly been in abundance the last few years, from a revolving door of big-name directors to a release date that was perpetually pushed back. After seeing the finished product, it’s clear that all these problems have manifested on the big screen.

Based on the eight-part book series by Stephen King, the film is charged with the difficult task of concluding the story, while still appealing to the movie-going masses who know little or nothing of its source material. As someone in the latter camp, I was curious to see how it would be pulled off. As it turns out, it wouldn’t be. At all.

The story, to put it loosely, involves the Man in Black (a disappointingly charmless Matthew McConaughey) who’s trying to destroy the titular Dark Tower, a building that’s at the center point of the  universe and all its overlapping worlds. By doing so, demons can invade said worlds and he can rule over them all. In order to achieve this plan, he uses the minds of children strapped into chairs to create giant laser beams and shoot them at the Dark Tower. K.

This is the first thing we’re shown, but mostly glossed over so we can focus on Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), a kid who lives in New York and is plagued by dreams of the Dark Tower, as well as the Man in Black, and his internment camp/giant laser beam creating… thing. One of these dreams introduces us to Roland (Idris Elba), the last in a line of gunslingers trying to stop the Man in Black, who’s impervious to his “magics,” as it’s so aggravatingly put.

That’s about as deep into any sort of world-building as The Dark Tower can be bothered muster, grazing over any kind of mythology or backstory in favor of Chambers family drama, which dominates the first act. Frustrated with his behavior, Jake’s mom and cartoonishly wicked step-father enlist the help of a special camp for troubled kids, which is really the Man in Black’s covert team of child abductors in disguise. However, because of visible seams in their fake human masks and twitchy hand movements, Jake’s able to tell what’s really happening and manages to escape.

From there, Jake finds a portal to Midworld, where Roland resides, thanks to a not-at-all hidden portal inside a decrepit Brooklyn mansion, which emits a mid-90s modem dial up sound when activated– providing a single laugh-out-loud moment (for me, anyway). The rest of the film plays out as a series of cobbled-together scenes that half-heartedly string the movie together, filled with truncated exposition and glossed-over mythos.

Ultimately, the whole thing felt like an uninspired cinematic plateau, artlessly pushing the vaguely sketched out plot forward, barely making it through a 95-minute runtime before it runs out of steam and the credits finally roll. It’s clear that this is the byproduct of a ‘too many cooks’ scenario, as was reported by Variety earlier this week.

With multiple decision-makers constantly undermining one-another, it seems no one was able to come to a consensus on much of anything. As a result, the lumbering fantasy juggernaut that once had hopes of launching a new movie franchise will instead likely leave book-readers frustrated and newcomers both confused and underwhelmed.

For me, though, the biggest letdown was the mundanity. Even bad movies can have a certain cathartic charm to them. The Dark Tower, however, was simply just… there. Despite its years in development and wealth of source material, it amounts to nothing more than a lifeless experience that felt rushed to market, leaving no discernible impression whatsoever.

The Dark Tower is now playing in theaters everywhere.

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