Keep It Reel: 'The Dark Tower'
By Marc Woodfork
With the ending of the worlds at hand, the classic tale of good versus evil is brought to the screen by one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Stephen King's epic tale 'The Dark Tower" debuts with much anticipation. Unfortunately, that's all you get. Hugely promising, barely watchable.
I haven't read any of the books, so I went into this completely objective. The biggest pre-opening criticism was whether the two main roles should have been reversed. Having not read the books, and the script being so bad, I don't think it would have mattered at all who played which role. This film is massively disappointing. I feel bad for the legions of fans I recently saw at Comic Con San Diego who adored the book series.
'The Dark Tower' film version compiles elements of all the books into one film. Not sure why they would do this if you intend to make a franchise out of it. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey do well with whats given to them. The script is so poor and watered down, it reminds me a 'G' rated Disney movie.
There's no real cohesion between scenes. Not having read the books, at times I felt lost. Sometimes it actually made no sense. -- such a let down after months of tease and excitement building. Skip this and go next door to another auditorium and watch whatever is showing.