The Dark Tower is Stephen King’s magnum opus, an eight-volume sprawling epic that spans thousands of pages, connects in some way with most of his other novels and makes The Lord of the Rings look like a short story. It is also a very complex story that crosses into multiple worlds, timelines and perspectives and has an expansive cast of characters. For years, people have tried to film it and those attempts have fallen apart due to the story’s length and complexity. King fans have both been clamoring for an adaptation and dreading it, as the challenges of filming this material seemed too great. Well, the incomparable assholes at Sony and Columbia Pictures (who brought us the Ghostbusters remake last year) found an innovative solution to that problem: just don’t film any of it and throw the Dark Tower name on some half-assed bullshit. I feel like I just spent 90 minutes having a studio executive give me the finger. Everyone associated with this film can go fuck themselves. From the executives to the director to the guy that ordered the on-set catering: Go fuck yourself.
I am not someone that claims that adaptations must remain completely accurate to the source material. The Shining is a classic film and its very different from the book. But I have a line and this movie didn’t just cross it, it drove over it with a bulldozer. There is not a single fucking scene in this movie taken directly from the books. Not a goddamn one. Is that some sort of fucking record? Have that few fucks ever been given when adapting a story? Saying that this is an adaptation of The Dark Tower is like saying that Predator is an adaptation of Heart of Darkness because they both contain a jungle and soldiers. And the amazing thing is that adapting the first book wouldn’t be that hard. It is a fairly short (by King’s standards) and straightforward story about Roland (the gunslinger) following a mysterious wizard (The Man in Black) through the desert and finding traps and cryptic clues about his quest to find the titular tower. It is a simple story that gradually introduces the reader to this world, but is also full of hints and foreshadowing of what is to come later on. It is the perfect start to this story and could be filmed almost verbatim.
Absolutely fucking none of that is in this film. This movie opens with a young boy named Jake in New York City dreaming of the Man in Black and Roland. This is absolutely baffling for a couple of reasons. First, the film establishes Jake as the main character, not Roland. The movie can’t even get the main fucking character right, for fuck’s sake. Second, all of this shit should come way later in the story. It would be like if the first Harry Potter movie opened with Neville dreaming about horcruxes and waking up to be attacked by Death Eaters. It is a goddamn stunning narrative mistake, the kind of thing that sane people couldn’t do unless they were intentionally antagonizing fans. The rest of the film is a hodgepodge of elements from all over the books, seemingly thrown together in no particular order. The Man in Black is hunting children that have a telepathic power called the shine (yes, as in The Shining) so he can wield that power to destroy The Dark Tower, which holds together the fabric of reality. Jake is one such kid, so he teams with Roland to try to stop it. That’s about it. It’s almost impressive how small and inconsequential the film feels considering the enormity of the source material. I saw this with a friend that has no familiarity with the books and he had no idea what was happening, so at least the movie doesn’t give a shit about anyone equally regardless of their knowledge of the material.
I am a big fan of Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, but they have nothing to work with here. I was concerned about the casting of a black actor in the role of Roland (put down the torches, everyone, there is a reason) because the fact that Roland is white is actually a significant plot point. Fortunately, my concerns were unfounded because the movie ignores all of the plot points (which are very important) that would have made that a problem. Roland is reduced to a boring supporting character in a film that should be entirely about him. McConaughey just kind of walks around and looks bored, which I don’t think is his fault so much as the script strips any sense of mystery or dread from the character. He also seems to have a lot of new powers that weren’t in the books, but what the hell. I have waited my whole life to see these characters on screen, and this somehow transformed that into a forgettable non-event. The kid playing Jake has the charisma of a piece of plywood, but the film includes none of the scenes and elements that made the character interesting, so maybe the kid actor was just giving as much effort as the writers.
I don’t understand how this exists. I don’t understand how, after years and years of development, this is what people came up with. I don’t understand how people had meetings about this and still decided to move forward with it. This is the sort of film that reduces my already meager faith in humanity. It is almost remarkable how this film goes out of its way to insult its fanbase, which is the only indication of any effort that went into this. This is simply not a product of rational thought. If you don’t know the books, this will just be a confusing, cheap-looking, boring sci-fi movie that you won’t remember next week. But if you are a fan, oh you will remember it. You will remember it as a monument to human incompetence and proof that Hollywood really just doesn’t give a shit anymore.
Image By: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Tower_(2017_film)#/media/File:The_Dark_Tower_teaser_poster.jpg
