The Dark Tower (2017) Review

The Dark Tower holds the universe together but is under threat by the Man in Black, Walter O’Dim locked in battle with the last Gunslinger Roland Deschain. Jake Chambers is about to change everything though has he dreams and visions about the other world and the battle.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

We see the story through Jake’s eyes as he constantly has dreams about this other world and strange things happening, capturing these moments in drawings afterwards. The only problem is living in New York and attending school is difficult with his visions and believing it is very real. Even his own mother does not believe him and when the people try to take him she does not really understand what is happening.

The main problem with this film is that it pretty much expects you to understand and know what is happening and why, it doesn’t really answer the questions you have or explain about the different worlds in much detail. The portals, the skin people, gunslingers, the Man in Black, all of these things are supposed to just make sense? In a film that is just over an hour and a half long, which in all honesty felt a bit longer than that!

At the end when the credits began to roll I was left wondering what on earth I had just watched, it was confusing and all over the place rushing through everything. I was rather surprised to see it is based on characters and events from a book series which actually has nine different books. So I am guessing that means for a standalone film they have just taken so much of the information, unless they end up making a whole different film series from it similar to well The Hobbit.

Performance wise I was rather impressed with Tom Taylor as he leads the film a lot of the time and links in well with Idris Elba. McConaughey gives a very creepy performance but I don’t feel he was very well suited for the role and another actor could have added more to that character. Other than that though everything else about the performances were pretty flat as the character development other than Jake was rushed through at a high-speed, so you don’t really fully care about any of them.

I guess we get some decent action sequences with the Gunslinger but rather short, the build up to one of them was pretty big and it all looked too easy. Although we don’t really understand the power he has and everything else linked to those in the middle portal. Oh that was another thing the portals and Earth being a small part of this universe that we never really find a huge thing about. The Black Tower that can only be destroyed by minds of children, so they are taken away from Earth. Did know one notice they were gone, or where they put back after being used? That was very unclear if it killed them, surely it would cause uproar that loads of children were just disappearing?

I have pretty much spent the whole time writing this review shaking my head, which was how I was when watching the film. I need a positive, well Roland having to adapt to being on Earth and in New York for the first time. The Cola and Hot Dog things were rather amusing!