First Take: The Dark Tower- not bad, not good, but decent enough

SYNOPSIS:

The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O'Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black.

Ah, a Stephen King adaptation. These are very difficult things to master, with a lot of people citing Shawshank and Green Mile as the benchmark. This unfortunately isn’t up to that standard, but for casual cinemagoers, this is actually quite a decent film.

Nicolaj Arcel does a good enough job directing this film, drawing upon a range of influences in terms of the overall look and feel of the events going on in the narrative, and sure, the script from Arcel, Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkman and Anders Jensen may not be perfect or true to the books, but it is passable enough for those curious enough to see this film. It’s shot well by
Rasmus Videbæk, and the Tom Holkenborg (better known under the name Junkie XL) score did rattle screen 2 a fair bit.

What saves this film from receiving a full on rant is the performances. Idris Elba is on form as ever, and combined with the might of Matthew McConaughey, there is a lot of star power on show- but the show stealer is Tom Taylor as the film’s lead character Jake. As a whole, the performances are good enough for what this film ultimately is- a launch pad for a new franchise. But whether that franchise will actually happen after the critical mauling it received during its opening weekend is anyone’s guess.

THE VERDICT

For fans of King’s source material, the film is devoid of the details that make his books so engaging, but for casual audiences, this is a neat film that does what it needs to do in just shy of 1 hour 35 minutes. Not the best film of the year, but certainly not the worst.

RATING: 3/5