The Dark Tower

“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” With that great opening line, an obsession began for millions of readers of Stephen King’s series of books that would eventually be known as The Dark Tower. The first book was actually called The Gunslinger, and it was a relatively small volume of brilliant sci-fi/fantasy that used iconic imagery to begin the crafting of a world that would become as rich as those created by George R. R. Martin or J.R.R Tolkien. Over the next few books—The Drawing of the Three, The Wastelands, and Wizard and Glass—King did some of his best writing (the series would actually stretch to seven books and a series of comics, but it’s the initial quartet that holds a special place in my heart). I only mention all of this to place the failure of the long-delayed “The Dark Tower” in the right perspective: this isn’t just a mediocre movie—although it is most definitely that—it is a wasted opportunity to fulfill the promise of that opening line from 35 years ago.

Plagued by reshoots and dogged by rumors of poor test screenings, “The Dark Tower” once looked like it would be one of the more notable failures of 2017. Honestly, I kind of wish it was. As is, it’s more forgettable than loathsome, the kind of movie that occasionally rubs salt in your wounds by reminding you what could have been, but mostly just dissipates from memory as it's playing. The two leads here—Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey—work just fine in these iconic roles, and you just want to pick them up and put them in a better movie, one that doesn’t seem stuck in the valley between trying to satisfy hardcore fans of the series and the moviegoers who have never heard of Roland and Walter. By trying to do both, the movie ends up doing neither.

The problems start immediately. Someone probably thought that making Roland, the title character of the first book, the lead of the first film wouldn’t satisfy a wide enough demographic. And Hollywood is obsessed with stories of teenagers who discover their bad dreams or hidden secrets are actually the keys to the salvation of the universe. So, instead of the origin story of Roland (which will apparently now be told in a television series, also starring Elba), our protagonist here is really Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), an essential character in the books reimagined here as a troubled New York teen without much of a real personality. As with almost everyone in this film, he’s a device, a way to push the exposition forward to meet a contractually-mandated running time.

Here’s what we learn about the movie version of Jake, who is basically like the kid reading "The Neverending Story" in that he constantly tries to explain to the audience what's going on. Jake has prophetic visions of both the Gunslinger Roland (Elba) and the Man in Black Walter (McConaughey). He also has visions of a massive tower, which we learn is basically keeping the order of the universe. Walter wants to destroy this tower, and he knows that there’s a child out there with the power to help him do so. Of course, that child is Jake, who it turns out has the same power as the young man at the center of “The Shining.” He can read minds and other such things that Walter will harness to blow up the tower. “The Dark Tower” is filled with references for King nuts, including, among others, a moment where Roland glances behind a pin-up poster while looking for an exit (“The Shawshank Redemption”) and the numbers “1408” above a portal. Did I mention the portals? I got distracted. It’s easy to do so with this movie.