The Dark Tower is based on a series of novels by the master of horror Stephen King, so it has its share of maniacs and monsters. But it doesn't generate any scares.
The movie stars charismatic Idris Elba as Roland, a mysterious gunslinger whose skill with a sidearm borders on the supernatural. But there are precious few thrills to be had from his prowess with the pistol.
The Dark Tower is not scary or thrilling. It's also not funny. Or sad. Or dramatic. It takes a stab at these rudimentary elements of entertainment but it can't seem to get anywhere near any of them.
It works as a sedative or an anaesthetic. That's about it.
How did this happen? How did a production with the backing of a big Hollywood studio, the know-how of at least a few people who have displayed taste and talent in the past, the presence of two capable leading men and the foundation of eight books written by one of the great storytellers of our time result in... this?
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I could speculate about the filmmakers' possible lack of faith in the audience or their desire to jump right into a lucrative multi-movie franchise without doing the hard yards, but that would just be guesswork on my part.
What I can say with absolute certainty is that there's a complete anonymity to almost everything about The Dark Tower.
There's no individuality in any of the directorial choices, any of the plot developments or lines of dialogue, any of the performances.
And that's a strange thing to say about a movie about a mystical gunman's quest for revenge against a demonic dandy who's using the life force of abducted kids to destroy a skyscraper that's protecting the universe from an onslaught of monsters from an alternate dimension.
Yep, that's the plot of The Dark Tower in a nutshell.
And our initial entry point into it are the nightmares of young Jake (Tom Taylor, a competent actor with close to zero screen presence), whose nocturnal visions of the gunman, the demonic dandy and the tower are bringing him to the brink of madness.
Guess what, though? His dreams are all true! And his powerful psychic abilities are just what the evil 'Man in Black' - whose actual name is, uh, Walter - needs to tear down the tower and bring about the end of all life in the universe.
With such a goal, you'd think Walter would be a hot-tempered madman or a cold-blooded psycho. Matthew McConaughey, however, plays him with a detached, disinterested energy that comes off as reluctance to be involved in any of this.
With Walter's minions on Jake's trail, it's lucky the kid stumbles across Elba's Roland, the last of a long line of noble 'gunslingers' who in the past may have protected the innocent and fought for truth and justice... I don't know, the movie doesn't really explain too much about that.
The movie doesn't explain too much about anything beyond the basics, really - Roland good; Walter bad; Jake caught in the middle; tower better not be destroyed or it's goodnight, universe.
But no one seems willing to breathe any life into any of it, although Elba as ever cuts a formidable figure.
He stands alone, however. And even someone of his stature can't compensate for the utter pointlessness and monotony of this empty vessel of a movie.
