‘The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed….’
Of all the most baffling decisions in the history of cinema, Colombia Pictures and director Nikolaj Arcel opting to take Stephen King‘s beloved magnum opus The Dark Tower and then condense it down from eight novels to one 95-minute movie is one of the most bizarre decisions of all. Utter madness…
Instead of adapting the first book in the series (The Gunslinger) and then building from there, Arcel and his team of writers instead took elements from the first three entries in the franchise and ignored everything else. Of the many odd decisions at play here, the story centres on Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) rather than traditional protagonist Roland Deschain (Idris Elba). This, combined with the PG-13 rating, renders this toothless adaptation little more than a third-rate YA story. It’s a terrible injustice that one of King’s most celebrated and accomplished works was besmirched in this way and this goes some way to explaining why King fans reacted with such visceral hatred when the film was initially released.
Frustratingly, it’s not all bad. I actually like Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black and Elba himself does a fine job with Roland despite the character being sanded down and sanitised for this film adaptation. Aside from those central performances, however, there is very little to recommend The Dark Tower. I imagine the plot is indecipherable for anyone who hasn’t read the books and those who have will never recover from the many unnecessary changes and the unforgivably bad pacing (I really can’t stress this enough but… 8 books. 95 minutes. Madness).
The most abominable thing about this mediocre adaptation is that despite its modest financial success, the backlash it received has ensured that we won’t get another attempt at an adaptation of The Dark Tower series for at least another decade – a genuine tragedy.
