It’s hard to decide what’s more confusing: the story author Stephen King told in his sprawling fantasy book series, “The Dark Tower,” or the path that story has taken – and is still taking – to being adapted for a visual medium.
King, probably the first name in popular-horror writing, released seven-plus (don’t ask – it, too, is confusing) books over the course of more than two decades. In recent years, big-name filmmakers J.J. Abrams and, later, Ron Howard, were attached to direct a big-screen adaptation of the saga about the last gunslinger, Roland Deschain, and his arch nemesis, a sorcerer known as the Man in Black and by myriad other names.
When Howard was attached, the plan became to adapt to series into a handful of movies, as well as a connected cable-TV series. As a movie – “The Dark Tower” – is finally hitting theaters, under the direction of Nikolaj Arcel and with Howard still attached as a producer, that still seems to be the plan. Or, at least, the hope.
More confusing still is how that TV series might relate differently to the books from the way the movie – more a sequel to them than anything else – does. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
The matter at hand is the film, starring Idris Elba as Roland, Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black and young Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers, a 14-year-old with great psychic gifts who has visions of the two men and their world. While not terrible, it is an unremarkable work of cinema and, with about 90 minutes of actual story, feels like an extended pilot for a television series.
It begins promisingly enough, with Jake tormented by his visions, which also entail screaming children and beams of energy striking a tall and mysterious dark tower – events that seem to be causing earthquakes around his world, including in his native New York City. He spends his time sketching what he sees when he sleeps and goes so far to protect those drawings as to punch a schoolmate who tries to take them.
Not surprisingly, his mother (Katheryn Winnick) and stepfather (Nicholas Pauling) fear Jake is losing his mind and have him seeing a psychiatrist. And when a clinic mysteriously learns of him and offers to take him for a weekend for a round of intensive treatment – heck, they’ll even pick him up – his parents eagerly agree. However, the man and woman who arrive at their apartment are agents of the Man in Black working in our world – Keystone Earth – which Jake realizes and goes on the run.
He soon finds a portal to Mid-World, where Roland lives, and encounters him in a desert.
“You’re a gunslinger, right?” Jake asks.
“There are no gunslingers,” the gun-slinging Roland answers him. “Not anymore.”
As the two embark on an adventure, we learn that, like Jake, Roland has lost his father, and that the Man in Black – who also is known as Walter O’Dim and whose dark magic does not work on Roland – sees Jake as the key to bringing down the tower. (Considering this would allow a hoard of demons into all the worlds protected by the tower, it’s hard to see how this would be good even for Walter, but, perhaps, some things man is not meant to know.)
“The Dark Tower” labors with Roland and Jake wandering the desert, initially in search of a powerful seer to read Jake’s mind, but it picks up steam when the pair venture to Keystone Earth. The fish-out-of-water material is fun – Roland tries sugary soda, Roland is given painkillers, etc. – but there isn’t much of it.
Some big names have been linked to the role of Roland throughout the years, including Javier Bardem and Liam Neeson. Although Elba (“The Wire,” “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”) is extremely talented, he, like the movie, is merely OK as this last gunslinger.
McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club,” “True Detective”) is a bit more interesting, but he isn’t exactly spellbinding, either.
The best work is done by Taylor, who has a handful of credits to his name but nothing all that recognizable. We’ve seen a number of child characters thought to be going crazy but who in reality are the only ones who actually know what is going on, but Taylor manages to make it feel fresh in the early part of “The Dark Tower.”
Like the fish-out-of-water laughs, it’s just not enough, While in general the direction of Arcel (2012’s “A Royal Affair”) is competent, he brings nothing special to the table.
He isn’t done any huge favors by his visual effects team – one effect is surprisingly bad for a mainstream movie in 2017 – and the script by him and three others is largely unengaging.
Speaking of writing, teleplays for “The Dark Tower” series are being done now. However, no network has picked up the show, and the movie most likely will need to be a hit at the box office for any to do so.
Truthfully, this movie may be all fans of the book series may ever get, so enjoy it.
If you can.
‘The Dark Tower’
In theaters: Aug. 4.
Rated: PG-13 for thematic material including sequences of gun violence and action.
Runtime: 1 hour, 35 minutes.Stars (of four): 1.5.
