The Dark Tower (2017)

User Review

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  TheMovieDiorama

  4 / 10

  The Dark Tower is just wasted potential. When the source material is thick with interesting concepts and so beloved by fans, it makes me question why a studio would choose an amateur director to helm the adaptation. Why? It's just destined to be a critical failure and thus a box office bomb. It's not all doom and gloom though, there were a quite a few elements that I appreciated. So the story is about a boy who dreams of a tower that protects the universe, the "man in black" wishes to destroy it and the Gunslinger is chosen to protect it. Except it's not a dream. Basic premise done, but as it's a fantasy film there are numerous amounts of sub-plots, special powers and conveniences. Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey were both great lead actors, they just about saved this flick from being a total disaster. I appreciated the heavy world building that the script contained, I mean there is a lot of lore and rules in these alternate worlds and I thought they were explained well. Most of the visual effects looked high quality, apart from any human CGI scenes...just plain bad. So where are the problems? The main problem is rushing. Everything was rushed into a 90 minute runtime. It was too much! Completely overstuffed, just not enough time to get through everything and deliver an entertaining blockbuster. The screenplay literally consisted of plot explanations. Seriously, nearly every other line explains something that will happen or is meant to happen. It's all spoon fed which decreases the tension and fun. The editing was rushed, scenes seemed half finished and then quickly cut in an attempt to make a coherent narrative. Didn't work. The camera work was rushed, especially the action sequences which suffered from poor lighting and shaky cam. The ending was rushed, the story is resolved in 5 minutes. Wait...make it 2 minutes. Our antagonist doesn't express his motives for doing the things he does...he just does it because he is the "bad guy". I seriously appreciated the thought that went into this, I really did...but ultimately it failed and didn't deliver. Shame, such a shame.

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