In retrospect, my disappointment with The Dark Tower has less to do with the screenplay’s infidelity to Stephen King’s novel, and more with its failure to capture the scope and imagination of Gunslinger series artist Michael Whelan’s illustrations, which helped sell the fantastic, horrific, and unfathomable destinies of a world that overlaps our own. Director Nikolaj Arcel and his screenwriters’ army trample the source material, pulverizing every shred of uniqueness and ambiguity into the grey, matte rubble of yet another Secret Teen Wizard Movie. The occasional moments of levity and genuine tenderness that poke through bland CGI obstacles and quarter-baked mythologies feel like a meta-tease, a glimpse at the parallel universe in which this film deserved to star Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey as the war between light and darkness personified. Sadly, the novel's fans may leave the theatre wondering how the King of Horror became the King of Ho-hum.
Listen to Kicking the Seat Podcast #245 to hear Ian and HollywoodChicago.com's Patrick "The Über Critic" McDonald scale The Dark Tower!