The Dark Tower Review - Functional and Inoffensively Mediocre

Adapting Over 4500 pages of Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Western literature is something of a mammoth task with the guarantee of alienating at least some fans. Creating a sequel to the books is an unusual move which seems to have - shockingly - offended long time fans. For casual viewers, The Dark Tower is a perfectly adequate genre piece with a lean story. 

Idris Elba is Roland the Gunslinger pitted against The Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey). The latter and his army of body-snatcher-ish demons attempts to bring down the pivotal, titular tower. Young actor Tom Taylor makes a somewhat promising film debut as a young boy who holds the key to destroying the tower. Elba is blandly stoic at times, but as the film proceeds he does appear to carry some grief in his eyes. McConaughey is always effortlessly charming, and his curt villain is refreshingly blunt at times. However, as he uses more magic, the black shirt, deep collar and hand waving is unintentionally like a demented David Copperfield.

Visually Nikolaj Arcel pulls off a slick finale, although some dimly lit set-pieces in the middle are something of an eye-strain. It may hit plot beats we've seen many times before (a thinly written step-dad prick, the powered protagonist is hooked up to a device that exploits them, for example) and feature completely uninspired dialogue save for the grandiose Stephen King lines, but at a mere 95 minutes, it's completely, absolutely, positively and utterly average.

THREE STARS. It will probably be better.