The Dark Tower is a film directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel, and based off the Stephen King series that bares the same name. The movie stars Matthew McConaughey as The Man in Black, and Idris Elba as The Gunslinger. This movie seemed to be in development hell for a long time, and when McConaughey and Elba were slated to star in the two most important roles people started to get very excited. Now I will be the first to admit I have not read the Dark Tower novels, so I’m going to be approaching this review from that point of view.

The Dark Tower falls victim to many issues, but I’ll start with the exposition. Exposition is the lazy man’s writing, and Dark Tower is full of it. The film tries to cram what should probably be an HBO or Netflix mini-series amount of information into a runtime of one and a half hours. The acting in the movie is good enough, but is not McConaughey or Elba’s best work. The writing feels like it’s not really headed in a coherent direction, and the editing is choppy at best. Though, at the very least, there was a cute cameo of “Pennywise” in the movie, alluding to IT coming out in September.

Play Your Way Network Rating: ★1/2

The film tries to cram what should probably be an HBO or Netflix mini-series amount of information into a runtime of one and a half hours.

The biggest flaw in this movie has to be the fact that the true main character, Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor) is the epitome of a Mary Sue. When the movie finds itself stuck, Jake miraculously finds previously untapped abilities in order to get himself and the Gunslinger out of a situation. The movie exposits that Jake is a special kid, but never delves into why and how. It just tells he’s special, then he becomes special and starts doing things that we never expected. This ends up putting the film in a situation toward the end. Jake and The Gunslinger are once again in dire straights, which never really feels earned. As expected, Jake becomes even more of a Mary Sue and saves the universe. The Dark Tower may not be worthy of it’s 16% rating (at the time of this review) on RottenTomatoes, but it’s nothing you need to see at the theatre. Wait for it to come to your favorite streaming platform, or skip out on it entirely. You’re not missing anything.