Der Dunkle Turm

Granted, I have not read the books from Stephen King, but I am familiar with them as I used to work in a bookstore. I was looking forward to watching the adaptation of the novels here, and was expecting quite the unique experience.

"The Dark Tower" had a good story, albeit somewhat shallow in comparison to what I have heard about the novels from friends who read them.

They had a good cast, whom did indeed put on great acting performances in bringing out their characters on the screen.

One of the major things that kept "The Dark Tower" afloat for me was some really nice CGI and special effects throughout the entire movie.

Wonderful connection to "IT" (Pennywise) and good tie-in with The Shine ability from "The Shining", if you are familiar with those from other works of Stephen King.

All in all, then "The Dark Tower" was a tad above mediocre end result that could have been so much more. It just felt shallow and superficial, and it was definitely like they were in a rush to get through it. Which was a real shame, because it was painstakingly obvious throughout the entire movie, and it definitely served as an anchor holding it back.

I have not read any of the novels, but I think I would be even more upset about the amateurism of this movie, and about the murdering of those (probably) awesome novels.

First of all I would like to mention the aspects of the movie which were pretty good: -The scenery: The wastelands of Roland's world were beautiful. -The special effects/fight scenes: I was actually surprised how good the action scenes in this movie were. The special effect guys did a very good job. The fight scenes with Roland shooting bullets in slow-motion and Walter O'Dim's scenes were extremely fun to watch. -The actors: In my opinion the actors did a pretty good job. They did their best with the horrible script the writers handed to them.

And now the negative aspects: -Awful writing: I have no idea how can four (!!!) writers create a stupid dialog and story like this. It's not even the book's fault, because as I know the story is completely different than the one of the books'. -The constant switching between the two worlds, the involvement of the "asian medium lady" and her village, the repetitive usage of the Warriors' praying were so unimportant that it makes me mad. Not to mention the ending...as if it was made for 6 years olds. -Sloppy directing: The director was nominated for BAFTA Award, so I am pretty sure he just did not give a damn about making the movie at least mediocre with the absence of a proper script. The cuts in this movie (when there's no fight) are very annoying, and I am pretty sure I could have cut it to be more watchable than Nikolaj Arcel did (and I have not directed anything yet).

Summary: The books had a perfect material to create an excellent movie series, but someone decided to create an upset, a ruined cinematography from it. I am pretty sure it is the fault of the negligence of the people behind this movie (writers;director). If a Sergio Leone directed this movie with the given universe, it would have become a classic. Now it's a movie nobody will remember after a couple of months (if yes, then it would be due to their hatred for the production crew).

As someone who hasn't read the Stephen King books that the movie is based on I have a different perspective than other reviewers. If you're comparing a movie to a book then it's pretty rare that you will not be disappointed but if you have nothing to compare it to then you look at it as a stand alone piece of work and this is not too bad. It's pretty much a good vs evil story. Mathew McCoughanhey is very evil and Idris Elba is very good. The story is good and the acting is excellent. Okay nobody will win an Oscar for this but on the other hand you don't start watching this and think what the hell am I wasting my time on this for. Not a bad movie as long as you haven't read the books apparently.

Stephen King's Dark Tower novels may have their flaws but they are nonetheless a highly creative juggernaut that deserved either a fully committed TV adaptation or to be simply left alone.

I'm not sure what was going through the heads of the people involved with this limp mess of a movie. it manages to achieve the double whammy of being completely incomprehensible to non-book readers whilst also being highly insulting to fans of the novels.

As for Matthew McConaughey, I've never been much of a fan and this tragic performance confirms my suspicions that he is one of the most one-dimensional and overrated actors in the business. Idris Elba manages to salvage some artistic integrity from the ruins with a reasonable performance but there is not much one can do with such a godforsaken script.

I love the Dark Tower novels and would recommend them to anybody. It would be difficult for even the best in the business to adequately bring the story to life through cinema but these clowns didn't even try. One of the laziest and Hollywood productions of all-time.

I did NOT read the books; I had not even heard of this movie; it's a random DVR grab from cable. I enjoyed it, despite some minor flaws.

PROS: We have some great casting -- Mathew McConaughey is creepy and effective as The Man in Black and Idris Elba is perfect as the slightly washed-up Gunslinger (capital G as there is a knightly connotation). The pacing is pleasantly fast; the director expects the audience to piece together some of the background story instead of having it entirely spoon-fed to them. I liked this approach; it exercised my brain a bit.

CONS: The underlying plot structure is quite standard, and this makes some developments rather predictable. Also, it's rather convenient that everyone in the universe speaks English.

IN SUM: It's fun and a bit different. I like the mixing of tech from different worlds. I give this seven (7) stars for escapist entertainment.