Der Dunkle Turm

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.

This film reminds me of the situation surrounding the making of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The film was turned down by one studio after another as none of the studios wanted to commit to making 3 films. One of the studios actually agreed to make it, but only if the script was condensed into a single film. Thankfully the people that had the rights and were pitching the films understood that the idea of translating the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single film was a laughable proposition and the end result would have been a terrible film that would ultimately do no justice to the source material. They were willing to bring it down to 2 films instead of 3, but the studio wound up turning them down.

The final studio they approached was New Line and because all of the other studios had turned them down, they pitched it to New Line as a 2 film series as opposed to a trilogy. Amazingly, New Line agreed to take on the project but only if it was made as a trilogy. Clearly someone at New Line smartly recognized that Lord of the Rings was an amazing project and the only way to do it right was to make it a trilogy. And anyone who has read the Lord of the Rings trilogy understands first hand that there is just way too much material to be condensed into a single film or even 2 films. And as we all know, the films wound up being a HUGE success and made New Line billions. At last look the Trilogy had made more than 6 billion world wide.

Like Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower series is just way too big to be condensed into a single film. Any film studio that was legitimately serious about doing the Dark Tower series justice would understand that right out of the gate. The Lord of the Rings was 3 books and the running time for the extended versions of the films was 682 minutes or just over 11 hours long. .The Dark Tower series is 8 books and many of them are BIG books. Anyone who thinks that amount of material can be condensed into a single film is living in la la land. I knew going in that this was going to be a cheap attempt at making money off of Stephen Kings name and the popularity of The Dark Tower series and that's exactly what it was. The Dark Tower series is one of my all time favorite book series, as is Lord of the Rings, and this film is literally a bad joke compared to the source material. How they got Matthew McConaughey to sign on to this film when he has had such an amazing run the last 4-5 years is simply beyond my understanding. I will never understand how such an amazing writer has had so many terrible films made from his books.

Bottom line - this was a terrible film, one that does no justice to the source material at all. If your a fan of the Dark Tower books, do yourself a HUGE favor and skip this film. Its like a bad joke of the Dark Tower universe. Everyone involved with this film should be ashamed of being a part of it. The only reason I saw it is because I have a nephew than basically begged me to take him to see it and I have to admit, part of me was curious to see just how bad it really was and in that regard it didn't disappoint. It was just as bad as I expected it to be. This is Hollywood garbage, nothing more and nothing less. Do yourself a favor and put your money elsewhere.

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).

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.

It a great 90 min Sony Pictures action movie. Some alternate dimension stuff, bad guy with sweet powers and lots of pew pew. Elba and McConaughey are awesome. Fun times.