Visual effects-stuffed 'Dark' no dramatic tower of power
"The Dark Tower," based on Stephen King's eight-book saga pitting a wild west gunslinger against what appears to be a demonic, not-so-good Johnny Cash impersonator, didn't become the "Valerian"-level disaster some industry analysts expected.
For a long time, "The Dark Tower" seemed destined to be condemned property after being passed around from one filmmaker to another.
Audiences turned thumbs-down on the production in early test screenings. The first cut delivered by Oscar-nominated Danish director Nikolaj Arcel reportedly panicked studio heads so much, they considered bringing in another filmmaker to re-edit it.
After all that, "The Dark Tower" didn't turn out so bad. Not so good, either.
The mishmash production is a train wreck of styles and genres, like a John Woo version of "The Matrix" with elements of "The Shining," "The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension" and production designs inspired by Terry Gilliam.
An 11-year-old New Yorker named Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor, with wonderfully haunted eyes and a dark demeanor) has the power of "shine," psychic abilities that he'll need in the continuing war between good and evil.
He draws pictures of his nightmares involving a gunslinger, a man in black and a tall dark tower, not knowing that these all exist in other dimensions, which he accesses once he discovers an inter-dimensional portal in an old, rundown Brooklyn house.
We learn that the universe has been protected from evil since the beginning of time by the Dark Tower, now under assault by the Man in Black, alias Walter O'Dim, a magical demon who can nonchalantly kill people by simply saying, "Stop breathing."
He's played with malevolent, but stylish, sleaze by Matthew McConaughey, who's pretty darn scary even in heroic roles.
His current compulsion involves painfully extracting screaming children's life forces to create a cosmic ray used against the Tower. (I suspect many explanatory details have been lost in the translation between eight novels and a 95-minute movie.)
Walter's arch nemesis, the Gunslinger, alias Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), remains impervious to Walter's black magic, for reasons never explained. He wears a long rider-style black leather coat and hat, and actually is black, calling into question how Walter got first dibs on the "man in black" label.
"The Dark Tower" fails to capitalize on its own paralyzing paranoia when Jake's dreams of strange people with stitched-on faces become real, and he's the only person who can see them.
Arcel's movie - and whoever else might have contributed to its making (such as Ron Howard, reportedly called in to help Arcel) - never develops a strong style or even an obligatory sense of palpable danger as its trio of main characters go time-tripping through the multiverse.
Yet, the fleet "Dark Tower" feels refreshing as a genre film because it wisely doesn't stick around on the screen 20 minutes longer than it should, the way "Wonder Woman," "Spider-Man: Homecoming" and even "Dunkirk" do.
"I do not kill with my gun," Roland Deschain tells Jake while reciting the Gunslinger's Creed. "I kill with my heart!"
But how can that be in a visual effects action movie that doesn't really have one?
“The Dark Tower”
★ ★
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Idris Elba, Tom Taylor, Jackie Earle Haley, Dennis Haysbert
Directed by: Nikolaj Arcel
Other: A Columbia Pictures release. Rated PG-13 for violence. 95 minutes