Ah, August. It’s that time of year when you can head to the multiplex to see Matthew McConaughey as an interplanetary David Copperfield who’s trying to use his “magics” to destroy a looming tower that protects the universe from ready-to-invade hordes of demons.
“The Dark Tower” is the traditional late-summer offering: a long-in-development, not-ready-for-prime-time studio dump.
A litany of directors, including J.J. Abrams and Ron Howard, tried to crack Stephen King’s series of seven novels. But “The Dark Tower” has finally arrived via director Nikolaj Arcel, who penned the 2009 Swedish adaptation of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” The special effects-heavy fantasy is a leap in production size that outstrips Arcel. The film, at a lean 95 minutes, has the unmistakable air of a mitigated disaster. Its scope and running time have seemingly been reined in to keep “The Dark Tower” from completely toppling.
After a brief hint of what’s to come, the movie opens in modern New York City with teenager Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor). His dreams are plagued by visions of Mid-World, where he sees gunslinger Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) battling the Man in Black (McConaughey), who’s hell-bent on ending the universe.
Jake furiously sketches his visions, prompting his sensitive but uncertain mother (Abby Lee) and comic-book-cruel stepfather to agree to send him to a psychiatric retreat upstate. But when two arrive to retrieve him, Jake observes a feature in their faces from his dreams: the stitches of false skin. He flees and improvises his way to a building from his visions that turns out to be a portal to Mid-World.
