• “The Dark Tower”: If “The Dark Tower” had just been an action film laced with grand sweeps of magic and textured touches of science fiction based on an original script, there would be enough interesting moments to earn the film a passing grade. The sad fact is that it’s not an original story from writer/director Nikolaj Arcel, but a movie based on a wildly popular series of eight books by the master of macabre, Stephen King.
Once the comparisons start, the film ends up a painfully pale version of the books that hops, skips and jumps through key points. This fly-over approach is such a faint representation of the original product that anyone who has read at least one of the books will feel like the production was made by Arcel aiming to connect with the audience through his eye and his hand and not his mind and his heart.
Unlike the books that start in a barren world that’s home to the last protector of the universe, Roland Deschain (Idris Elba), better known as the last Gunfighter, the movie opens in modern day New York. A youngster, Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), has been haunted by vivid nightmares for a year. He dreams of a world where a dark figure kidnaps children to use their minds as a weapon to destroy the Dark Tower. This tower is at the center of the universe and should it fall, the darkness waiting just outside the fringes will come flowing in to destroy everything. His parents are convinced that Jake needs psychological help including a weekend in an asylum. The movie gets more jumbled as it struggles to reach an unsatisfying ending.
Also on DVD
• “Kidnap”: Single mom (Halle Berry) risks her life to save her abducted son.
