So... has anyone seen the movie? Cause I have. Honestly... it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be, though it's defiantely not good by any stretch. A friend who saw it with me, who is a big fan of the books hated it. Unsurprisingly, it seems to have very, very little to do with the books. What is left, is a rather bland, predictable young adult fantasy movie. In fact, if I didn't nknow better I'd think it's a belated attempt to jump on the Harry Potter bandwagon. If anyone thought Roland would be the main character, man you were way off. It's half an hour, that's a third of the movie, before we even meet him (other than a brief dream-vision). The what's-his-name kid is the main character. Not a very interesting one either. Not that the permanently grim Roland is much more interesting. And the villain is not much better either. Mcconaughey is a great actor, but he's given nothing to work with here, and the result is this strangely soft, almost bored-like performance. I actually found myself wishing for a Jeremy Irons in D&D style over the top performance from him at one point. At least that would have been fun.
For someone who has not read the books, the problem is that while the movie adaptas them extremely loosly, it still throws plenty of ideas and names and stuff at you that means nothing to you at all and elaborates on nothing. Roland comes from Gilead, but what's that? Who were the Gunslingers? Why does a house come alive and the tries to eat the kid? Who are the evil things wearing people's skin like Doctor Who monsters of the week? And so on.
Now, that's notto say the movie is entirely worthless. I think it's actuall passable as a simple fantasy adventure, as long as you expect nothing else from it. Some really bad CG aside the final shootout and the confrontation with The Man in Black (which sounds way better than Walter, it's a really bad idea to call your scary villain "Walter") are actually pretty decent. The music is not bad. And most importantly- it's short. Nowadays it's become pretty much the norm for movies to be 2, sometimes 2,5 hours long, sometimes even more than that. Now, I don't mind long movies, but only when it's warranted. Many big blockbusters nowadays could seriously use being better paced and shortened. Dark Tower is only 95 minutes long, so it doesn't overstay it's welcome. For all it's bland characters and underdeveloped universe, I didn't get bored. Not a glowing recommendation, I know, but neither is the movie. Even though the main character apparently has the Shining power. No crazy Jack Nicholson though.
