Film Review: Stephen King's: Dark Tower

Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Cert: 12A cert

Director: Nikolaj Arcel

Screenwriter: (screenplay) Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen, Nikolaj Arcel, (based on "The Dark Tower" novels by) Stephen King


Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Idris Elba, Tom Taylor, Dennis Haysbert, Ben Gavin, Claudia Kim, Jackie Earle Haley, Fran Kranz, Abbey Lee, Katheryn Winnick, Nicholas Pauling, Michael Barbieri, José Zúñiga, Nicholas Hamilton, Inge Beckmann

Running time: 1h 35min 

Parents advised reading before viewing a film as some scene may contain scenes unsuitable for younger viewers.

Sex & Nudity:

• none

Violence & Gore: 

• Not a lot of blood or gore, but general fantasy/action violence - lots of gunfighting, with bodies falling and hand to hand type combat. Many magic-based attacks.

• lots of close-ups of guns being fired and reloaded.

• Character burns the face of another person, leaving a red mark.

• 2 kids get into a fist fight

• Several characters will themselves to die after being influenced by magic (non-violent/gory)

• Character commands several people to die or kill others (non-gory).

• Several characters are burned to death (not seen)

• Man lays dying in a field

• Man is shot with bullets, a hole shows in his head and jacket (no blood)

• Man is stabbed in hand with glass, blood around wound

• Dead bodies seen scattered on ground in several scenes

• Character is stabbed in the back with a knife

• Monster stabs a man with a stinger, the wound isn't really seen, but it makes sickly veins stand out on his arm.

• Innocents are attacked and killed by bad guys

• Characters are shot, occasional blood spray, but not graphic.

• A woman drinks red liquid out of a cup, possibly blood but not stated

Profanity: 

•  light usage like damn or hell. 

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking:

• A wounded character takes a lot of prescribed painkillers (done for comedic effect). A character drinks red liquid out of a wine glass in a club

Frightening/Intense Scenes:  

• Intense scenes of kids being kidnapped and strapped into medical type chairs, often in distress.
• Several intense scenes of monster attacks - monsters are frightening looking.

• Many characters are animalistic looking and have "fake skin", these "skin masks" hang up in a shop.

• Characters lose family members and are distressed and sometimes see visions of their loved ones.

Story: The last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain, has been locked in an eternal battle with Walter O'Dim, also known as the Man in Black, determined to prevent him from toppling the Dark Tower, which holds the universe together. With the fate of the worlds at stake, good and evil will collide in the ultimate battle as only Roland can defend the Tower from the Man in Black

Likes : First of all this Review is not based on the books as I've have never read the Stephen King's  "Dark Tower" novel's, so I can't judge from that standpoint, however, i can judge this film as it been giving to the audience which sadly to say is too short and lazy writing. 

Don't get me wrong by saying this because the film does have some good quality about it and some moments that we're actually demeaning quality's an area of the movie, Visual fact and the story is enough to engage the audience but lack in certain area where it did feel the film needed to be longer.

Acting side of the film is great special for the child star Tom Taylor who playing the young kid that everyone thinks is psychological damage, yet he has a gift to see thing from a multi-dimensional world. This is a great concept for this character as it gives the story something to ground the story and work off, progress the film giving the audience something to latch on to understand the
 story.

Matthew McConaughey was perfect casting for Walter who's is a the dark wizard play's this role pretty well as he comes off as a charismatic villain with a dark nature which works for the concept of the antagonist for this film, Idris Elba as well playing the lone gunslinger Roland who's a protector of the tower giving the audience a bad ass hero type looking for revenge.

Apart from these characters that work well together sadly, this film is very hard to get into and actually find anything remember-able about it, which brings me to the flaws that bring this film down that not even Matthew McConaughey or  Idris Elba could save it from itself.

This film is watchable but could've done better on a bigger budget and writing.



Dislikes :

•  The main problem with this film which I found out before I watched the film is they mixed the story from several different books and tried to cram these moments in a 1 hour and 35-minute film.
  
  This sadly doesn't come off in the film in the right way as it feels a complete mess as scene switching they don't seem to fit the flow of the film, this leads to the movie being a little disjointed in places which is bad for the film because the audience can't get in to the story.

• The second problem is the whole film feels way to short which leads to a problem with the scene writers or budget, it does come across as you feel "was that it " when the film end's like there was meant to be more in this film.
  
  Sadly being a really short film does come across very short, there isn't enough time to give an epic impact on its concept, this film needed to be longer than 1 hr and 30 mins to give the story some time to develop the characters better.
  
  Not that they didn't do a great job with what they were given, I do feel this film could've of been longer with a better-written story.  

Overall: Great acting, good visual effects, story felt too short, the concept is all over the place.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 for Entertainment / 6.5 out of 10 for adaptation.