THE DARK TOWER

Directing: C+
Acting: B-
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B+
Editing: C+
Special Effects: B

I'm trying to figure out who exactly this movie is for. By all accounts, it bears only vague reference to the source material, Stephen King's Dark Tower series of novels. Not that I ever think a movie is particularly beholden to its supposed source material -- I have long advocated judging a movie on its own merits. The thing is, this Dark Tower has hardly any merit of its own. It's incomprehensible, its premise is flawed at best, and it dialogue -- by a team of four writers -- ranges from abysmal to forgettable.

If this movie has any merit, it is its star, Idris Elba, who delivers a performance unworthy of the film itself. Here is an exemplary actor, someone who commands the screen, who gives life to otherwise clunky dialogue. It hardly matters who the director is, Elba shows up to elevate the material.

This material still isn't very high even after being elevated, though. At least Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets had spellbinding special effects. Then again, it was also way too long. The Dark Tower, conversely, is a mercifully short 95 minutes and has merely serviceable special effects. There's a sequence with an impressively rendered monster. The main issue with that sequence is it lacks clarity regarding where the monster comes from and why it's here.

The Dark Tower wants to have it both ways, presenting a story meant to be epic but truncating what should be a complex story to the point of incoherence. Trying to explain it here would just be a waste of time, except to say that it features rat-people who wear human faces as masks. Huh? The Dark Tower of the title apparently protects the universe from monsters that live outside of it, and the Man in Black is using children's minds to destroy it. There's this one boy from "Keystone Earth" whose mind is the most powerful and therefore the most sought after. Are you following this?

Matthew McConaughey is the Man in Black, and he proves not to be the best choice as the villain in a would-be blockbuster fantasy thriller. He's not particularly believable as a big, bad, evil dude, and as such, he lowers the same material Edris Elba heightens. McConaughey never quite comfortably fits into the role. Tom Taylor, as the boy who "shines" (meaning he has telepathic ability; when did this become a mashup with The Shining?), is somewhat inconsistent but fine in the context of the mess that surrounds him.

I might have enjoyed The Dark Tower slightly more if it didn't take itself quite so seriously. Instead, it's so misguided in its attempts at gravitas that it can't even manage to be enjoyable as a bad movie. It just gets lost in its own hodgepodge blandness. There are subtle attempts at humor when Elba's Gunslinger leaves his own dimension and navigates the boy's world in New York City, but it never quite works. A clear tone is never settled upon: is this movie confusingly dumb, or is it forgettably chaotic? I'd suggest you be the judge, but I can't suggest you see this movie.

Idris Elba and Tom Taylor search in vain for meaning in the lives they lead in this movie.

Overall: C+