The Dark Tower

In a nor­mal year, a high-pro­file Stephen King adap­ta­tion would be await­ed with some degree of antic­i­pa­tion. But this is no nor­mal year. The Dark Tow­er, a fea­ture film based on King’s eight-book fan­ta­sy series, is just one of sev­en adap­ta­tions of his work set for 2017.

There’s a tenth Chil­dren of the Corn movie arriv­ing soon on home video, while Net­flix has promised fea­ture-length ver­sions of ​‘Gerald’s Game’ and ​‘1922′ before the year is out. On net­work tele­vi­sion The Mist series pre­miered in June, while a minis­eries based on King’s ter­rif­ic crime nov­el ​‘Mr Mer­cedes’ has aired in the US. Above all else, of course, is IT, which promis­es to be a ter­ri­fy­ing update of the cult 1990 miniseries.

Such a wealth of King con­tent presents no small chal­lenge for a film to make its mark, and for a time Niko­laj Arcel’s mega-bud­get The Dark Tow­er seemed a promis­ing con­tender, espe­cial­ly with two majors stars in tow. Yet it now remains entire­ly in the hands of Bill Skarsgård’s new scary clown to do jus­tice to King’s work at the cin­e­ma, as The Dark Tow­er is noth­ing short of a total misfire.

While wild and over-the-top King adap­ta­tions are often the most fun (and, indeed, most faith­ful to his work), The Dark Tow­er com­mits the far worse crime of turn­ing what could have been an epic, strange adven­ture into some­thing com­plete­ly devoid of the author’s trade­mark obses­sive­ness, atmos­phere and gen­uine attach­ment to well-drawn characters.

With its epic scope, colour­ful char­ac­ters and bonkers plot­ting, the stuff nec­es­sary for a tru­ly grip­ping film is unde­ni­ably all there. The film begins with Jake Cham­bers (Tom Tay­lor), a young kid liv­ing in New York with his moth­er and step-dad, still unsure whether his vivid dreams about a Tow­er under attack have any­thing to do with real­i­ty. But rather than explore the kid’s para­noia and absolute ter­ror when he comes face to face with the vil­lains of his night­mares, the film instead adopts the lev­el­ling tone of a time-hon­oured adven­ture yarn, sleep­walk­ing from one plot point to the next with­out pay­ing much atten­tion to the fact that this kid is sup­posed to be just like the rest of us.

This makes even the entrance of Idris Elba’s Gun­slinger, and his abil­i­ty to make bul­lets ric­o­chet off one anoth­er (!), feel rather tame and unex­cit­ing. This mut­ing even effects Matthew McConaugh­ey – often swing­ing his arms around for no appar­ent rea­son – who turns up in the unusu­al­ly low-key role of the evil, sadis­tic Man in Black. The final con­fronta­tion between these two A‑grade movie stars is nowhere near as sus­pense­ful as it should be, arriv­ing as it does after a clash between the man bent on destroy­ing the uni­verse and the only per­son who can stop him.

It’s almost as if a con­scious effort has been made to make this mix of west­ern, sci-fi and time trav­el genre ele­ments as banal as pos­si­ble. Deliv­er­ing only a hint of King’s vast and com­plex uni­verse, and with very broad char­ac­ters, the film fails on all counts, being nei­ther as nerdy or acces­si­ble as it might have been. That it nev­er seems com­plete­ly ridicu­lous or try-hard is per­haps the only sil­ver lining.