The Dark Tower (2017)

Director: Nikolaj Arcel

Starring: Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor

A boy haunted by visions of a dark tower from a parallel reality teams up with the tower’s disillusioned guardian to stop an evil warlock known as the Man in Black who plans to use the boy to destroy the tower and open the gates of Hell.

‘The Dark Tower’ is based on a number of Stephen King novels. Since I’ve never read a Stephen King book, I (thankfully) can’t compare it to any book and therefore was able to view it as a stand-alone movie.

‘The Dark Tower’ is good, but not great, but it feels all too familiar. The film reminded me to a certain extent of ‘Terminator 2’, with Idris Elba in a similar role as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Taylor’s character – and acting – all too similar to Edward Furlong’s character in ‘Terminator 2’. Matthew McConaughey’s character reminded me of Christopher Walken in ‘The Prophecy’. The tower itself reminded me of the Lord of the Rings movies. The portals reminded me of the portals in ‘Timecop’. The ‘face masks’ were reminiscent of the ‘V’ TV series. So, you see, this hardly felt original.

The best part about the movie were the good visuals, and Idris Elba. The young Tom Taylor also delivered a fine performance. Yes, there’s action and adventure and good photography, but in the end it felt like a mash-up of other films, and offered nothing new. I’m not even sure I’m going to remember this in time to come, and I honestly don’t really care.

‘The Dark Tower’ earned $113 million on a $60 million budget.

Would I watch it again? No.