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Bring on the Night
Oct. 5th, 2017 11:56 amAfter several weeks, I finally saw The Dark Tower yesterday. Not-great reviews from professionals and friends alike convinced me to wait until the movie hit the second-run theater. I can't say that this was bad advice.
It's not a bad movie. Idris Elba is, of course, very good, and Matthew McConaughey is plenty spooky as Walter the Magician. Mid-World looks like a place that has run down and is slowly decaying. The Tower is appropriately impressive. Individual pieces of the movie are really good, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. I blame this mostly on the short run time - barely 90 minutes, discounting the end credits. With so little time, we're told, rather than shown, how things are. And there are some lazy changes made to the story - or, at least, the turn of the Wheel put up on screen.
To its credit, the movie makes no attempt to slavishly reproduce the story that King told over eight novels and parts of many many other stories. One important piece of the Dark Tower series is the repeating nature of Roland's quest - he is fated to do it over and over again until he gets it right, and the movie is another turn of the Wheel after the conclusion of the books. I like that decision - I've read the books. I know the story; I don't need or want to see a note-for-note retelling. Give me an adaptation, a good one. But respect the source material and what it does.
There are more sequels and remakes and adaptations in near future of viewing. The Ghost in the Shell DVD is sitting on my TV stand, and Blade Runner 2049 releases tomorrow. I've tried to keep my expectations for that one under control, due to my powerful love for the original movie, in its numerous editions, but the supporting short films have been very good, the director has tremendous respect for what came before, and early reviews have been stellar. I'm looking forward to it.
It's not a bad movie. Idris Elba is, of course, very good, and Matthew McConaughey is plenty spooky as Walter the Magician. Mid-World looks like a place that has run down and is slowly decaying. The Tower is appropriately impressive. Individual pieces of the movie are really good, but the whole is less than the sum of the parts. I blame this mostly on the short run time - barely 90 minutes, discounting the end credits. With so little time, we're told, rather than shown, how things are. And there are some lazy changes made to the story - or, at least, the turn of the Wheel put up on screen.
To its credit, the movie makes no attempt to slavishly reproduce the story that King told over eight novels and parts of many many other stories. One important piece of the Dark Tower series is the repeating nature of Roland's quest - he is fated to do it over and over again until he gets it right, and the movie is another turn of the Wheel after the conclusion of the books. I like that decision - I've read the books. I know the story; I don't need or want to see a note-for-note retelling. Give me an adaptation, a good one. But respect the source material and what it does.
There are more sequels and remakes and adaptations in near future of viewing. The Ghost in the Shell DVD is sitting on my TV stand, and Blade Runner 2049 releases tomorrow. I've tried to keep my expectations for that one under control, due to my powerful love for the original movie, in its numerous editions, but the supporting short films have been very good, the director has tremendous respect for what came before, and early reviews have been stellar. I'm looking forward to it.