TITLE: The Dark Tower
Director: Nickolaj Arcel
Cast :
Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor,Claudia Kim, Fran Kranz, Abbey Lee, Katheryn Winnick, Jackie Earle Haley
Running time: 95 mins
Released Date: August 2017
Based on Stephen King's The Dark Tower.
The black tower is a supernatural tower that stands in the center of the universe and protects the universe from evil and demons. When I say the universe, I mean different worlds because according to the movie, there are many other worlds apart from planet earth. It is said that this tower can be destroyed with the mind of a child.
A socerer, Walter Padick(Mathew McConaughey) wants to bring to bring down this tower so that he can rule the universe with darkness, so he kidnaps children from different worlds and using technology, he opens their mind and when they scream, they release a ball of fire towards the tower and cause serious damage.
There is a family of gunslingers that dedicated themselves towards fighting evil, like the sorcerer. Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) is a gunslinger whom after loosing everyone he loves in the war against sorcerer, seeks to vengeance against the later.
Meanwhile on planet earth, a psychic boy Jake Chambers(Tom Taylor) have been having visions of the tower, the sorcerer, the gunslinger and what will become of the world should the tower fall. Everyone thought he was crazy, his mum didn't believe him, his doctor said he is will traumatized by the death of his father. His mother arranged to take him to a mental institution for kids, not knowing the workers were demons, Jake sensed who they are and fled. He decided to check out one the houses he saw in his vision and saw a portal leading him to the Mid-worlds, that is Roland Deschain's world. But Jake was marked by the Sorcerer and his followers, because of his psychic abilities they believe that his mind will bring down the tower completely. With the demons on his trail, he teamed up with the gunslinger to stop the sorcerer once and for all.
POSITIVE ELEMENTS
The love Jake's mother Laurie Chambers(Katheryn Winnick) have for him cannot be over emphasized, when her lover tried to talk her out of helping her son to be stable, she didn't give up, though she thought it was a mental issue.
When the sorcerer killed Jake's mum, he wasn't filled with revenge like the gunslinger who deviated from his oath to protect the universe and allowed himself to be consumed with revenge against the sorcerer. When he was crying over the death of his mum, Roland said 'we will kill him', but instead of agreeing just like every other person, Jake insisted they save the tower and keep everyone out of danger. He portrayed the true heart of a hero and I think he is the hero in this movie.
VIOLENT CONTENT We see earthquakes as a result of the damage of the tower. We also see a battle field where the sorcerer burns a guy, and where he killed Roland's father with just a word resulting to gunshots.
The sorcerer met the demons that allowed Jake excape in a restaurant and he punished them by asking them to kill each other.
While Jake and Roland was in the woods, a giant beast attacked them and Roland shot him with his gun.
The sorcerer sent his followers to attack and bring Jake to him in the Mid- worlds. They attacked and killed the villagers, there was gunshots and fire. The sorcerer even tortured and killed the seer Arra(Claudia Kim) in order to force out information of Jake's location.
Roland followed Jake back to earth to find the portal that will lead them to the socere's location. They stopped at a gun shop to buy guns for Roland but the sorcerer controlled the vendor's mind and made him attack Roland in order to kill him.
At the final battle between the good and evil, there was one hell of a violent exchange. Gunshots, deaths and so on to stop the sorcerer.
SEXUAL CONTENT
None, characters were too busy fighting no time for love or pleasure
Alcohol/Drug
No alcohol. The only drug used was the pain reliever Roland took to heal from the monster's sting.
CRUDE/PROFANE WORDS
words like "holy shit", " go to hell", and "little brat" were used.
SPIRITUAL CONTENT
We hear of demons, seamed skin(ugly creatures that covered themselves with human skin), monsters and the sorcerer. Of course these things are not natural.
OTHER NEGATIVE ELEMENTS
No matter how crazy our kids are, they need us to believe and support them. Jake's mum though she loved him, she never believed in him and that cost her, her son and her life.
A true hero should always be selfless, but Roland was not. He allowed himself to be filled with vengeance that he almost let the world crumble but thank God for Jake. Not that I blame him anyway, after all we are all human and even hero's have feelings.
MY OPINION
First of all, let me inform you that this movie is based on Stephen King's novels "the dark tower". On that note there will be two types of people watching this movie, the people that read the novels and the people that didn't. The people that read the novels watched this movie with a lot of expectations and Nickolaj cut them short. They say that this movie is not up to Stephen King's standards, Nickolaj have left a bunch of angry fans on his trail.
But for me, I have never read the books, so I watched the movie with an open hear and I think the movie is okay. I was duly entertained over and over again. But notice that I didn't say it was great, I only said " okay", that's because I have a little problem with the movie. The characters were briefly introduced. Nickolaj didn't give us details of each character, we only know that the gunslinger is a warrior but we didn't see the war he fought, we only know that the sorcerer is bad, but there was no scene showing the havoc he did. Ooh and the seamed skin guys, we didn't see what they look like before wearing the human skin or even how they wore the skin. Everything was short, the movie was just 95mins and that's too short for such a power packed movie. Despite these things the dark tower is still fun to watch.
I will give the Dark Tower 6/10
