The Dark Tower

This review may contain spoilers!

After about ten minutes of this film I'd be surprised if you couldn't predict every key line, scene or plot twist to come. I would give The Dark Tower a 3/10.

The cinematography for the film takes it's time to get under way but once it does it manages to set up some impressive visuals; the snappy and intense camera angles used throughout the final fight sequences are particularly impressive. The special effects within the film are also pretty good; the CGI demons, bullet effects and magic look absolutely stunning throughout.

Matthew McConaughey, who played Walter, takes his time to find his fit within the role but makes for a great antagonist by the end of the feature; McConaughey really plays a role who can kill and destroy without a care and unleashes a fair degree of malice throughout.

However the best performance came from Idris Elba, who played Roland. An openly stoic and stubborn role when first we meet him, Elba plays a character hardened by the carnage that has ravaged his world. This is not a role who is fast to trust and so any relationships built up over the film feel very genuine from Elba's end. There's a real darkness at the heart of this character as he's blindly been consumed by his hatred and desire for vengeance. I found it really heartwarming to see Elba take on a kinder persona in the back half of the film; and his comedic scenes upon Earth make for some of the best moments of the film.

This film is a blockbuster that dwells in a predictable plot and struggles to break away from cliche; the least of which being the classic 'chosen one' going through a coming of age story. Jake is a protagonist who doesn't really excite you much as an audience goer, he's a figure we've seen played out a thousand times before and lends no unique insight to his own story. The fantasy world we venture too after dealing with a small mountain of exposition has no depth and spends most of the time trying to force Jake and Roland to have some semblance of chemistry. The entire film is riddled with plot holes and you start to find symbols that could be quite fantastic and unreal to be otherwise cheesy plot devices. The score for the film doesn't add a great deal either, frankly it only stands out when it swells in volume for the truly emotional scenes.

Tom Taylor, who played Jake, has to be one of the worst film protagonists of the year; he doesn't make his role particularly noteworthy or exciting enough to command the role of main character. Dennis Haysbert, who played Steven, isn't given much focus as Roland's father; his function in this film really only seems to be getting killed off. Claudia Kim, who played Arra, enters partway through the second act to dish out a heavy helping of exposition; she delivers a lot of dialogue but it feels very information-heavy and you never really come to respect or understand her role within the world she's in. Jackie Earle Haley, who played Sayre, is quite pitiful as one of McConaughey's many henchmen; Haley is only strongly inserted near the end to be a physical threat to Elba's character. Fran Kranz and Abbey Lee, who played Pimli and Tirana respectively, are roles that essentially lurk behind McConaughey for the greater portion of the film; neither really make their own mark as antagonists and are often leaning over screens merely to read out numbers. Katheryn Winnick, who played Laurie, is a mother role we've seen in film's like this plenty of times before; Winnick is only really here to introduce us to Taylor's rather dull home life and serves little other purpose. Nicholas Pauling, who played Lon, gets the award for standard generic film stepdad of the year; you can pinpoint the exact moment the character turns from background role to minor antagonist probably eight scenes before it happens. Michael Barbieri, who played Timmy, is a really obnoxious tag-along that seems to exist purely to justify Taylor's presence upon Earth; Barbieri is an example of the film cramming in too many roles to serve the plot as opposed to crafting genuine characters. Jose Zuniga, who played Dr. Hotchkiss, plays out a rather tired psychologist scene which crawls at best; the fear-mongering around the kid's otherworldly drawings has already worn too thin by the time we even reach Zuriga. Eva Kaminsky and Robbie McLean, who played Jill and Toby respectively, are just plain annoying henchman roles; the fact they even had to be squared away in a scene with McConaughey shows this film didn't really have much sense in prioritising important plot elements.