The Mad Goat reviews: The Dark Tower

Last weekend I visited my mom in bumfuck nowhere Paris, TX where a movie matinee only costs $3.50 so I decided I’d go crazy and actually pay to watch a movie. I still had to take out a payday loan to cover the concession stand. The movie got shitty reviews, and I felt guilty taking my party to watch it, but I loved the books... and I wanted to write a review on Steemit.

I’ve noticed that Stephen King’s novellas (Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me) translate beautifully to the silver screen. The longer the book, the worse the movie tends to be. I know IT and The Stand are classics but I dare you to rewatch them and not cringe the entire time. That shit is corny, yo. You can imagine my skepticism when I heard King’s 4,200 page opus was being condensed into an hour and a half movie. The first thing you notice if you read the books is that the main character Roland, who is based on Clint Eastwood, is now Black. Also, several main characters Eddie, Susannah, Father Callahan and this little ferret thing named Oy, are completely absent, along with the entire plot.

The film version follows The Man in Black (played by Mathew McConaughey) in his quest to destroy the Dark Tower, which shields our universe and the corresponding multiverse from the evil waiting outside the galaxy. In the books, he was more of a puppet master who was always in the background but you didn’t see much of him. Young Jake Chambers is a budding psychic who has visions of Roland and The Man in Black. MIB’s henchmen try to pick him up so they can use his psychic abilities as mind bullets to fire at the tower. In the book the psychics just kind of hung around these invisible beams leading to the tower playing solitaire, and the whole thing slowly eroded. Jake figures out something is wrong and runs away. He conveniently finds a portal that leads right to Roland and they go on a quest to find MIB and kick his ass. Not a whole lot of plot.

Funny thing is; I really liked the movie. In the books the characters traveled across several alternate realities and it was made clear there were other Rolands and Jakes. I think the decision to cast Idris Elba as Roland was to make it clear that this was another story about the story. Armed with this assumption that I made no effort to verify I was able to sit back and take the story for what it was and not compare it to the book. It did allow me to have fun picking out all the little Easter Eggs that referenced the book like “All Hail The Crimson King” painted on a wall, roses on doors, and the Dixie Pig. It’s been years since I’ve read the series and even if I re-read them I’d probably still miss all the nods. All the people I went to see The Dark Tower with didn’t even know it was based on a book and they all enjoyed it. The cinematography and costumes were good. Rorschach from The Watchmen shined as a vampire rat thing. Idris Elba and Mathew McConaughey were pretty wooden in their performances, but the kid that played Jake deserves an Oscar. This little fucker acted the shit out of that movie. The Dark Tower probably won’t be remembered in five years but if you are looking for a fun little summer popcorn flick you could do a lot worse.

Sources 1, 2, 3