The Dark Tower is one of the most bafflingly boring blockbuster-type films I've seen in a while. The reason I says "bafflingly" is because the movie does tick all the boxes in terms of what should constitute a fun action adventure film. It has a badass hero (Idris Elba), an anchor (the kid), a fairly intimidating villain (Matthew McConaughey), a simplistic fun set-up allowing for good action set pieces and even a plot that allows for character developments. Even in terms of filmmaking, the script and the direction are almost passable... yet the movie we actually got is dryer than shortbread.
In my opinion, the movie tried to do something, which probably looked good on paper but in execution just fails completely. I don't think there is a singular failure that brought the movie down. Rather, I find it's a connected network of components that fail in their own rights, therefore bringing the movie down.
The thing that sticks out to be the most now that I have thought more about the movie is how uninteresting the mythology and the world is. The sad part is I believe the mythology has a great potential, so does the world. The movie never quite realizes the potential of this universe. For the majority of the time, our characters are stuck in what looks like a wasteland. Granted there are some foliage and mountain ranges and rivers, but the director completely fails to explore this world. In one scene, the characters said they are going to a location. In the next scene, they are on their way walking in a forest. A few minutes later we found out the forest have creatures in it. Now there is a good set-up here but they are stacked so jarringly and so uninspiringly together without any introduction or world building. We caught a very short glimpse of the monster. Not only was the scene so dark we couldn't quite appreciate it, but when we actually see it for frame, it looked horrible. A haunted or creature-infested forest could've been filmed in a more interesting way, yet we simply get a scene of our two characters walking through the trees. The trees and the landscape are not at all memorable; there are hardly any colors to it. After watching the lush and creative world of Valerian, this movie is really bland.
Another possible moment of world building is when they see other characters interacting. The film jumps into the interaction without allowing us to be soaked in the culture of this world. In the middle of the movie, the two characters come to a village of sort. This raises all sorts of questions: how did they survive? How have they survived? What rules do they have? Who's the leader? What's the culture and food? The movie makes no attempt to answer these questions. And it's not like this movies couldn't. It is only 95 minutes long; there are plenty of rooms for world building.
The film is also very poorly paced. It spends way too long at a point in the human world. Although after spending 5-minute in the other world, I was hoping they would come back to the current world. The film adds in scenes of conversations for character developments but they are all filled with clichéd, unnatural lines. The characters never look like they care, so these scenes tend to drag on. The spacing between the action sequences is inconsistent. Some action sequences are also hyper-edited. Most of them are fine but they are simply not interesting.
And I'm just going to say it... and I do feel bad for saying this but the kid actor... really, really tries... but he's going to need a better acting coach and directing. From the very beginning, he looks off. It's not like in The Last Airbender where he doesn't emote, it's more like he's kind of off. I honestly think he has great potential because he could pull off the crying, the smiling but they are usually just a note off. It's like listening to a singer who has a good voice but is somehow always off tempo and off-tune.
It doesn't help that his character is beyond boring. He makes a grand total of zero contribution to the film and his character is boring.
Now, Idris Elba and Matthew Mcconaughey are fine in the movie. I think the latter is a slight bit miscast, but I don't know, I actually kind of like his brand of deuchbagery. Elba is still badass and gives a pretty cool performance. However his character just doesn't reach the required depth. I have a feeling he's supposed to be like Wolverine in Logan, but he's simply not as deep. It looks like he's supposed to still look cool. Because he still has to fit in that clichéd caricature, we don't feel that he's a damaged guy. And at the end, he's a badass gunslinger... and not much else. So we end up with a villain who I kind-of like but recognize is slightly odd, with a hero who's not exactly that deep paired with an anchor with shit character and completely tone-deaf acting.
It's a bore-fest I haven't experienced in a while, and I struggle to remember it now... hours after I've just seen it.
