Synopsis
The Dark Tower is a fantasy science fiction film that came out in the year 2017. It is based on Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series, which consists of eight books. The film, however, tries to capture the essence of the books in a much shorter time frame. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel, the film serves as a soft reboot and a sequel to the literary series. It has, however, received criticism due to its deviation from the books and oversimplified storytelling.
Jake Chambers is the main character, an 11-year-old boy living in New York City. He is modern within his time period and has vivid dreams and visions of other worlds. The dreams and visions include a Dark Tower, a Man in Black, monstrous humans, and a stoic Gunslinger. His family, along with his school, believe that he is psychologically suffering due to the death of his father and suggest therapy.
Jake later learns that what he once considered to be hallucinations are actually a “Mid-World” dimension. Facilitated through a portal that he stumbles upon while escaping sinister agents disguised as humans, Jake meets Roland Deschain (Idris Elba) who is the last of a noble order of Gunslingers. Roland is sworn to protect the Dark Tower, a mystical structure that balances the universe and inter-dimensional worlds.
The Tower is attacked by a powerful sorcerer who is seeking to destroy it using the psychic energy of gifted children. Walter Padick, “The Man in Black,” as he is known, believes that if the Tower is destroyed, chaos and darkness will be unleashed and he would be the one to rule.
Walter no longer has the will to protect the tower after it is destroyed and his family is killed. Lacking zeal, he meets Jake who has “the shine,” possessing potent psychic skills and brings purpose back to Roland. Both set off to defeat Walter and save the multiverse from impending doom.
Their journey begins in the desolate Mid-World’s desolate Maint landscapes, taking them back to New York City for a final climactic showdown. Walter has captured Jake and uses his psychic powers to try and attack the Tower. But, as gun-slinging last resorts go, Roland arrives just in time to face off against Walter in a stunning showdown, redeeming Jake and restoring balance to the Tower in the process.
Now, Roland and Jake can go back to Mid-World, and in Roland’s newfound role as Jake’s master, adventures are surely in store.
Cast & Crew
Director
Nikolaj Arcel: A Danish filmmaker best known for A Royal Affair before taking on The Dark Tower. His direction struggled to balance the dense mythology of the source material with the needs of a mainstream cinematic audience.
Writers:
Arcel shared the screenwriting credits with Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen, and created the screenplay off of Stephen King’s books. The process of writing collaboratively with novel’s canon story for film proved to be difficult as distilling it into a 95-minute film.
Main Cast
Idris Elba as Roland Deschain / The Gunslinger: Elba’s performance brought positive reviews because he truly captures the emotions and intensity required for a character as a Western archetype turned dark fantasy.
Matthew McConaughey as Walter Padick / The Man in Black: The McConaughey portrayal of the villain has been described as cool and a menacing charmer. At the same time, he has been criticized for not having complexity as a menacing figure.
Tom Taylor as Jake Chambers: The juxtaposition of his age to the seasoned actors seem to be in a different places emotionally for the young character to feel and traverse between two worlds emotionally, and he does a good job.
Supporting Cast:
Haley, Kim, Kranz, and Haysbert as Roland’s father make up the rest of the supporting cast, and play Roland’s father. Though many do not have much time to shine due to the imo short duration of the film.
Cinematography and Visual Design:`
Rasmus Videbæk’s cinematography contains some visual features that are distinct to mid-world, but they do not capture the magnitude and otherworldly sense that many hoped for given the rich nature of the universe.
Music:
The score was done by Junkie XL (Tom Holkenborg), blending some electronic tension with orchestral themes. It falls short of some of the more popular epic fantasy scores of the time.
IMDb Ratings
The dark tower has a score of 5.6/10 with more than 120,000 reviews as of 2025. The movie was critiqued for bland world building and a shallow, slowly moving narrative, especially by fans of the original books. Even casual viewers found the movie tiresome and vague due to the shallow world building and fast-paced exposition.
Critical Reception
Overall, the movie suffered from an intense lack of acclaim and worse, the reviews were terrible. The film was criticized for the utter lack of development and texture to the story and characters despite the enormous depth in the source material. Most people were utterly confused why the film adaptation tried to capture the philosophical and emotional essence of king’s magnum opus and utterly failed in doing so.
The bulk of the criticism was that the movie was way too short. The film’s length of roughly 95 minutes is a joke given the expansive, multi-layered, and multi-faceted narrative the studio had to work with. Add to that the eight novels worth of content, and you see the difficulty in trying to condense the saga into a single movie, and that’s the reason it is nearly impossible to capture the depth and complexity that make The Dark Tower so fascinating.
Like most fans of the series, I was utterly disappointed by the movie’s loose interpretation of the first book. It was hard to make sense of the choice to blend the movie as a sequel while also trying to serve as a standalone introduction, as it left little to no satisfaction for long time readers, along with confusing newcomers. Given the fanfare the book series has, the characters, events, and even beloved locations from the book were completely mutilated.
Nonetheless, I found some pieces to appreciate. For example, Idris Elba’s noble portrayal of Roland injected some needed emotion and legitimacy, and alongside Tom Taylor pulled together some loose and semi-effective emotional core. Although many fans were disappointed by the portrayal of The Man in Black, I found McConaughey’s performance charming.
However, King’s Mid-World had an overwhelmingly eerie tone to it that was deeply shrouded with what felt alien and mythic, and the film’s design did little to capture that. Roland’s gun-slinging action sequences were undeniably stylish, but the film felt overwhelmingly grounded and relatable, rather than the opposite.
Conclusion
In this standalone movie, I felt Stephen King’s series was deeply beloved but it also felt the need to experiment with its insane levels of complexity and set it up for a cinematic universe. It had an impressive supporting cast and a massive budget. The movie had potential to build a compelling franchise, but the unraveling story, poor execution, and too much ambition set it back by a long shot instantly.
The film never succeeds at captivating either the general or the core audience the way it hoped to do because in trying to cater to everyone, the film ends up catering to no one at all. Central, elaborate ideas such as fate, free will, time, and obsession are condensed into a classic, duel of good and evil story. Furthermore, the film combining the tonal elements of a coming of age story, a dark fantasy, a sci-fi action flick, and an adventure results in a disjointed, haphazard tone.
Regardless of all of the criticism, I find this movie to be an interesting case of how difficult it can be to visualize a complex literary world in a film format. The movie indeed serves as a way for some people to get acquainted with this particular universe, albeit in a shallow and action-loaded way. Meanwhile, for the avid readers of the book, the film is a big letdown with so much potential to do right by one of the most distinctive modern fantasy epics.
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