Truth be told though not terrible I've never been a fan of The Dark Tower books, I've read 5/7 and though being a huge Stephen King fan I could never seem to get into them.
Upon hearing that The Dark Tower was being turned into a feature movie however I was quite excited, until I heard the casting....until I saw the writer...and until I saw the trailer. My expectations crumbled and I felt so bad for any real fans of the franchise.
Not only is The Dark Tower not loyal but I've never seen something encapsulate Hollywood so fiercely.
Let's break it down. We have the dark brooding hero (Who wields Excalibur no less) versus a charismatic villain. The good guy is protecting a child who is key to everything and the bad guy has lots of generic monstrous minions to do his bidding? Sound even remotely original?
Top that off with all your usual clichés, Hollywood tropes and 90 minute runtime and you have a seven book epic compacted beyond belief and smeared with cinematic 'Magic'
I wanted to like this, I wanted to be proved wrong but this is the biggest mess since Death Note (2017)
The Good:
McConaughey is great
The Bad:
Not even remotely loyal to the books
Too 'Hollywood'
Very anti-climatic

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Imagine someone told all of Game of Thrones in one movie that was just an hour and a half, then cut out 99% of the story. :(

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WHY does Hollywood hate Stephen King stories? Are they seriously THAT hard to put on film?? The whole POINT of this movie was supposed to be an onscreen adaptation of The Dark Tower series. Shawshank worked. The Green Mile worked. The Mist worked. With halfway-competent writers and directors (and I'm thinking 'Darabont' here), this film should have worked.
But newwww. Instead, they stapled the Dark Tower characters onto a cheesy, embarrassing direct-to-DVD movie that sucks in its own right; one that nobody wanted to see. We wanted to see Roland and The Man In Black, and Oy! Not.. whatever this lazy crap is. This is 100% schlock.
There were actual cholos in the theater saying 'hayfoo, who directed this, ese? This ain't the story, homes. Let's sneak into 'Gigli, for real dawg.'
(The 'Battlefield Earth' writers are probably hi-fiving their thetans now that they're off the hook. Good job, writers.)
SPOILER: This is a horrible movie that has nothing to do with the original story. If your other half is a Stephen King fan and you want to hear them yell 'WTF??' every three minutes, throw this one on. Frigging terrible.

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The Dark Tower by Stephen King is an expansive story that spans 7 books, telling Roland the Gunslinger's journey to the Tower; involving different genres, many characters, many worlds - a big lore.
At a certain point whether you have read the series or not is probably irrelevant. If you haven't read the books, I would imagine the movie just will feel flat and lifeless, with only a few scenes from McConaughey standing out. There's very little plot and character development, all of which come across as a lump of clichés. If you have read the books, you'll likely find the movie a spectacular failure, wondering how the writers managed to dumb down such promising material to a 95 minute generic action movie, and making an actor like Idris Elba overact in a character that should have endless potential. The final result is so hollow and narrow, just watch the trailer and you may count yourself as having seen the whole thing.
If you are intrigued by the story, skip this movie, and give the first book of the series a go.

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Worst film of the year in my personal opinion. You have MM and Elba, you have 8 - EIGHT - books of material, and you do a movie that is hour and a half long, you butcher the material, and after all, you don't make the Gunslinger the central character in the movie.
This project should've been straightforward: Chronologically you start with the genesis of the conflict between Ronald and the Man in Black, you build your characters toward the conflict aka Last Stand, and you end the movie in the dark, just before the start of the first book. Movie of 2, 2.5 hours, dark, with R-rating. You exploit the potential of the brilliant actors at your disposal.
You just don't do this. Rubbish. I gave it three stars just because of McConaughey and his obviously good performance as the Man in Black.

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My wife and I went to see this movie last night. This is probably the only review I've done in the past 30 years and that's because I believe this was 'UNFAIRLY REVIEWED BY CRITICS', so I'm hoping you'll give this movie a shot after reading what I have to say.
I almost didn't go because the movie review in USA Today newspaper only gave it one star. Some of the user reviews here didn't seem very enthusiastic about the movie either. I'm 67, retired, and a King fan (I've red The Dark Tower books). My wife is 70, retired and not a King fan (she hasn't read any of the Dark Tower books). Just to provide some additional perspective some of the movies we've seen so far this year and how we rated (in chronological order) The Founder 5, A Dog's Purpose 5, John Wick Chapter 2 5, Logan 6, Kong; Skull Island 7, Beauty and the Beast 7, Power Rangers 5, The Fate of the Furious 8, Guardians of the Galaxy 2nd Vol 8, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Wonder Woman 9, The Mummy 5, Spider Man 6, War for the Planet of the Apes 8, and The Dark Tower 8.
I was worried standing in line to see the movie so when the previous show got out I started asking people (must have been close to 20) if the liked the show. (Would have asked more except my wife was feeling a little embarrassed.) Everyone said a hearty 'Yes' except for one couple who shook their heads and said, 'It wasn't like the books' and gave it a thumbs down. After that I was encouraged and looked forward to seeing the movie. I figured most of the critics were slamming it because it didn't follow the books closely. Frankly, from what I've seen, King books have always had a tough time being translated to the big screen.
Although this movie didn't follow the books 'right on' the main gist of the plot and characters were there so I wasn't disappointed. Contrary to what some other critical and user reviews have said, the plot was cohesive, well thought out, and had similarities to the book. The acting was very well done all around, the action was excellent and was not jittery or blurry. It's easy to connect to the characters and the emotional points of the plot.
I started with a list of movies we've seen and how we rated so you can compare how similar, or not, your ratings were to put in perspective how likely you'd be to enjoy this movie. I wonder if critics and some users go to movies for reasons different from ours. We just want to see fun, entertaining, well acted movies that have been filmed and directed by good professionals. The ONLY ding we could give this movie was that it wasn't done in a manner similar to 'Lord of the Rings' where it's carried out over 3 films with greater detail and depth. That might have been better, but maybe not. Regardless, I wish critics would at least rate movies like this with 2 stars as long as they're fun, well done and entertaining. There's no way this was a one-star film.
Unless you really need the movie to follow all the outline and plot of the books, I'm extremely confident you'll enjoy this movie. It's well worth going to the show to see. You'll like it!

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Being a tower junkie for over a decade, I honestly don't have much expectation on this movie adaption. Much of The Dark Tower series' charm comes from Stephen King's narration, which doesn't easily convert into the visual language of movies. Since the bar was set extremely low, I thought there's no way I could be disappointed in the cinema.
But dude, this Nikolaj Arcel guy has one heck of a way to prove me wrong.
Judging by what's revealed in trailers, I thought this one should cover The Gungslinger and *part of* Drawing of the Three, starting a whole franchise, with more installments to follow. But no. The director took pieces from all seven Tower books, glued them onto a self-made storyline (a lame one), and called it a day. Yes, you're reading it right. This is the whole thing, the entire package. What kind of idiotic mind ever thinks of packing SEVEN novels into ONE SINGLE movie?
Within 1.5 hours you will see Roland Deschain fighting the army of the Man in Black (vol IV), having his ass handed to him, embarking on a chase (vol I), picking up Jake Chambers from New York (vol I & II), although the Jake in this movie is really Jake Chambers and Patrick Danville rolled into one (vol VII). They fooled around in Mid-world for a bit, then discovered Algul Siento (vol VI), where the Man in Black's force are hording up breakers to destroy the Dark Tower. In order the thwart the evil operation, they went to this village that looks suspiciously like Calla Bryan Sturgis (vol V), activated a portal to Keystone Earth, trying to infiltrate en route the can-toi headquarter, a restaurant called Dixie Pig (vol VII). Then there comes a ton of pew pew pew and bang bang bang. All baddies died, including the Man in Black (vol WTF). They destroyed the tower-breaking machine, and lived happily ever after (vol WTF). End of story.
No Oy. No Eddie Dean. No Susannah Holmes. Even the Crimson King is axed, while references to him can be seen everywhere in the movie. This version of Roland didn't even attempt to enter the Tower.
I've thought hard, for nice things to say about this movie, and came up with only the following: 1. All sorts of creative reloading techniques.
2. Walter O'Dim is super duper kickass cool in the movie adaption, way cooler than in the original novels. Matthew McConaughey did portray the 'Walking Dude' true to his name, always on the move, casually passing through lives and worlds, leaving havoc in his wake.
Otherwise.. it's a dozen bucks wasted. Should have donated it to the charity.
BTW, IMDb should change its rating mechanism a bit, allowing us to give a 0 rate.
Oh, there's one nice touch at the very beginning of the movie. Among the names and logos of producers and investors, there's a screen featuring 'Tet Corporation', accompanied by a turtle and a rose, kindling false hope in me.

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I'm not exactly sure what I just saw. The only thing I do know is it wasn't The Dark Tower. That wasn't the Roland Deschain I know. It wasn't Jake Chambers either, or The Man in Black. Other people I expected to see weren't even there. Important people like Cuthbert, Alain, Eddie, Suzanna.. none of them were even hinted at.
I wasn't taken to the world I expected. It was an odd place with a few elements of Roland's world, but they were strangely distorted. Portals are now transport machines, left behind by the old ones it seems, rather than magical things controlled by demons. And yet the house is still a demon apparently - but just because it offered a good chance for fancy graphics. Without a Suz to meet up with a demon while the men get Jake through where does this story go? It certainly doesn't go to The Dixie Pig because Roland has already destroyed it. It doesn't go to The Dark Tower, because Roland and Jake have already been there too and saved it.
It's like this was some weirdly condensed version of books 1, 2, 3, and 7. Except It only took tiny bits and pieces from the books and created a whole new story that really didn't resemble the epic Stephen King wrote at all! I feel cheated and betrayed. I just don't understand how King let this happen.

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This film reminds me of the situation surrounding the making of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The film was turned down by one studio after another as none of the studios wanted to commit to making 3 films. One of the studios actually agreed to make it, but only if the script was condensed into a single film. Thankfully the people that had the rights and were pitching the films understood that the idea of translating the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in a single film was a laughable proposition and the end result would have been a terrible film that would ultimately do no justice to the source material. They were willing to bring it down to 2 films instead of 3, but the studio wound up turning them down.
The final studio they approached was New Line and because all of the other studios had turned them down, they pitched it to New Line as a 2 film series as opposed to a trilogy. Amazingly, New Line agreed to take on the project but only if it was made as a trilogy. Clearly someone at New Line smartly recognized that Lord of the Rings was an amazing project and the only way to do it right was to make it a trilogy. And anyone who has read the Lord of the Rings trilogy understands first hand that there is just way too much material to be condensed into a single film or even 2 films. And as we all know, the films wound up being a HUGE success and made New Line billions. At last look the Trilogy had made more than 6 billion world wide.
Like Lord of the Rings, The Dark Tower series is just way too big to be condensed into a single film. Any film studio that was legitimately serious about doing the Dark Tower series justice would understand that right out of the gate. The Lord of the Rings was 3 books and the running time for the extended versions of the films was 682 minutes or just over 11 hours long. .The Dark Tower series is 8 books and many of them are BIG books. Anyone who thinks that amount of material can be condensed into a single film is living in la la land. I knew going in that this was going to be a cheap attempt at making money off of Stephen Kings name and the popularity of The Dark Tower series and that's exactly what it was. The Dark Tower series is one of my all time favorite book series, as is Lord of the Rings, and this film is literally a bad joke compared to the source material. How they got Matthew McConaughey to sign on to this film when he has had such an amazing run the last 4-5 years is simply beyond my understanding. I will never understand how such an amazing writer has had so many terrible films made from his books.
Bottom line - this was a terrible film, one that does no justice to the source material at all. If your a fan of the Dark Tower books, do yourself a HUGE favor and skip this film. Its like a bad joke of the Dark Tower universe. Everyone involved with this film should be ashamed of being a part of it. The only reason I saw it is because I have a nephew than basically begged me to take him to see it and I have to admit, part of me was curious to see just how bad it really was and in that regard it didn't disappoint. It was just as bad as I expected it to be. This is Hollywood garbage, nothing more and nothing less. Do yourself a favor and put your money elsewhere.

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First off I an African-American female and I don't agree with the choice of Idris Elba in the lead role as the gunslinger. I have read the entire tower series since the very first book came out years ago and always imagined the gunslinger as a Clint Eastwood look alike, and this movie is just a slap in the face of all fans of the series. Why do they do Stephen King's books like this? The series has so much it is impossible to show it in one movie like this. Why did they bother calling it the Dark Tower. All they did was take a few names and then pieced together a story completely void off any real tension, any real sense of adventure, and completely butchered the story line. With the technology we have today they could have made an epic movie series like the Harry Potter movies, studios should know by now that if a movie series is good, people will watch 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8..how ever many movies it takes to really tell the story. I understand that you can't include everything from the books, but to give this crap the name of the dark tower to trick fans of the book series to watch is atrocious. The dark tower is an epic story spanning hundreds of years across different dimensions and different times in history. All the build up to finding the actual tower is full of all kinds of awesome stories that would have made great long movie series. This was just a lazy attempt to cash in on another well know series. I really can't stand Hollywood. That is why I don't go to the movies anymore, why pay someone to waste hours of my life I can't get back. Hollywood puts out this stupid stuff because people watch it. As long as people still go and by tickets stupid movies like this will continue to be made. If you are fan of the series DON'T WATCH THIS MOVIE or least wait until it comes on free TV, but don't pay 1 cent to watch this poor excuse for a movie.

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You have Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey 8 books of material, and you put together a 95 minute movie? I absolutely hate that critics have to hold their reviews on these movies so the public cannot be forewarned. Its like restaurant critics not being able to tell you the food is dog meat until after you place your order. Then there are those fans who loved the books, so they delude themselves into thinking the movie is good enough. Frankly the history of Stephen King material and film is a mixed bag. The Shining is obviously superior, but when's the last time you dug out Dreamcatcher? It just continues to shock me how inept some of these productions are.

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My god...I was down right BORED in the fist 25 minutes. I had heard all the critic slamming literally all over the place, everywhere you looked and listened; television, you tube, magazines and of course right here on IMDb. Stephen King is my number one favorite writer. I have read practically everything he has ever graced us with. If I wasn't able to read it then I would listen to the audiobook. I am fully aware that King's material is relatively notorious for being hit and miss transitions but the thing is this was a miss of truly groundbreaking proportions. It's a miss for both readers and non-readers. This movie has crossed over a line. A line that is almost impossible to put into words. I found myself thinking of the worst adaptions like Graveyard Shift, The Mangler, The Tommyknockers, Children Of The Corn, why, because it definitely belongs in that rock bottom category. The funny thing is if I HAD to I would rewatch any of the four that I just mentioned. I will NOT watch this again. The Dark Tower very thinly disguising itself as quality with grotesquely typical superhero CGI made me feel as though I was watching a damn video game. Even the most recent bad adaptions like the unnecessary remake of Carrie was better than this, Cell was better, at least Cell had a story, 1408 was better.
I strictly made myself purchase a matinée ticket just to be safe..$8.00. It was the multitude of negativity that drew me to wanting to see for myself. I really wanted to say what other people were saying here about ignoring the critics because a lot of times critics do exaggerate, especially when the books are so widely cherished by so many people over so many years. In this case the critics are not only correct but the movie even has people being ridiculously sympathetic towards it. This film does not deserve ANY sympathy. To the book readers AND non-book readers, the movie is TRASH.
Ignore the positive reviews on here. As far as The Dark Tower is concerned the critics are right, 100%. If you do decide to go see it then I strongly suggest to buy the cheapest theatre ticket you can and brace yourself.
I honestly do not know if Stephen King backed this project to its maximum. You simply cannot believe everything you see or hear in interviews. Although if he did, then it is very easy to see him fleeing across the desert dressed in black...his back to all of his fans...whipping his arm around as sharply as he can giving all of them the bird.

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I have read a good number of the Dark Tower series of books by Stephen King and I'd rate them as some of his very best work.
I was then hugely excited and then quickly disappointed by the cinematic interpretation of King's work. The Dark Tower could best be described as the 'Coles Notes' version of the books. Whilst Coles had their place summarizing often complex literary works for confused students, the abbreviated silver screen version of the Dark Tower series is disappointing.
Worse still its unfaithful to the books. Roland Deschain, 'the Gunslinger', indisputably the main character in the books is 'side lined' in favor of an important but more marginal character, 'the boy', Jake Chambers. Its a naff move that disrupts the focus and displaces the context of the story.
The result is a film with a 'boys own' feel. There are a few dark moments but they in no way capture the atmosphere of the original books which are dark, gritty and nihilistic, in a Clint Eastwood's, 'The Unforgiven', on steroids kind of way.
Idris Elba is a great casting choice for Roland but the role he is cast in provides limited opportunity for character development. Jake's character, the overlooked, unloved son of the books, fares little better.
Suffice to say, the cinematic Dark Tower is, to my mind, a missed opportunity that seems unable to take advantage of the wonderful material on offer. Three out of ten from me.

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I love Stephen King.
Stephen King have amazed me, thrilled me, scared me and made me yearn for more for years.
Sadly this sub-mediocre film does none of that.
You can watch this movie with or without having read the books. My best bet is that many, if not most people will at best be underwhelmed by this sloppy piece of junk, no matter if they have read the books or not.
Judging from test audiences, Rotten Tomatoes and IMDb, then I am not the only one feeling that way.
The plot lines have none of Kings vibrancy or suspense, if there at all. Its confusing and shoddy. The acting is shallow and unbelievable at best, and unwittingly hilarious or sad at worst.
The film is a confused shambles and leaves everything to be desired.
I can not feel or see the vision of the Director, if one ever existed.
Some have with good cause drawn the analogy of the filming of the lord of the Rings.
If so, then this movie is more on the line of the 'The Lord of the Rings' by Ralph Bakshi, the strange rotoscoping/animated movie from 1978.
Except that Bakshis movie at least had some originality, which The Dark Tower utterly lacks.
Perhaps the fact that this movie was in Development hell for 10 years, should have told someone something.
Having read the books, then the film goes from mediocre to a bad joke: The casting is way off and the whole setup is rather (poorly) inspired by the books, than an actual adaptation of the books.
The pretence is that, presumably because the team failed utterly in actually making an adaptation of the books, that this is a 'continuation' of them.
Which it quite obviously is not, its just a bad rewrite, and an even poorer film.
On a different but parallel not, then to me many of the positive reviews of this movie on IMDb, looks very similar indeed. But hey: look for yourself and draw your own conclusions.
A recommendation I sadly cannot make for this movie.

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I've been reading these books for over two decades now. I was really pumped about the movie. I saw the very first showing, and I can say that the negative reviews coming out about this film are unwarranted.
First, you have to keep in mind what they were hoping to achieve with this movie given the budget. It's a similar play to that of the first Hunger Games movie. If they get some traction with this one, then the subsequent movies/TV series get twice the money to work with. I personally think that they did a fantastic job with this first effort.
The acting was solid. The story was actually pretty good. It had some great actions sequences, and the CGI was surprisingly good (most of the time). It was also a very efficient use of time. Every scene helped explain the Dark Tower lore to new audiences.
It was a fun action flick that doesn't try to repeat the experience of reading the books. I'll always have the novels. I wasn't expecting this movie to recreate that experience for me.
Plus, as a die hard fan from way back, it was just great to see Roland and Jake on screen for the first time. It just felt right.
Give it a try with an open mind.

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The Dark Tower is a 2017 American science fantasy western film directed and co-written by Nikolaj Arcel. A continuation of Stephen King's novel series of the same name, the film stars Idris Elba as Roland Deschain, a gunslinger on a quest to protect the Dark Tower—a mythical structure which supports all realities—while Matthew McConaughey plays his nemesis, Walter Padick, the Man in Black, and Tom Taylor stars as Jake Chambers, a New York boy who becomes Roland's apprentice.Its budget is 60 million dollars which means that the producers spent much money to make this movie great.
Eleven-year-old Jake Chambers experiences visions involving a Man in Black who seeks to destroy a Tower and bring ruin to the Universe, and a Gunslinger who opposes him. Jake's mother, stepfather, and psychiatrists dismiss these as dreams resulting from the trauma of his father's death the previous year.
At his apartment home in New York City, a group of workers from an alleged psychiatric facility offer to rehabilitate Jake; recognizing them from his visions as monsters wearing human skin, he flees. Jake tracks down an abandoned house from one of his visions, discovers a high-tech portal, and travels to a post-apocalyptic world called Mid- World.
In Mid-World, Jake encounters the last Gunslinger, Roland Deschain who emerged in his visions. Roland is pursuing Walter Padick, the Man in Black who had also appeared in Jake's dreams, across a desert, seeking to kill him in revenge for the murder of his father, Steven, and all remaining gunslingers. He explains that Walter, over the decades, has been abducting psychic children, and is attempting to use their 'shine' to bring down the Dark Tower, a fabled structure located at the center of the Universe; this will allow beings from the darkness outside to invade and destroy reality.
Roland takes Jake to a village to have his visions interpreted by a seer. Learning of Jake's escape and journey to Mid-World, Walter investigates and discovers from his minion Sayre that Jake has 'pure Shine', i.e. enough psychic potential to destroy the Tower single- handedly. He kills Jake's stepfather, then interrogates his mother about his visions and kills her too. In Mid-World, the seer explains that Roland can find Walter's base of operations in New York. Walter's minions, the Taheen, attack the village, but Roland individually kills each of them. Roland and Jake return to Earth. When Jake returns home to check in on his mother, he finds her charred remains and breaks down. Roland vows to kill Walter 'for both of us' and comforts Jake by teaching him the Gunslinger's Creed, which he hasn't uttered since his own father's death, as well as the basics of gun fighting.
As Roland re-arms himself at a gun store, he is attacked by Walter, who captures Jake. At his base, he straps Jake to a machine that will use him to destroy the Tower. Jake uses his psychic powers to alert Roland to his location, and Roland battles his way through Walter's henchmen. Walter confronts Roland, wounding him. After Jake reminds him of the Gunslinger's Creed, Roland recovers and kills Walter with a trick shot after a brief fight. Roland destroys the machine, saving the Tower, Jake, and the other children.
Afterwards, Roland says that he must return to his own world and offers Jake a place by his side as his companion. Jake accepts the offer as he has nowhere else to go, and the two depart for Mid-World.
Don't listen to the biased critics who never saw this great film,see it yourself and make your own judgment!.

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I've been looking forward to seeing this movie for a few years, I've read all the books including the more recent one ('The Wind Thru the Keyhole') and other books that Walter appeared in. It's currently 2017, and anyone who hasn't learned the 'book to movie' lesson by now needs to finally learn it so that they can also enjoy movies what they are, which is an extra bonus for a book that is well liked by a lot of people. If the movie actually turns out good than all the better, but being more realistic about movies not having to live up to the books they're based on is best thing to do so you don't end up like the rest of these bitter people who leave the movie theater as quickly as possible just to come back home and write a 'nerd'tastic negative one starred review expressing all their deep down inner angst in the most pathetic form possible. Luckily I beat many of them to the punch before they tore this fun and entertaining movie apart, and I did find it entertaining thanx to having zero expectations about it, go ahead and try it next time you go to a similar movie, you'll at least temporarily enjoy yourself. Whining and complaining about trivial things isn't good for you or anyone else anyways.
I thought they did a fairly good job considering all the various challenges that this potential movie presented them, and the fact that it at one point seemed like it may never even get released or get just get much further delayed didn't make the project seem as promising as it did when first hearing about it's production a few years back for the first time. I got my expectations up very high when I first heard about it, but as time went on I would settle for just about anything decent, and 'decent' it sure was, though I'll rate the movie a 10 to make up for one or two reviews from the Negative Nancys of IMDb. I'm happy to see that Sony left this open for a sequel, It's still not a for sure thing if they'll make another, though King seems to think they will, but I'd pay a lot of money to see a movie based of the backstory from 'Wizard and Glass'.
Bottom line: Have fun, it's a fun movie whether you have read the books or not. Not a bad choice for the kids either, lot of action, no nudity, and not much cussing from what I recall, (12+ is my guess depending on who you are, ratings can be deceiving).
If you haven't read the books: Read them if you're an avid reader, you won't regret it, but if you're just an average reader then the 8 books will take you far too long to get thru and you'll probably give up and have wasted a lot of time trying. One trick is just to be disciplined enough to read every single day if possible, and it doesn't even have to be much because it will add up over the course of year, and if you were to read 10 - 15 pages per day every day you'd be able to finish 'The Dark Tower' series within one year. (Quick easy formula: 365 days per year, very roughly 365 pages per book, so 5 pages per day will get you thru 5 books per year, and not difficult at all to make that 40 pages per day, and at the end of the year you will have read 40 BOOKS! Probably more books than you've ready in your life, just got to form the habit first and go from there, keep track with a notebook to stay disciplined if you have to).
Other King suggestions: 'The Shining' Even better than the movie, and possibly underrated because of the movie's popularity, and the fact most people are too lazy to read.
'The Eyes of the Dragon' Walter is a main character, and King once again digs into the darkness of the man's psyche while weaving a great story in Medieval times.
'The Stand' The ultimate apocalyptic adventure with Walter doing what he does best, and the fate of the lives of dozens of different characters all linked to Walter thru their dreams of him, and has 1000 or so pages to all find each other and come together to somehow stop him while avoiding much betrayal and many obstacles along the beaten path that is led and aided by their other dreams of another character who is out to help them find where they need to be going.
'Different Seasons' No, it's not a story about a possessed spice rack) This book includes four novellas (short novels). Most of you will recognize of 2 or 3 of the others as those were all turned into good movies ('The Shawshank Redemption' 'Apt Pupil' and 'The Body' AKA 'Stand By Me'), and just as is usually the case are far superior to the films, and not that the films are bad at all.
It's just the reality that books always beat movies, it's no contest at all, but movies are a time for us to do something unproductive and be happy while doing it. So don't be like these sad saps who would actually pay for a movie knowing very well that they'll not have a good time. One of the secrets to life is 'to have a good time when you're able to', and if you like to laugh at bad movies that are trying to be serious then you need to finally get yourself on the MST3K and Rifftrax bandwagon.

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I absolutely loved it. I've waited so many years to see Roland the Gunslinger on the movie screen, and he didn't disappoint.
This movie was marketed incorrectly; it is not The Dark Tower, it is The Dark Tower Chapter 8 (an optional chapter). You can watch this chapter of the story without reading the others as it stands alone outside of the saga detailed in the books.
You should watch it even just for the fact that it is the only movie so far set in the universe outside of ours that links all of Stephen King's works together. My brother and father have never read any of the books, and we just got back from the cinema - we all enjoyed it.
Good fun. I'm not surprised to see this film has suffered from harsh criticism, mainly revolving around the fact it is not faithful to the original story, but the creators of this film are very clear in their intentions and deliberately presented a message to the existing readers and fans within the trailers of what to expect. Anyone who read all of the books in order will understand why this film is different, and how it fits in to the saga.
I thoroughly enjoyed this slightly absurd and visually awesome Stephen King horror/adventure movie, it was great.

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Fans of King's books appear to be unable to judge this movie on it's own merits. I think it was well put together and very entertaining. Adaptations of King's work are always difficult and the screenwriters have chosen not to attempt the impossible task of incorporating all the facets of multiple books in one movie. They simply used whatever concepts and details they wanted to. If you enjoy it for what it's worth, you'll have a good time ;-)

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Adapting Stephen King stories for the screen has long been a difficult problem for Hollywood. For every 'Misery' and 'The Shawshank Redemption', there are many others such as 'The Mangler', 'Cell', 'and Graveyard Shift' and many more where things did not go as planned. The big issue is that King often creates detailed characters with complex backstories and puts then in fully developed worlds that despite their supernatural nature, often are easy for readers to relate to.
Also as any reader of his books knows, King is not one to spare the paper and his books can be very lengthy offerings. This is an issue for Hollywood as they are forced to condense a 400-800 page plus story in many cases to fewer than two hours of screen time. The solution has been to try television movies such as 'The Langoliers', 'The Tommyknockers', 'The Stand', and 'It'. The problem with this format is that while spreading the story over multiple nights allows more time for the story, they gore and adult content which is often the core of the story has to be greatly watered down.
Which brings us to 'The Dark Tower', an adaptation of King's largest offering as the series covers seven books and a novella, not to mention a Prequel comic and more. The series rolled out from 1982-2004 with King often saying that he might never finish the series. Fortunately for fans he released three books from 2003-2004 and was able to declare the story told.
The story tells of a world like ours, but different that has 'moved on'. It is a dying world where Roland (Idris Elba), is pursuing a wizard named Walter (Matthew McConaughey), who is responsible for laying waste the world and killing all that come into Roland's life. The books follow his unrelenting chase of The Man in Black over countless years and how he has become a cold and driven individual who thinks nothing of using people to get his revenge.
Roland is the last of the 'Gunslingers', a Knight like group who protected the world and who used guns that were rare in their world to keep the peace. Roland is highly skilled and unlike his now dead companions, is impervious to the magic of Walter which has allowed him to remain alive and continue his quest.
The Man in Black is fixated on destroying the Dark Tower, which protects the many worlds in the universe from the outside evils that look to destroy it. Along with a young boy from Earth named Jake (Tom Taylor), Roland must find a way to save the universe and exact his revenge.
The film keeps the conflict between Roland and The Man in Black but greatly condenses the story as it includes references to things in the first two books but omits much of the backstory and plot of the novels to tell what I would call a story that was inspired by, but not based on the books.
This is at the core the biggest issue with the film. I have read the books and while I wanted an adaptation that was closer to them, I did find myself enjoying the film more than I expected to. The leads were very good and even though they had a very watered down script to work with, they did a good job and the finale does have some nice visuals and action to it.
People I know who have read the books have naturally been very disappointed with the film but those who have not read the books have mentioned that they enjoyed the film and accepted it as a fun bit of escapist adventure.
There has been talk of a television series that would focus more on the third book onward which hopefully would include how Roland gained new followers from our world who were trained to be future Gunslingers. That remains to be seen as the success of the film will likely hold the key. I hope we do get to see it as there are countless stories and characters yet to tell in this universe and I think fans deserve to see them as King wrote them.
3 stars out of 5

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This could be a good movie series. Seven films plus prequel would make fans happy and authors rich.
But no. 'We will make an hour and a half film from 3000 pages' - decided director, whose name I don't even want to know. And he did. He did a totally awful movie.
Even viewing 'Furious 7' does not seem like a total waste of money anymore.
You know when people say that the book was better? Well, this film should be placed in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures as a standard of a terrible film adaptation.
The books were raped, crucified and burnt - and I'm not sure about a sequence. If Stephen King was dead, he would be spinning in his grave. Fortunately, he's alive so he can still say what he thinks about this abuse of his Magnum opus. The black actor in the role of character who was written for Clint Eastwood is the lesser problem of this film.
There is no chance that people who have read the book will like this movie. There is also no chance that people who have not read the book will understand what the hell is going on on the screen.
No one should not watch it. Neither in cinema, nor after it will be in the internet.
I really hope I can save somebody's time and money. Spend it for reading the first volume of The Dark Tower. That would be better for everyone.

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Long story short, the Dark Tower, is a tower that protects the worlds from darkness, and the only way the dark tower can fall is using the mind of a kid and strapping them in this chair, and then they vibe off some sort of energy that hits the tower and basically there's the character Roland played by Idris Elba, and he's the last of these lost warriors who protected the tower, then there's Jake (who I'll talk about later) he's from earth and he's got physic powers, basically Jake has these nightmares and dreams of other worlds, and so the villain of the film known as the man in black played by Matthew McConaughey is trying destroy the tower, by abducting kid's from earth who have 'special abilities'. Also keep in mind everyone thinks Jake is crazy. Fast forward a bit, Jake and Roland meet up, and they travel across a world (Roland's World) trying to kill the man in black and save the tower. I'm sure you can guess the ending.
{Intro}. Honestly I had no expectations whatsoever entering the theater, I hadn't read the books, and was not at all keeping up with the early reviews coming in online, so my mind was cleared and didn't know what to expect after glimpsing parts of the advertisements I thought the movie looks okay, so I went into theaters only to be disappointed to be watching another Hollywood Déja Vu.
1. The film started off with full of surprises and suspense taking the audience to an unknown atmosphere putting them on the edge of their seats for around 15 seconds before the scene cuts to a Kid, (the kid, the gifted outcast, misfit, who has such amazing powers) But yet I didn't give up, I didn't know the whole story so I was let that little (big) cliché slide. Then we got introduced to Idris Elba's character after getting a better picture on Jake (who is the KID) anyways not deep into the film yet, the audience still trying to figure out the whole story on what exactly is happening here, if this is like a modern Lord of the Rings or just straight up The Dark Tower story ripped from the books. Which brings me to part 2.
2. Not having read the books, I do not know if this story is accurate to its Origin, after coming back from the of film I read some reviews to find a mix emotion of The Dark Tower saying it stayed true to the novels, some people loved it and some hated it. Two sides, always two sides. I'm going to be straight up honest, this was one of the most modern clichés I've ever watched it my life, I mean the whole multiple earth and friends who now have turned into enemies who are trying to destroy each other was unbearable to watch it was like reliving some of the worst movie moments in your life. I found Jake to be very close to Harry Potter at some points in the film, people will argue that there was no connection between the two whatsoever but in this split second of the movie I really felt like this Kid was just a big knockoff version of Harry. Then we have the friendship gone to enemies problem, a story which all of us have seen to many times to admit, honestly the only thing that made this The Dark Tower's friendship and enemy scenario bearable to sit through was Idris Elba, I mean for real, that was the only reason I gave this movie such a high rating, It deserves so much lower, but Idris was the only thing keeping this pile of rubble from crumbling down. Which gets us to our third point.
3. I really felt a the beginning that this movie very much potential to grow into a ongoing series like the comic book adaptions, but it failed so terribly. When they introduced the villain I was thinking on leaving the theater, I mean Matthew McConaughey is a great actor no question, but there was nothing unique about his character at all. Absolutely nothing, he was just like taking all the bad parts of what makes a great villain and them putting them into a blender to make the Man in Black (who if you haven't caught already, is the villain of the film) and seriously The Man in Black how much more cheesier can you get. For me it really felt like the director thought the whole audience watching were kids, I would've liked it more if they added a little bit of violence to spice things up.
4. Lastly, the scenario, it hurts me to even talk about it. Destroy a tower that keeps all darkness away from the worlds in this 'realm' really Hollywood you couldn't have the thought of a better way to approach that Plot, Oh my bad I forgot you guys just released the emoji movie, so there's no way that could be possible.
Anyways that brings an end to my review, hope you liked it, if you didn't I couldn't care less, I you did then click YES button. And if you are a fan of the books, I'd encourage you to see it and hear your take on how Hollywood tackled this adaption.

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At first, when I decided to try watch this kind of 'genre', I thought it was just another ordinary sci-fi story that will just make me feel bored. But from the beginning of the movie, it started to catch my attention that makes me crave to know more about it. The more I crave to know, the story become so damn interesting! Yeah, I must say that from my point of view, the story line is not cliché and it has its own 'recipe' that stand out from one another. The idea is fresh and I like the way they blend fantasy and reality to make it as a new flavor in film history. I don't understand why most people critics about this movie but in my opinion, this type of movie is something that deserve 10/10. The Dark Tower - the best movie I watch so far in 2017

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This film, which was inspired, not adapted from the Stephen King novels of the same name, takes a sweeping epic, dumbs it down, loses the focus and lazily tries to make it look cool for a younger audience. This film is bad and I went in with an open mind, hoping to find some redeeming qualities about it. While there are some good ideas, I can't help but feel that this will be somewhat heartbreaking for fans of the books who were actually excited to see it.
Jake Chambers is a young boy who suffers from horrific nightmares. In those nightmares, he sees The Man in Black, who kidnaps children and uses a device to suck their minds right out of their head. All in an effort to destroy the Dark Tower. The Dark Tower is the centre of the universe, protecting all worlds from the evil that lies beyond, out in the darkness. Roland, the last of the Gunslingers, soldiers sworn to protect the tower, is on a mission to kill The Man in Black. When Jake discovers a portal that leads to their world, he jumps in and finds Roland. Together they must stop The Man in Black, or their world and all worlds, will end.
I couldn't help but think to myself, that people would never want to see a film that was loosely inspired by The Lord of the Rings. They would much rather see that literary masterpiece adapted to the big screen. Imagine Peter Jackson used the same characters and made a different story, but still slapped the title on it? So I can't help but wonder why they thought it would be a good idea to loosely adapt The Dark Tower and not do a straight adaption from the books. I kind of get the idea they were going for, in regards to how the book series ends, but they missed the mark and by a wide margin.
I'm sure fans of the series would pick up numerous nods to the books here and there, but that is not enough. Graffiti on the wall of Hailing The Crimson King will get a knowing nod from people, but that's it. I'm sure they would rather see the actual story from the books on the screen. Arcel and writer Goldsman, oversimplify an epic story into a 90 some odd minute shoot em up. Sure, it looks cool when Elba reloads his guns, but I want something more than that. It doesn't help that the film essentially has two and a half action sequences, which might look neat to those who haven't seen a film like John Wick.
Elba does his best with the clunky dialogue, but he can't save it. McConaughey chews up the scenery, as expected. His character is 'worse than the devil'. He can kill people by simply telling them to stop breathing. He does this numerous times. He can catch bullets, incinerate people, basically force anyone to do anything. Mucho powerful. But here's the expository dialogue part 'Roland, you've always been immune to my magic, haven't you?' So there you have it, he can't hurt our hero in the 'stop breathing' category. He can still use the force to hurl objects at him and watching McConaughey move his hands around to control items like broken glass or rocks is unintentionally comical.
Bad special effects plague this film. There is a sequence at night where a demon, which apparently breaks through the barrier, attacks Roland and Jake. It's hard to make out what it looks like, or what the heck is going on. But in the end does it matter? Who know the Gunslinger will eventually put it out of its misery. I snickered at seeing how bad they rendered humans falling around or getting hit by cars. It only happens a few times in one particular sequences, but it's something that still hasn't been perfected and probably never will.
The entire film feels clunky, unexplained or unexplored. I never got a sense of Roland's world. There are abandoned structures all over and they have no idea what they were used for, but we clearly know they are carnival rides, as does Jake. How does anyone who never read the books have a clue as to what this means. Arcel seems uninterested in exploring that side of the story and instead streamlines it from point A to point B. This isn't a story to do that, especially if the goal is to branch it off into a series. I suspect this will be the only film they make.
With generic action sequences, oversimplification of an epic story, shoddy effects and some questionable performances (Jake's friend is the biggest offender), The Dark Tower is a big missed opportunity. Here is a series that could have been several films, sweeping multiple genres and taking viewers on a ride they probably wouldn't of forgotten. Instead we get this film that I already have forgotten. Ho-hum, despite a big budget, we have yet another King adaption failure.

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I have not read any of the novels, but I think I would be even more upset about the amateurism of this movie, and about the murdering of those (probably) awesome novels.
First of all I would like to mention the aspects of the movie which were pretty good: -The scenery: The wastelands of Roland's world were beautiful. -The special effects/fight scenes: I was actually surprised how good the action scenes in this movie were. The special effect guys did a very good job. The fight scenes with Roland shooting bullets in slow-motion and Walter O'Dim's scenes were extremely fun to watch. -The actors: In my opinion the actors did a pretty good job. They did their best with the horrible script the writers handed to them.
And now the negative aspects: -Awful writing: I have no idea how can four (!!!) writers create a stupid dialog and story like this. It's not even the book's fault, because as I know the story is completely different than the one of the books'. -The constant switching between the two worlds, the involvement of the 'asian medium lady' and her village, the repetitive usage of the Warriors' praying were so unimportant that it makes me mad. Not to mention the ending..as if it was made for 6 years olds. -Sloppy directing: The director was nominated for BAFTA Award, so I am pretty sure he just did not give a damn about making the movie at least mediocre with the absence of a proper script. The cuts in this movie (when there's no fight) are very annoying, and I am pretty sure I could have cut it to be more watchable than Nikolaj Arcel did (and I have not directed anything yet).
Summary: The books had a perfect material to create an excellent movie series, but someone decided to create an upset, a ruined cinematography from it. I am pretty sure it is the fault of the negligence of the people behind this movie (writers;director). If a Sergio Leone directed this movie with the given universe, it would have become a classic. Now it's a movie nobody will remember after a couple of months (if yes, then it would be due to their hatred for the production crew).

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