So, seems like The Dark Tower should of stayed closed

[MatParker116]

http://screenrant.com/dark-tower-early-reviews/

?The Dark Tower is a deeply flawed movie. It?s a film that feels rushed and plodding, sometimes within the same scene. It?s a film that saddles two of our greatest working actors with clunky dialogue and muddled motivations. It?s a film that feels claustrophobic and oddly contained when it should?ve felt sweeping and epic. After decades of waiting, after months of keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best, it brings me zero pleasure to report that The Dark Tower doesn?t really work.?

?The deeply flawed and compellingly tragic characters that King created are one-dimensional in their on-screen adaptations because the motivations that give them that depth are completely lost to the wind. That?s not to say the performances are bad ? in fact, I absolutely adore the casting of the leads. [?] But there?s no meat on the bone of the script for arguably two of the finest actors of our time to really dig in and give us something we haven?t seen before.?

?The Dark Tower doesn?t even really do us the courtesy of being laughably bad. That would take some level of ambition, which the movie studiously avoids at almost every turn. Instead, it simply exists, eager to be overlooked and forgotten. It?s a shame that this adaptation didn?t have the funding or the vision to be something remarkable because you can see glimmers of a more ambitious, exciting movie. Sadly, Arcel approaches the story with a flat, uninteresting style, never daring to challenge his audience, invest in his characters, or give us a reason to care. The Dark Tower doesn?t fall because of a child?s mind. It falls because it?s too embarrassed to stand.?

Why can't Sony make movies without adult supervision?

 

[tippy2k2]

I had low hopes it would work.

There is a LOT of nothing that happens in that series. In book form, it works just fine as we get to see their thoughts and what they're going through but it doesn't work in movies.

 

[Ogoid]

Having finally gotten around to reading the books past the first (currently working through Wizard and Glass)... I can't say I'm surprised. It's way too big and just plain weird a story for Hollywood.

 

[crypticracer]

I was excited for this thanks to the casting. But the first trailer killed all anticipation. The reviews sound exactly like what the trailer was selling. So, in that way, I guess, good on them for making an honest trailer?

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Yeah, when I realised I was watching a trailer for The Dark Tower, I got all excited. Then I watched the trailer. I was not excited.

No surprises here.

 

[happyninja42]

Having finally gotten around to reading the books past the first (currently working through Wizard and Glass)... I can't say I'm surprised. It's way too big and just plain weird a story for Hollywood.

I wouldn't bother finishing the series. It's not very good. Especially the last half of it. I can't remember which book it was, (The one that focused entirely on a flashback of a young Roland and his first love). That book got really fucking old quick, with how often King had to type out "If they'd only known what was to come, they would've acted differently" type bullshit. I get it Stephen, their idyllic life ended tragically, we fucking know this because we see Roland as an adult and he's a Tortured Soul Loner archetype. I FUCKING GET IT! MOVE ON WITH THE STORY ALREADY!! ....oh, nope, you're going to exposition for another 400 fucking pages? Great.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation? I mean, he's not Bill Burroughs, it's not like his novels are anywhere close to unfilmable. Yet all adaptations, with some notable exceptions, are some degree of schlock.

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation? I mean, he's not Bill Burroughs, it's not like his novels are anywhere close to unfilmable. Yet all adaptations, with some notable exceptions, are some degree of schlock.

Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation? I mean, he's not Bill Burroughs, it's not like his novels are anywhere close to unfilmable. Yet all adaptations, with some notable exceptions, are some degree of schlock.

Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.

So were Stand By Me and Carrie but compared to the overall number of King adaptions that 's still not a whole lot.

 

[Ogoid]

I wouldn't bother finishing the series. It's not very good. Especially the last half of it. I can't remember which book it was, (The one that focused entirely on a flashback of a young Roland and his first love). That book got really fucking old quick, with how often King had to type out "If they'd only known what was to come, they would've acted differently" type bullshit. I get it Stephen, their idyllic life ended tragically, we fucking know this because we see Roland as an adult and he's a Tortured Soul Loner archetype. I FUCKING GET IT! MOVE ON WITH THE STORY ALREADY!! ....oh, nope, you're going to exposition for another 400 fucking pages? Great.

Heh, as it happens that's exactly the part I'm at... and yeah, I plowed right through The Drawing of the Three and The Waste Lands, but this one has been something of a slog thus far. I was also kinda hoping he would be done with the young Roland stuff sooner rather than later (what I got of his background in the first book was more than enough), but then I peeked ahead and it is, more or less, the next three quarters of the book.

Still... I'm too much of an obsessive completist not to go all the way now.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.

Shawshank? Maybe. Green Mile? Pffft, hell no!

OT: Even through the magic of trailer hype-editing this looked like a lame duck.

 

[Pyrian]

Pity about the movie. The casting was awesome, but yeah, never really thought you could do much of anything with The Dark Tower in a single movie.

I really liked the flashback portions of Wizard and Glass (TDT4), I thought that sub-story hung together really well, despite the abuse of foreshadowing (it's not like King doesn't do that all the friggen time anyway). It's the outer story of that book that really sucks.

The last three books were apparently written all together in a single marathon (seriously, look at the release dates). They kind of read easier than the earlier books, despite their length.

 

[Pyrian]

Oh, dear, some of this stuff on Rotten Tomatoes is fantastic: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the critics didn't follow."

"Go then, there are other Stephen King adaptations than these."

 

[TrulyBritish]

Why does hardly anyone short of Stanley Kubrick seem to be able to do a decent King adaptation?

Didn't King also say he didn't really like Kubricks version of the Shining? To the extent he later made his own TV version of the Shining?

 

[Casual Shinji]

Didn't King also say he didn't really like Kubricks version of the Shining? To the extent he later made his own TV version of the Shining?

He sure did! And he certainly showed Kubrick, didn't he.

 

[TrulyBritish]

Didn't King also say he didn't really like Kubricks version of the Shining? To the extent he later made his own TV version of the Shining?

He sure did! And he certainly showed Kubrick, didn't he.

I've never seen the other version, so I genuinely don't know if this is sarcastic or not.
I mean, it sounds sarcastic but you never know...

 

[Casual Shinji]

I've never seen the other version, so I genuinely don't know if this is sarcastic or not.
I mean, it sounds sarcastic but you never know...

Well, has anyone ever shown up Kubrick?

But yeah, take a gander.

 

[RedRockRun]

From the trailers alone it looks misguided. I don't remember the Man in Black being that much of an actual villain, and all the stuff with Earth didn't happen until Drawing of the Three. That's why you don't take a book series that large and adapt it into movies.

 

[Pyrian]

I don't remember the Man in Black being that much of an actual villain...

Seriously? Lol. He's behind about half of the evils in that series, and a fair chunk of the rest of King's oeuvre, too (e.g. Flagg).

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile were not done by Stanley Kubrick and they were good.

Shawshank? Maybe. Green Mile? Pffft, hell no!

OT: Even through the magic of trailer hype-editing this looked like a lame duck.

You did not think the Green Mile is good.....?