I"ll say this though, the Roland reload motions look amazing so I guess there's that.

DT gets 88 minutes.

IT Part 1 getting 135 minutes.

MBAR said:

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I"ll say this though, the Roland reload motions look amazing so I guess there's that.

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Except for this one which looks dumb as hell.

So, uh, no reviews yet. Doesn't bode too well.

Review embargo over, first reviews have hit Rotten Tomatoes.

As expected, not pretty.

Not a mess, but "bland" is the word most often used.

I think anyone who's read the books is going to think worse of it than someone who thinks it's just a generic movie. 29% on RT. Sad.

That sucks, but then again this is a Sony film so I'm not surprised at all. Will still go to see it though.

Scathing review in USA Today

When they said it could have been the next Lord of the Rings, but wound up as a bad Steven Seagal movie, I cringed. Still gonna go see it, but now may bring a flask.

So should I see Dunkirk instead this weekend?

Hulla Baller said:

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So should I see Dunkirk instead this weekend?

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You should see Dunkirk anyway, but maybe see Dark Tower this weekend before you start hearing from other people about it. And before the bad news of it's weekend box office hits. If you wait a week, you may be seeing it in an empty theater.

My kids are excited about it, so we are going tonight. I haven't read the books, so my experience may be better than others. Really, I'm going for the acting of Elba and McConaughey and some interesting visuals.

Yeah, almost the worst of both worlds -- not cringe-worthy enough of a bad movie to make fun of... Just an empty shell of a movie.

Feels like the typical Hollywood treatment after Abrams and Howard couldn't do it... "We've got this property that is valuable and we need to do something with it. Here Akiva Goldman -- it doesn't have to be good, just make a functional movie so we can recoup our investment."

I hate that if this thing bombs, the TV series blows up on the launch pad. This story needs to be told episodically over multiple seasons - not crammed into 85 minutes. Curious design choice.

And now, audiences not going to see it because it's a crap film will be explained away as "no interest in the property" by the public. TDT as a TV series on HBO or SHOTIME or Netflix would find an audience if it was done correctly, I guarantee it.

Now we won't even get to see that because studio executives ham fisted this thing out, knew it was probably going to be bad, and shrugged their shoulders.

Yup. This means any plans to have this fleshed out on any other medium is probably not going to happen for another 5-6+ years.

Ded-a-chek

welp

Okay, just got out.

I have not read the books. Well, I read "The Gunslinger" about 10 years ago and to be honest, I can't remember a damn thing about it. It just didn't hook me enough to continue. So, all of this is completely unknown to me.

I have no clue how much of the books is in this movie. I have no idea if the secondary characters in the movie are even in the books. I have no clue if the portals used to move between worlds are as King described them. They looked like Stargates to me.

In other words, I have no way of reviewing this as an adaptation of the novels.

As a fantasy movie with a premise I'm not familiar with prior to sitting down in the theater......it wasn't bad.

Elba is really establishing himself as this screen presence where he is strong, smart and morally solid. He could play this type of character in his sleep. McConaughey seemed to really relish playing the evil bad guy. He could easily have hammed it up....but he didn't. But he still really looked like he was enjoying this.

I didn't have any problem following the plot, but I could see so many things that weren't explained that some backstory would have been good. This would have made a great television series ala "Game of Thrones" where the worlds could have been explored much more deeply.

Did any of that detract from the movie? Not really. I can imagine many Dark Tower fans were pulling their hair out seeing things on the screen that were from the books but not explained.

As a non-book reader, the movie was fine. It was enjoyable. I took the wife and kids (wife loves McConaughey) and they all enjoyed it.

In fact, one good thing about this movie: as I'm typing this review, my 9 year old son is sitting on the couch beginning to read my copy of "The Gunslinger."

One little Easter Egg I noticed: during a scene when Roland is walking through a building in NY, he opens a door that has a certain poster on it. A poster of Rita Hayworth.

GiveEmHellBill said:

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Okay, just got out.

I have not read the books. Well, I read "The Gunslinger" about 10 years ago and to be honest, I can't remember a damn thing about it. It just didn't hook me enough to continue. So, all of this is completely unknown to me.

I have no clue how much of the books is in this movie. I have no idea if the secondary characters in the movie are even in the books. I have no clue if the portals used to move between worlds are as King described them. They looked like Stargates to me.

In other words, I have no way of reviewing this as an adaptation of the novels.

As a fantasy movie with a premise I'm not familiar with prior to sitting down in the theater......it wasn't bad.

Elba is really establishing himself as this screen presence where he is strong, smart and morally solid. He could play this type of character in his sleep. McConaughey seemed to really relish playing the evil bad guy. He could easily have hammed it up....but he didn't. But he still really looked like he was enjoying this.

I didn't have any problem following the plot, but I could see so many things that weren't explained that some backstory would have been good. This would have made a great television series ala "Game of Thrones" where the worlds could have been explored much more deeply.

Did any of that detract from the movie? Not really. I can imagine many Dark Tower fans were pulling their hair out seeing things on the screen that were from the books but not explained.

As a non-book reader, the movie was fine. It was enjoyable. I took the wife and kids (wife loves McConaughey) and they all enjoyed it.

In fact, one good thing about this movie: as I'm typing this review, my 9 year old son is sitting on the couch beginning to read my copy of "The Gunslinger."

One little Easter Egg I noticed: during a scene when Roland is walking through a building in NY, he opens a door that has a certain poster on it. A poster of Rita Hayworth.

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I would advise against the 9 year old continuing the series till he's older. There are considerable amounts of violence and language, and more than enough rape discussion for a youngun's mind.

Lots of semen talk too

Saw it this afternoon. Went in without bottom of the barrel expectations.

Not good... But not terrible. Empty is probably a good description for those of us that know the world and know how much depth it should have. The little nods to the book fans almost make you more mad than entertained (one of the portals has the label for their destination -- Devar Toi -- but otherwise it's not mentioned in the film and only book readers would recognize what/where its... But it just serves as a reminder of how little depth this film gave the story).

BUT... If you look at it from the mindset that this is just one of many travels to protect the tower that Roland and Jake have taken... From the viewpoint of OK potentially infinite timelines and this is just one of them... Then it's really not that bad. Just another trip around the wheel -- just a trip that wouldn't really have been worthy of writing about it.

But if it comes on TV, I wouldn't be against watching it again. Solid C-.

Ouch...

Actually thought it was pretty good. I enjoyed it.

Audience meter is all that matters. That indicates it's worth watching

Never understood how Rotten Tomatoes and their terrible metric became the go-to rating site. Metacritic all the way.

From what I can tell, a lot of the negative reviews were from critics complaining it didn't follow the book closely enough.

If it doesn't bomb so badly that it cripples all DT plans for the next decade, I hope they go that route. I think the casting was good, it just seems the adaptation was terrible.

Looping timelines allows for lots of mulligans....

I've read all the books, though it's been a while back. Saw the movie and I was entertained. But I didn't go in expecting to compare less than 2 hours of screen time to a longer book set than Lord of the Rings.

Was done well enough that I'd be super pumped to watch an HBO series that more closely follows the books.

Not as bad as I had feared. Took pieces from all 7 books with changes too. It may not fail hard enough to discontinue the series.

Book reader here - saw it today with my 13 yo son. It was good, reminded me of a mash between Serenity, The Frighteners, and The Matrix. Liked the nods to the book readers.

Honestly, I had low expectations as there was no way you could cover the ground in the books in an 88 min movie. This would have been a freakin awesome HBO series.

I read the books and saw the movie today. I liked it. It certainly works as another version of the quest to the Tower.

Saw it yesterday, couldn't stand it. Maybe I went in expecting too much, but no Eddie, No Sussanah, no Blaine. The doors looked like something out of stargate. There were obviously some references to Sombra Corp, but they really never delved deeply into that either.

Even with the abridged time, they definitely should have included the scene from The Gunslinger (book 1) in Tull. The absolute weirdness of the entire vignette really sets the stage and the feeling for the whole book series.

It felt like there was absolutely no plot; and none of what made the book exciting was in this movie. The action scenes were pretty good; but I think the casting was off as well. McConaghey didn't pull off The Man in Black, and in my opinion Elba was terrible as Roland.

I give it .5/10.

It was an interesting movie. Odd that it had the title the dark tower while having so very little to do with that universe. Oh well.

Just saw it last night. It works as another version of the journey to the Tower. Even as the feel of the first in series by the end. My girlfriend had never read the books and relies on me for all things King, and she enjoyed it.

There was no way they could put everything from a seven book series into one film and make it work.

For what it was and the limits placed on it, I thought it was fine.

If anything, there were so many things touched on but left unexplained (Sombra, The Crimson King, etc.) that may compel people to pick up the books and flush out the whole story. It did a nice job of teasing those things and making you feel like there's more to the story. That may annoy some people, but it may provoke others to pick up the books which is a good thing.

I feel that the RT audience 63%-65% score is pretty spot on.

Hope we get the TV show.