The man in black fled across the desert and Sony Pictures made a Dark Tower of Garbage Film About it

There are other worlds than these. Unfortunately, one of them contains the 2017 Dark Tower film.

Let’s begin with a question: if you were handed the keys to Stephen King’s sprawling, genre-defying magnum opus—a seven-novel symphony of metaphysics, ka, time loops, apocalyptic cowboys, haunted hot dogs, and psychic choo-choo trains—would your first instinct be to distill it into a 95-minute shoot-‘em-up where Jake Chambers is basically Harry Potter with night terrors?

If so, congratulations. You may already be qualified to write for Sony Pictures.

The Dark Tower books aren’t just novels; they’re a gravitational center for King’s entire literary universe. They’re about fate and free will. They’re about addiction and identity. They’re about loss, recursion, sacrifice, and (depending on which Beam you follow) talking animals, time-dilated bookstores, and sentient pink crystal balls that trick you into matricide. And somehow, in a studio boardroom far, far removed from anything resembling the face of their fathers, someone decided all of that would make a great backdrop for … a generic YA sci-fi movie with a desert filter and a McConaughey performance best described as “evil cologne ad.”

Let’s talk plot. Or rather, let’s talk … smudge. This movie is not so much based on the books as it is haunted by them. Arcel’s script borrows a little from The Gunslinger, a bit from The Drawing of the Three, a few regrettable moments from Doctor Sleep, and a heaping helping of “what if Jake was the main character because focus groups said teens love psychic chosen ones?”

The resulting narrative feels like it was dictated by a drunk man in a bar who once skimmed the Wikipedia summary of Wizard and Glass, and then tried to explain it to another drunk man who thought The Stand was a Coachella band.

Idris Elba, to his credit, does his damndest with what he’s given. He is Roland—the haunted knight of Eld, burdened by a past he barely understands and a future he’ll never escape. But this Roland isn’t hunting the Tower out of duty or despair. He’s just on a revenge tour for his dead dad. Matthew McConaughey’s Walter o’Dim, meanwhile, is less the multiversal chaos agent of the books and more your cousin’s ex-boyfriend who got really into crystals and warlock TikTok. He walks through scenes waving his hand and muttering “Stop breathing” like he’s late for a seminar on startup networking.

Gone is the ka-tet. Gone are Eddie and Susannah. Gone is the bitter tragedy of Jake’s multiple deaths, or the harrowing moment Roland lets him fall for the sake of the Tower. Instead, Jake is now a shiny, psychic MacGuffin with more plot armor than Mid-World has tumbleweeds. We’re told he has “the Shine”—a choice that’s less homage and more copyright cross-promotion.

The Tower itself—that great cosmic axis, the lynchpin of reality, the eternal mystery—is reduced to a literal tower on a literal hill that shoots sky-lasers when under attack. The Crimson King? Not here. Blaine the Mono? Nope. Any philosophical weight, existential dread, or symbolic resonance? Please consult your local streaming service for other options.

To call this movie an adaptation is generous. It’s more of a brand extrapolation, surgically engineered to launch a franchise while offending no one—except, of course, everyone who read the books. What could have been a mind-bending, genre-busting epic—something with the artistic ambition to stand alongside Dune or Lord of the Rings—was instead neutered into a PG-13 tumble of dusty clichés and exposition dumps.

The books—King’s books—dared to build a multiverse before Marvel thought to stitch capes together. They looped in ’Salem’s Lot, Insomnia, The Stand, It, and even King himself. They’re not just stories; they’re a sprawling ontological statement. They’re a literary middle finger to formula, a declaration that everything connects, and sometimes the price of that connection is everything you love.

And the movie?

Well, it ends with Roland and Jake sharing a hot dog and setting off to restore the world. Because nothing says “weighty cosmic odyssey” like processed meat and unresolved sequels.

In the end, The Dark Tower film isn’t the Tower. It’s the shell of a Tower, hastily erected from IP fragments, and propped up by the hope that most viewers haven’t read the books. But those of us who have? We remember the face of our father. And this … this ain’t it.

Could the Tower Rise Again?

There may yet be redemption in the clearing. Horror maestro Mike Flanagan (Midnight Mass, The Haunting of Hill House) has acquired the rights to The Dark Tower and is developing a TV adaptation more faithful to King’s vision—a multi-season epic starting with The Gunslinger. If ka wills it, the Tower may finally get the telling it deserves.

Dick Hardy is Alpine 6 Action News’ Pop Culture Correspondent and Professional Ka-Tet Truther. He once tried to draw the Crimson King in Microsoft Paint using only shades of “I hate this” and “Why?”