#66 THE DARK TOWER

Starring Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, Tom Taylor and some other twats that will take too long to name check. Written by four writers, four! Can you believe that? I can't. Although I suppose if they all worked together on this pile of festering cinematic shit it does mean it stopped them stinking up the cinema's with three other films, their names are Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomaas Jensen and Nikolaj Arcel. Directed by Nikolaj Arcel. Running time is only 95 minutes, but believe me that doesn't help, it still felt longer than all the Pirates of the Caribbean films put together. Budget $60 million.

The plot. A troubled boy (Tom Taylor) in the 'real world' has visions of a Gunslinger and a man in Black, we discover he has psychic powers called 'Shine'. his dad is dead, his mum has a new partner who doesn't like him and he's in therapy. Luckily he finds a portal in New York city he's dreamed of and ends up in a world where the Man in Black, called Walter (Matthew McConaughey) is trying to destroy a tower at the center of everything by using children with the Shine. Meanwhile there's this gunslinger called Roland (Idris Elba), the last of his kind who wanders around not killing Walter, because he's not allowed, or something. Anyway, when old Walt learns of the boy, I'm sure he had a name but frankly I can't be arsed to look it up, he realises that he is shiny enough to destroy the Tower and so sets off to capture him, while old Rolly and the boy piss off back to Earth for shits and giggles. It looks bad for our heroes, especially since the Gunslinger can't kill the man in black but in the end he does by shooting two bullets, the second of which catches up with the first to send it, ricocheting into the Man in Black and killing him, so the world doesn't end and everything is okay. The end.

Oh, shit I should have said SPOILER ALERT but I forgot, I hope you can forgive me.

Based on seven books written by Stephen King and starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey this had all the ingredients and potential to be a great film, instead what we get is a dreadfully dull slog that despite it's very brief running time feels like a good three hours in length. It features dull, dreary performances, shit CGI and not one iota of excitement, drama or indeed anything of merit. In fact so fucking, mind-numbingly dull was this piece of shit that I nodded off during the final battle and woke up just in time to watch the credits, still I don't think I missed anything. I'm guessing the boy and Roland won.

I've tried reading the books, gave up on the first one. Which is exactly what I'd say about this, although judging from its disastrous box-office performance I doubt there'll be another one. At one point this project was going to be a trilogy directed by Ron Howard. We can only wonder what that could have been like.

If you are given the option of watching this or having your genitals pulped in an industrial accident, I would whole-heartedly recommend the accident.

2/10 (a point each for McConaughey and Elba, who both deserve so much better than this pile of steaming shit).