Towering Darkness

The Dark Tower (2017) was something we were looking forward to, but almost entirely to see Idris Elba being bad-ass. We got what we wanted.

I understand that the mythology of the Dark Tower series of stories by Stephen King is long and complicated, and some of that comes through here. But it's mostly pretty simple. Tom Taylor is a kid with problems. He has nightmares and draws pictures of his visions - a man in black, a gunslinger, a dark tower. Also, when he gets upset, earthquakes hit New York. His mother and evil step-father want to send him to an institution, but the people who come to pick him up are monsters from his nightmares, and he bolts.

He finds a way into another world and meets the Gunslinger there: Idris Elba. He is fighting against the Matthew McConaughey, evil Man in Black (not the good one, Johnny Cash), who has a cool super-power - people do whatever he tells them, including "stop breathing". Only Elba is immune. MiB wants Taylor so that he can harness his brainpower to destroy the Tower, which holds up the mulitverse (or something).

There are touches of humor and horror here, but a lot of it is pretty standard action/fantasy. It's done quite well - it's a joy to see Elba reload his six-shooter by spinning the cylinder and thumbing the bullets in as fast as it spins. We were entertained. But not much more. I guess we would have either liked it better or hated it entirely if we had read some of the books. Guess we'll never know.