[CRITICAL] THE DARK TOWER

After years of unsuccessful negotiations, the saga river Stephen King has finally been adapted for the cinema. Deciphering the film set images by Nikolaj Arcel.

Before going into the heart of the matter, it appears necessary to recall the circumstances in which was born the story of THE DARK TOWER and his inspirations according to its author. Started when Stephen King was still a student, the saga has developed over the years, leading to thousands of readers who have grown up. Eight books and several thousand pages later, the story ends in 2004, for a man who has done his great work. Of the sayings of King himself, the novel had to be a sort of cross between the spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings of Tolkien and the poem by Robert Browning entitled The knight Roland came to the Dark Tower : “(…) I realized that I wanted to write a novel that combines the idea of quest and the magic of Tolkien, but on the background of the western majestic up to the absurd, to the Sergio Leone. “. All of this obviously sprinkled with many other references moviegoers, cultural and even self-citations from its own universe. This is the case of ” the shining “, which is also mentioned in the film. There will also be the moment where the fourth wall will fall but that is another debate. At a time when the film adaptation finally took place, it was interesting to see what the film would have made all of these references after they steal the history and to have laid a screenplay of 90 pages, simply titled THE DARK TOWER, without a sub-title.

Condensed into a story of a little more than 1h30, the story has obviously been simplified, drawing here and there in adventures read in books 1 and 2 (mainly for action scenes) while tracing its own path, placing the character of Jake Chambers for the first plan. This works quite well and allows you to introduce effectively the New-York of our days in which lives the young boy and the other world that takes shape through his dreams and that he immortalizes in the drawings. In this other world, he witnessed the duel between The Gunslinger and The man in black, while stands between them a gigantic tower, whose destruction is desired by the antagonist.

For the character of Roland Deschain says The Gunslinger, Stephen King viewed a Clint Eastwood straight out of the Italian westerns of the 60’s, but already much more a part of aging. We will, therefore, not entitled to grandpa Clint, since the choice ofIdris Elba has been imposed on them. Without reopening one of the many discussions generated on the web as to this distribution, the actor reveals himself well enough in his boots to vigilante loner and does not make a ton in his game. It regrets, however, that the major challenge of the character is fed by a thirst for revenge against his alter-ego evil, which has decimated his family and most recently her father. Unlike the book, this Roland is not obsessed with the tower and does not seem interested in its protection. It stays cold and is taken very seriously, like the entire film, completely devoid of humour. For his part, Matthew McConaughey who plays The man in black, is also said to Walter, seems to take a perverse pleasure to us to deliver one of his best cabotinages.

As soon as the pair consisting of Jake Chambers and Roland form, THE DARK TOWER is transformed into a movie basic action while surprising us sometimes pleasantly with its steady tempo, where a few dialogues archi-classic alternate with chases effective and other bastons survitaminées. A pity that almost all of these action sequences take place almost exclusively at night or in the dark, which may annoy. For fighting post-apocalyptic in the desert under a blazing sun, and beautifully photographed, it will be necessary to iron it. Difficult, however, to criticize the directed by Nikolaj Arcel, as it is bland and impersonal, without taking any risks. There are few things to express in front of this light and these decorations grey and dusty, but the framework does the job without being transcendent, and, which is rare, the assembly is still readable, in particular when events get dangerous quickly. However, the violence exacerbated lying on paper by the american writer, is not at the rendezvous. The clear intention of the producers to reach the greatest number of spectators suffers, and delivering a film totally sanitized, despite the great hostility of the world that it depicts. In short, the film will not mark through its aesthetics, then it was just a field which would have yielded a good points and where he would have been able to stand out.

We believe then that we are not in front of the catastrophe, until the final messy which seems to have been filmed in fast motion, giving the heart joy in the pyrotechnics and bullet time. The confrontation expected, although a bit shipped, recycle, then the shots, and some “ornamental kitschy things” visual prior to the 2000s. It is all the more regrettable because everything was going rather well up to now.

Because it has denied a too large part of the substance of the original work present in the library, the cinema version of THE DARK TOWER is nothing other than a little science-fiction film uninhibited and décérébré. The universe is rather faithfully recreated, although stripped of all the slow and captivating, the elegance and aesthetic complexity of the novel. If one or more suites will be on the day, it is important to go further in the proposal stage, may be with a filmmaker to the imagination more marked, and especially to take the time to better expose a fascinating world and rich, so far just skimmed the surface and not in the best of ways. The public to respond or not to the call of the tower.

Loris Colecchia

YOUR OPINION ?