Kevin's Watch

Yeah looks like the movie is bad. Maybe it will be remade in a decade as a TV show or another (better) movie.

King is a good writer, when he tries. The first few DT books were awesome. Then he had his accident and when he recovered he churned them out to finish the series.

No intent to see it.

--A

Well its opening day and the Tomato Rating has settled on 19% after 81 reviews. I will probably still see the film and find out first hand what its like, good or bad.

aTOMiC wrote:Well its opening day and the Tomato Rating has settled on 19% after 81 reviews. I will probably still see the film and find out first hand what its like, good or bad.

Same here. I suffered through "Dreamcatcher", might as well see this too.

Horrim Carabal wrote: I suffered through "Dreamcatcher", might as well see this too.

Good Lord!!!!

I guess I'm in the minority. I liked Dreamcatcher, both the movie (30% Rotten Tomatoes) and the book. It had the "childhood friends with a secret" feeling of It, combined with a thoroughly spooky alien/monster threat.

EVERY STEPHEN KING MOVIE ADAPTATION RANKED BEST TO WORST at Rotten Tomatoes.

Dark Tower (16% now) ranks below Maximum Overdrive, and above Graveyard Shift.

wayfriend wrote:EVERY STEPHEN KING MOVIE ADAPTATION RANKED BEST TO WORST at Rotten Tomatoes.

Dark Tower (16% now) ranks below Maximum Overdrive, and above Graveyard Shift.

Wow, Maximum Overdrive is one of those "so bad it's good" movies. I have a feeling that Dark Tower may just be bad.

wayfriend wrote:EVERY STEPHEN KING MOVIE ADAPTATION RANKED BEST TO WORST at Rotten Tomatoes.

Dark Tower (16% now) ranks below Maximum Overdrive, and above Graveyard Shift.

I don't even remember Graveyard Shift. (the movie)
and was unaware that Cell had been released.

Going to see The Dark Tower tomorrow morning.

I couldn't let the negative reviews keep me away.

I frequently disagree with movie critics, so I'm trying to keep an open mind, but I just don't see how they could cram the entire series into one movie. Yes, there was a lot of filler, but still.

Well just finished watching the Dark Tower.

Boiling it down it wasn't a bad movie it just wasn't a particulaly good one. IMHO.

Noticeably formulaic in many instances.

If I wasn't familiar with the source material I would have sworn it was based on an early millennium YA novel.

I do not watch movies with my eyes.
He who watches movies with their eyes have forgotten the face of their Father.

Zarathustra wrote:I guess I'm in the minority. I liked Dreamcatcher, both the movie (30% Rotten Tomatoes) and the book. It had the "childhood friends with a secret" feeling of It, combined with a thoroughly spooky alien/monster threat.

I loved the novel, and loved the first half of the film.

aTOMiC wrote:Well just finished watching the Dark Tower.

Boiling it down it wasn't a bad movie it just wasn't a particulaly good one. IMHO.

Agree. Much better than the reviews had led me to believe. It wasn't that bad at all. One of the few movies that should have been *longer*.

My thought is that they didn't have the courage of their convictions. Should have announced a 7 movie series, and set about adapting 1 book per movie.

This first movie should have been at least a half hour longer. Maybe more.

Still...this wasn't a turkey. It's a decent movie, just a tad short and disjointed. Poorly edited and paced. Basically badly directed. The script isn't horrible and the performances are actually good. Elba and McConaughey especially.

I saw it opening weekend. I couldn't stand McConaughey, which is odd because I don't tend to dislike him.
I liked Elba, but just wasn't Roland enough for me. Would it have killed them to give him an astin or a tooterfish though? The "savages" comment was ok, but not as charming if they went with the book.
When the movie ended, there was a single person who clapped and then quickly fell silent after nobody else clapped with him. The clapping woke the snoring man next to me. The truth I think lies in between these two individuals.

Oh no. This was like the worst movie ever.

It bore practically no relation whatsoever to the novels. Elba was not Roland. Jake was not a breaker.

TOM is right, it read like a YA novel, with Jake as the main character.

They just took the basic concepts, the Tower, the Breakers, the Beams, the Gunslingers, and made an entirely new story with some vaguely similar characters.

The only thing I liked was McConaughey as Flag. If he'd had a better script and better directing, he would have made a good one. Everything else...oh god no.

--A

I'm going to see this, possibly tonight, so I've studious not read any of the above posts - other than accidentally catching Av's opening comment that "this is the worst movie ever" - which comes as no surprise given that the critical response was scathingly bad at the time of release in the cinemas. In some ways I'm glad to have had my expectations so lowered - perhaps the film will make for better entertainment in the face of this, but anyway, I have a significant advantage over most people who have seen it: I haven't read the books. In fact that's not quite true, I read the initial novella, got the second out of the library and fizzled about one fifth of the way into it. It wasn't working for me and I had other books to move on to so I threw in the towel, but I've always felt a bit guilty for so doing on the grounds that I never really gave it the chance it deserved. My hope is that the film will either galvanise me to give them another shot - or convince me that I have no need to bother to do so. Time will tell.

Read the books Peter, read the books.

--A

Ok, I saw it and yes was underwhelmed to say the least. Alas I think I am less inclined to read the books now than before, because I can hardly see how anything could be made of such a weak story premise that could interest me. I take on board the comments made above that this has just plucked a few random events out of the seven ? book series to cobble into a film, but still, if the broad theme of the story doesn't do it for me, how is the detail ever going to make things better? Wish now hadn't seen it.

I am curious what, after watching the movie, you think the broad theme of the story is?