The Dark Tower
Universal Pictures | Release Date: August 4, 2017 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
34
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 46 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
22
Negative:
20
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenAug 3, 2017
In the vast canon of King-derived movies, “Tower” belongs in the upper ranks. Read full review
70
VoxAja RomanoAug 3, 2017
Arcel’s film is fun, loving, scary, and often as genuinely compelling as it is wildly misguided. The Dark Tower may be a terrible, even baffling version of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, but it’s highly enjoyable as a cinematic King fanfic. Read full review
70
VarietyOwen GleibermanAug 2, 2017
It’s a highly competent and watchable paranoid metaphysical video game that doesn’t overstay its welcome, includes some luridly entertaining visual effects, and — it has to be said — summons an emotional impact of close to zero. Which in a film like this one isn’t necessarily a disadvantage. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Mark MedleyAug 3, 2017
The Dark Tower is King’s ultimate roller coaster – twisting and stomach-clenching and terrifying but, above all, fun. If only this version was as thrilling a ride. Read full review
58
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyAug 3, 2017
It would be a waste of everyone’s time to go on about how this 95-minute movie deviates from the source. Let’s just say it turns The Dark Tower into something generic, and leave it at that. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallAug 3, 2017
From the impure perspective of someone who hasn't read King's series, The Dark Tower isn't half-bad. Faint praise, but this movie will take all it can get. Read full review
58
The Film StageDan MeccaAug 3, 2017
From start to finish The Dark Tower, directed by Nikolaj Arcel from the popular book series by Stephen King, feels like something salvaged from something else. The result is a mostly entertaining piece of fantasy pulp that is a victim of trying to do too much and too little at the same time. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 4, 2017
The movie makes me finally want to test-drive one of the “Dark Tower” novels, if only to see what King himself was able to bring to the party. Maybe that’s been his evil plan all along. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 4, 2017
The direction is fairly formulaic, the special effects are nothing special, and except for Elba and McConaughey, who square off against each other in a series of ho-hum set pieces, the cast is forgettable. So is the movie. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 3, 2017
The Dark Tower isn’t a bad movie even though there’s a clumsiness to its narrative and a cheapness to its appearance. Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 3, 2017
Is the movie good enough to do what it’s designed to do? Not really. It’s designed as a launching pad for a “Dark Tower” television series, scheduled to star Elba and Taylor. So this is an hour-and-a-half TV pilot; it just happens to be a big summer movie too. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeAug 2, 2017
Though satisfying enough to please many casual moviegoers drawn in by King's name and stars Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey, it will likely disappoint many serious fans and leave other newbies underwhelmed. Read full review
50
IGNMarty SlivaAug 2, 2017
The Dark Tower is a thoroughly average take on some truly incredible source material. While the fantastic leads do the best with what they’re given, it’s ultimately not enough to compensate for a lack of time spent building characters and their motivations in the script. Read full review
45
The VergeTasha RobinsonAug 3, 2017
The Dark Tower, helmed by Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, is so simplified in places that it seems outright generic. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyDarren FranichAug 3, 2017
Bad dialogue, lame plot, fine. The bigger issue: How could a film with Elba and McConaughey have so little swagger? Read full review
42
Consequence of SoundJustin GerberAug 2, 2017
Bringing the action of future Dark Tower novels forward isn’t a sin. The sin is not having nearly enough space for it. The film is breathless in all the worst ways as a result. Read full review
40
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 24, 2017
It’s a sad waste, not a wilful one – a misfire you wish was better in virtually every shot. Read full review
40
Total FilmKen McIntyreAug 15, 2017
As baffling as it is dull, The Dark Tower is a disappointment for both hardcore fans and the King-curious. Stick with the books. Read full review
40
EmpireHelen O'HaraAug 7, 2017
Elba is genuinely great as the tormented Roland, but the film does its best to suffocate him under a mountain of plot-heavy nonsense. Disappointing. Read full review
40
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 4, 2017
As a mascot, McConaughey embodies the movie’s lack of conviction, but as an indication that a star could conceivably be computer-generated with no loss of affect or facial mobility, he might inspire the next generation of bloodless fantasy epics. Read full review
40
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 3, 2017
Idris Elba makes for a dashing, haunted gunslinger assigned to safeguard the universe, but whether it’s Matthew McConaughey’s hammy turn as an all-powerful villain or the generic effects work, The Dark Tower proves to be a movie filled with faint ambitions and an even weaker pulse. Read full review
40
Time OutMichael GingoldAug 3, 2017
Onscreen, The Dark Tower serves up a generic, half-baked scenario no different from a slew of better-known YA properties in which young, wide-eyed protagonists discover their connections to a hidden fantastical world. Read full review
40
TimeStephanie ZacharekAug 3, 2017
Given how eagerly awaited this film has been, it’s safe to say that readers who love the series deserve a movie version made with more imagination, and less rote efficiency, than this one. Read full review
40
We Got This CoveredMatt DonatoAug 3, 2017
Director Nikolaj Arcel blends dystopian weirdness and temporal hellbeasts until all that remains is an emulsified, grey gunk, which is then forced down our throats for 95 minutes. Flavor gone, identifiers eviscerated. Read full review
40
New York Daily NewsStephen Whitty Aug 3, 2017
The Dark Tower is simply dim. Read full review
40
The GuardianCharles BramescoAug 3, 2017
It’s rare that a film so convoluted also manages to be so determinedly boring. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoAug 4, 2017
This isn’t just a mediocre movie — although it is most definitely that — it is a wasted opportunity to fulfill the promise of that opening line from 35 years ago. Read full review
38
Paste MagazineJim VorelAug 3, 2017
It’s so devoid of content and meaning that it’s easy to watch in spite of its terribleness. Read full review
38
Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonAug 3, 2017
I give Elba enormous credit for maintaining a straight face — he and Taylor account for the movie’s few good moments — but the silly script seems to have awakened the dormant ham in McConaughey. Read full review
37
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanAug 7, 2017
The Dark Tower isn’t frightening, or even, despite some serviceable action and special effects, very interesting, except perhaps for viewers too young to know better, or for Stephen King fans especially susceptible to outright pandering. Read full review
33
IndieWireKate ErblandAug 2, 2017
King’s Dark Tower universe is rich with cultural reference points and is always totally unpredictable, but in cutting it down to consolidate its highlights, The Dark Tower can’t even shoot the most necessary bullets straight. Read full review
30
Village VoiceApril WolfeAug 7, 2017
Outside of its actors, the film is unremarkable. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovAug 7, 2017
Blame screenwriters Akiva Goldsman, Jeff Pinkner, Anders Thomas Jensen, and Nikolaj Arcel (who also directed) for trying too hard to cram so much of King’s original into a film format. Read full review
30
The New York TimesManohla DargisAug 3, 2017
About the only thing holding it together is Idris Elba, whose irrepressible magnetism and man-of-stone solidity anchors this mess but can’t redeem it. Read full review
30
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzAug 3, 2017
The Dark Tower is a near-total whiff, a mess of a movie that took forever to get made and by the look of things should have taken about twice that long. Or maybe just never have been made at all. Read full review
30
ScreenCrushMatt SingerAug 2, 2017
Even when the movie around him is total garbage nonsense, it is fun to watch Idris Elba; the way he walks, the way he stares at people with eyes blazing with intensity. He is an ideal action hero. He looks like the coolest man who ever lived in his fantasy Western garb, and he moves with a rare combination of grace and force, like the greatest possible combination of Gene Kelly and Chow Yun-Fat. He makes an amazing Gunslinger. Sadly, he’s trapped in a not-very-good Gunslinger movie. Read full review
25
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 4, 2017
What a bust The Dark Tower turns out to be. A thriller with tepid thrills, a horror movie with bland frights, a generic fantasy quest story in which we mope along with joyless, heartless characters in an out-of-date celebration of Old West gunplay, this never should have left pre-production. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAug 3, 2017
Actually, there is one other thing that’s unforgivable. After building up to the great climactic confrontation for two-thirds of the movie, it’s a letdown. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 3, 2017
This unholy mess shouldn't happen to a King, much less a paying customer. Read full review
25
New York PostJohnny OleksinskiAug 3, 2017
Too bad this Tower of Error will leave them muttering “Redrum. Redrum” on the way out. Read full review
25
Slant MagazineJake ColeAug 3, 2017
The decade-long effort to bring the Dark Tower books to the screen looks like a cheap, unauthorized cash-in. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 3, 2017
The cinematography has a washed-out, dull tone. The special effects are mediocre. With a few exceptions, the dialogue is stilted and filled with expository passages so obviously intended to explain things to us, I half-expected characters to turn to the camera and say, “Here’s what you need to know so you can understand what’s happening.” Read full review
25
USA TodayBrian TruittAug 3, 2017
This is a fantastical faceplant, and though Elba tries his hardest, what could have been the tale of an iconic gunslinger is a big miss. Read full review
25
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezAug 3, 2017
The Dark Tower is a tepid non-starter from minute one. Read full review
20
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangAug 3, 2017
From start to finish, the movie exudes a stiff, joyless coherence. Read full review
20
TheWrapDan CallahanAug 2, 2017
With fantasy material like this, we need to be made to believe in the inventions and the conceits, and we cannot do that if they are shot and staged in such a truncated and perfunctory way. Read full review
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