I'm Not Jumping On THE DARK TOWER Movie Bandwagon of Hate Because I Enjoyed the Movie!

I've been waiting for Stephen King's The Dark Tower series to hit the big screen for years! After all that waiting, the first movie of a potential trilogy finally hit theaters this weekend and the critics came out swinging. So many critics are bashing the hell out of this film, some calling it the worst Stephen King adaptation ever, and that's simply not true. Hell, the audience in the theater I saw it with broke into applause when the movie ended!

I'm not jumping on this bandwagon of hate. The first thing that most critics don't seem to understand is that this movie is not an adaptation of the books! It's been confirmed that's a sequel that basically continues the story from the books. This is a new chapter. If you've read the books, then you know why there are certain elements of those books in this new story. Also, the movie is made in a way where if you haven't read the books, it still offers a fresh start and does a great job explaining the universe that the story is set it.

As far as that new story goes, I thought it was fine! It was a fun film that I enjoyed watching. Yeah, I will say that it's not the masterpiece that I was hoping for, but it's also not as bad as most critics are saying it is. The Dark Tower is an enjoyable film that has some problems. But none of those issues made me dislike the film. 

I also thought the acting was solid. I loved Idris Elba in the role of Roland and Matthew McConaughey as The Man in Black! That was such great casting so I have no complaints about them. I also thought that Tom Taylor was fantastic in the role of Jake Chambers! He gave a fine performance and he held his own on screen with Elba and McConaughy. 

If I had to choose one big issue, I'd have to say it was the special effects. You can tell that the studio slashed the budget on this movie, and they just didn't give the film the money it needed to give it the proper VFX work it needed. I can understand that it might be a bit distracting, but I can overlook the cheap VFX work if the story and characters were handled well, and that was the case with this movie.

Of course, I wish that the film would have been a flawless masterpiece and I'd be curious to see what director Ron Howard's take on the movie would have been. His original vision for the film could have turned out better, but we'll never know. 

I feel that we ended up with a solid first Dark Tower movie and I can appreciate what director Nikolaj Arcel, writer Akiva Goldsman, and the rest of the creative team were trying to accomplish. If you're going in to watch this film expecting it to be a disaster, that's probably what you'll see. But, if you go into it with an open mind, with an understanding that this is not really an adaptation of the books, and you aren't looking for problems, you might actually enjoy it for what it is. 

I really hope that we get to see the other two films in the planned trilogy. I believe that those two films could be even better. The creative team and the studio can learn from their mistakes in this first film and move forward with a couple movies that could be superior films. This may be the unpopular opinion, but this is just how I feel about the film. 

I believe that they still have something special here and I hope the studio doesn't give up on it.  

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