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There are few writers whose works have been adapted for screen as frequently as Stephen King. The prolific “King of Horror” has had what feels like countless of his works brought to life for a visual audience, but it’s not just his horror works that have captivated audiences and gotten the live-action treatment. King’s forays into science fiction and fantasy have also been adapted as well and there’s one in particular whose adaptation may not have won over critics or been wildly popular, it’s a deeply underrated watch and now it’s streaming free for everyone.
2017’s The Dark Tower is now available to stream for free on Tubi. The film, directed by Nikolaj Arcel and starring Idris Elba, Matthew McConaughey, and Tom Taylor, didn’t perform particularly well in theatrical release. It was widely panned by critics and it wasn’t a box office smash, either, but many fans didn’t hate the film and even King himself felt like it was a “pretty good movie”. While a television adaptation is in development, the movie remains an underrated watch not just for King fans, but for dark fantasy fans on the whole.
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The Dark Tower Movie Is Flawed, But It’s Action-Packed With Strong Performances
To be clear, The Dark Tower movie isn’t a perfect adaptation. It would be almost impossible to expect it to be. The Dark Tower series is an expansive one with a story told across eight novels, one novella, and even a children’s book. Add to the series itself that several of King’s other novels also fit into The Dark Tower story and expand its universe and concepts and you get a complex, dense story that would never be easy to compress into a feature length movie or even a series of movies. But even for having to bring such a big story into such a comparatively small space, 2017’s The Dark Tower does a good job. The film is very accessible for audiences who aren’t necessarily huge King fans or haven’t had a chance to fully invest in the book series. While there are a number of significant cuts to the book’s story, the central part of the book is there and is solid.
The movie is also well-acted. Elba in particular is outstanding as Roland Deschain with many feeling like he was the absolute perfect casting for the role. McConaughey is also fantastic as the villainous sorcerer Walter Paddick and while one can argue that he’s a little underutilized in the film, he is also still perfectly cast and is very charismatic. The film also doesn’t really lag, between the strong performances and some significant action that moves things along quickly. This is a plus because in a world as vast and a story as dense as The Dark Tower, it is easy to get stick when trying to put a lot into a short span of time. The pacing makes the highly trimmed story work a lot better than audiences gave it credit for bac in 2017. Now that it’s available to stream free, perhaps we’ll see people revisiting the film and their thoughts on it — especially with Mike Flanagan’s television version in the works.
The Dark Tower is now streaming on Tubi.
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