★★★

A young boy, Jake Chambers (Tom Taylor), has disturbing dreams about a man dressed in black trying to destroy the world using children and a gunslinger trying to track down the man in black and kill him. He is treated as if he is mentally ill by his mother and less then loving step father, who want him to stop drawing all of the things he sees in his dreams. Never the less his drawings plaster the walls of his bedroom, adorn his sketchbooks and are constantly on his mind.

His mothers solution is for him to go to a special camp for children like him, he is due to be picked up one morning by two workers who are not quite what they seem. In fact they appear to be the very evil he dreams of, a sort of henchmen to the man in black, picking up children with similar gifts to be used to help destroy the world. Needless to say Jake is terrified and after his pleas to his mother not to send him fall on deaf ears he makes an escape out of the bathroom window, looking for an old house he has seen in his dreams.

With a strong hunch that the things he sees are actually real he finds the house and in turn a portal which transports him to another dimension where the man in black lives. Almost immediately he meets the gunslinger, Roland (Idris Elba), who reluctantly takes Jake on his mission to find the man in black, Walter (Matthew McConaughey), mainly because the nightmares reveal where Walter is.

On their journey he learns of the Dark Tower, its role in protecting the world from monsters and most importantly Walters plan to destroy it and bring about the end of the world. Jake is also about to find out his dreams and nightmares are representative of his gift ‘the shine’, something Jake has in common with the other children in his dreams. This power is what Walter wants to use to destroy the Dark Tower, Jakes shine is the most powerful that has ever been seen, and so the adventure begins.

This movie is based on Stephen Kings novels, unfortunately it does not do them justice at all, its sloppy and filled with needless visual effects. Elba as Rowland is the one shining light in a very dark movie, and I mean dark as in there is hardly any light which covers up the bad visuals a little. I completely believe the rumours of last minute re editing which I think shows through.

Don’t get me wrong its watchable and probably quite good for teenage viewing but it doesn’t capture the brilliance of the novel series, how could it? there are 8 books and this movie is 95mins long. If you like sci-fi fantasy and you haven’t read the books, therefor have no expectations, it will do nicely.