VOD Review: The Dark Tower (2017)

"Flawed but fun."

The only reason that I'm reviewing The Dark Tower in the middle of October is because I think it got an unfair shake at the Box Office this past Summer.

If you know anything about Stephen King, then you know that his Dark Tower series is essentially his magnum opus. The series consists of 8 books that have been released between 1982-2012, and its characters and themes come into play in many of his other stories.

You probably also know that it's basically unfilmable, which is where the trouble with the movie comes in.

In the novel, Roland Deschain is the last living member of an order of knights called Gunslingers, who are tasked with keeping the peace, and also keeping the world from "moving on" which involves keeping The Dark Tower -which is a nexus point between all universes- whole. He's also a descendent of King Arthur, and his guns were forged from Excalibur.

The Man in Black (who is Randall Flagg, the villain of other King stories like The Stand), is a wizard on a mission to find the tower, climb it, and destroy It, thus becoming the ruler of all. He's also a servant of The Crimson King. He also really wants to kill Roland.

"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed."

That's how the first book starts, and throughout 8 novels, Roland and Flagg do battle, each trying to achieve their goals, and losing plenty in the process. It's all one big tragedy, and it ends with a "reach your goal and try it again, maybe this tine you'll get it right" punch in the gut, although it's a hopeful one.

The Dark Tower movie takes elements from all of the 8 books, to make up a sequel of sorts to the main story, that is actually canon. If you've read the series and know how it ends (it kinda pissed me off), then you understand why Roland is now a former Gunslinger. He's got the Horn of Eld, but after finding out that reaching The Dark Tower made him start his entire journey again, he just doesn't care anymore.

YEAH, HE'S DONE.

The Man in Black is alive and well, and controlling the 12 Orbs of the Beam, he's closer than even to destroying The Dark Tower. He can kill with a word and travel between worlds, and he'll stop at nothing to see his plan come to fruition.

HE'S LIKE A SEXY VOLDEMORT.

Jake Chambers is an 11-year-old kid from NYC who has odd visions of of both Roland and The Man in Black, and everyone thinks that he's crazy because of it. He has The Shining (yes, that Shining), and as powerful as it is, it's not long before the emissaries of The Man in Black seek him out, and he's force to travel to Mid-World to escape them, and hopefully find Roland.

Together, he and Roland travel to stop The Man in Black from destroying the tower, once and for all.

"LET ME TELL YOU 'BOUT MY BEST FRIEND..."

As a big screen adaptation of King's massive series, The Dark Tower fails. It's too rushed and jumbled to do the source material much justice. As a stand-alone movie, I can only imagine the looks on moviegoers faces who were new to the world of TDT, wondering what in the hell was going on. It was confusing to me, and I know the source material.

So it's an adaptation that pissed off fans of the books, while failing to grab a hold of a new audience.

As rich with content as the books are, I don't understand why such a short, freewheeling version of that story is what they decided to put up on the screen. I know I said the series was unfilmable, and it is, in movie form, but certainly more effort and care could have gone into it, especially if its meant to be the jumping-off point for a TV Series.

An to attempt to hone such violent source material into a PG-13 movie just kills its impact. IT was an R-rated Horror movie in every sense, and went onto become the highest grossing Horror movie ever, so why pull the punches with The Dark Tower? Oh, Sony. That's why. Is there any property that they don't ruin?

SO MUCH WASTED POTENTIAL.

As a companion piece to the books though, which is designed to set up Roland's next go at the tower, it makes for a fun watch. Idris Elba is a badass, and he plays Roland like no one else could have. Matthew McConuaghey makes a great MIB, and watching him manipulate people and effortlessly do them harm was fun. The two of them squaring off together was again, fun, and I'll be damned if I didn't enjoy every bit of it.

Too many delays, re-writes, and hands in the pot pretty much doomed this movie to be a mess, but I liked it on a surface level, and it definitely shows that if handled right, The Dark Tower could be a fantastic property.

SHIT IS SO CASH.

The Dark Tower series is a challenging one to read, as they're long, complicated, and offer more misery and suffering than anything else. There's a good story there though, and if nothing else, the movie gives us a short glimpse of Roland and The Man in Black in action, and it makes for a nice companion piece.

I dig it, flawed as it might be. You might too.

C+

The Dark Tower hits Blu-ray and DVD on October 31st, and VOD on October 17th.

The world of The Dark Tower is populated by lovely ladies.

Blu-ray Review: Crimson Peak (2015)

"If you love Gothic Romance, then we incest that you see this movie."

(aka Family Matters.)
Release Date: October 1th, 2015.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Guillermo del Toro and Matthew Robbins.
Directed by: Guillermo del Toro.
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston and Charlie Hunnam.

Even though we wanted more from it in the end, we really enjoyed Crimson Peak. Then again we're fans of Guillermo del Toro, so that was to be expected. We just totally dig what he has to offer as a storyteller, even if his narratives border on the sappy and sentimental from time to time.

When she was a little girl, Edith was visited by the ghost of her mother who warned her "beware of Crimson Peak!" 14 years later, Edith is all grown up, sexy, and is an aspiring author who would rather write ghost stories than romantic fluff. Seeing that it's 1901, she should be lucky she's writing anything at all, considering that most women didn't even have jobs back then. Sexism was everywhere!

"HOME. KITCHEN. YOU NO WORK."

When Edith meets Sir Thomas Sharpe, a sexy English business come to the new world to push his wares, she is immediately smitten. His cockney "Ow ya doin' there, Guvnah!" routine wears thin on her father though, and he tries to chase him off. Then her dad dies (rather mysteriously), and she marries Sir Thomas, and moves to England, to live in his broke-ass mansion, Crimson Peak. You know, the place her dead mother warned her to avoid 14 years earlier?

IF YOU WANT TO EXPLORE THE HALLS AT NIGHT...

There was apparently good reason for he mother to warn her about the place though, as Edith sees all sorts of ghastly and horrifying ghosts walking the halls of Crimson Peak at night. Also, Sir Thomas' sister, Lucille, hates Edith and wants to kill her. Because incest. It's all really just a creepy, fancy soap opera. With ghosts.

Gothic Romance ensues.

...THEN THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!

Whether or not you like this movie is going to depend greatly on how you feel about Gothic Romance. This is a "Horror" movie to be sure, but it's far more of a haunted love story than it is anything else. The visuals are top-notch, as is the cast, and Guillermo del Toro knows how to tell a story, both on paper and visually, and Crimson Peak definitely delivers some amazing visuals, and plenty of emotional beats throughout.

The movie has got a few intense and "Scary" moments throughout as well, even if it needed far more of them.

The cast does an excellent job with the material given them. Mia Wasikowska is lovely (in all ways) in this one, and Jessica Chastain plays cold and hateful so well, that we're pretty sure that's how she must be in real life Tom Hiddleston is one of our favorite actors working today, and his full range is on display here. Even Charlie Hunnam, whose role is a relatively small one, did well. 

CRIMSON PUKE?

The problem with this movie is that like many of Guillermo del Toro's projects, there's just not enough Horror present. As good as del Toro is at his craft, and as much as he loves all things Horror & Fantasy, he sure has a problem with making his movies truly horrific. I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with his movies because they lack gore and tawdry sex or anything, but I'm really getting tired of them ending on a sentimental note, instead of a shocking one.

Crimson Peak would have been an instant classic back in the 70's, where it would have fit in perfectly with the Gothic Hammer Films that ruled the day, but in this day and age, it often times felt like a biteless throwback that desperately wanted to be an instant classic, but couldn't figure out how to pull it off.

GORGEOUS, THOUGH. THE MOVIE IS TRULY GORGEOUS.

As with the sex scene between Thomas and Edith, the ending was a bit anticlimactic. For all of the build-up, when the big confrontation at the end happened, it was all over far too quickly, and it left us unsatisfied.

That's what I mean about del Toro's films; they do an excellent job of setting the stage for something grand, and then they just don't deliver. Not fully, anyhow.

"EAT THIS SHIT, BITCH!"

Crimson Peak is a mostly bloodless affair, which we find odd considering the word crimson is in the title. To us, that title implies blood!

ALRIGHT, MAYBE THERE WAS A BIT OF GORE TOWARDS THE END.

Nope. For a R-Rated movie, there's next to no nudity on display. There are some sex scenes, but none of them are explicit in the least. There is a pretty strong current of incest running throughout the movie though.

NOT THAT THEY DIDN'T TRY...

Crimson Peak is a Gothic Romance that is disguised as a Haunted House movie. It's a gorgeous piece of work, and under the talented and gifted eye of Guillermo del Toro, it delivers a few competent scares and a bit of gore towards the end, but it's definitely a romance at its core.

If you like del Toro's brand of sentimental ghost story, then you'll no doubt love this one too.

B+

Crimson Peak is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

Mia Wasikowska and Jessica Chastain can climb our Crimson Peak any day.

VOD Review: The Last Witch Hunter (2016)

"Oh, Vin. Sometimes I wonder what goes through your mind when you read scripts."

Let's be honest about it: The Last Witch Hunter wasn't a great movie.

Critics universally panned it; and it only made $27 million domestic on a budget of $90 million, so crowds didn't exactly flock to it either. For us, it was just too clunky to love.

But let's be fair about it too: it wasn't that bad.

Watching this one was a lot like the watching Van Helsing for us; both movies are bland, sanitized, uninspired efforts that have fun air about them, but they offer no depth whatsoever.

We did like The Last Witch Hunter way better though.

In the Middle Ages (Dark Ages? Not sure), the magnificently-bearded Kaulder is a Witch Hunter. We only see him hunt one Witch, so we're not really sure how good he is at it, but it was the Witch Queen herself, so we have to assume that his skills are at least reasonably sufficient.

MAGNIFICENT, I TELL YOU.

When he catches up to the Witch Queen at her haunted tree fort, he manages to kinda kill her, thus ending her evil reign, but not before she curses him to live eternally; or at least until she returns 800 years later to pick up where she left off before he kinda killed her, because you know that's what's going to happen. You've seen this all before.

KILL IT WITH FIRE! TWICE.

Flash-forward to 800 years later where Kaulder is a modern man living in New York, and still hunting Witches. Not scary Witches like they had in the middle ages, mind you, but just normal-looking people who can cast spells and stuff. When a Witch murders his best friend, he gets a new best friend, and they set out to find who killed his first best friend, and they discover that the rise of the Witch Queen is imminent. Also, he meets a hot, ginger Witch, who teaches him how to love again.

Don't look at us, we don't write this shit.

NOTHING MEDIOCRE ABOUT HER THOUGH.

For us, The Last Witch Hunter is a sort of hybrid between Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and Constantine, with a bit of Highlander and Van Helsing thrown into the mix. Or maybe it just tried to ape different aspects of those movies for its own benefit. I don't know, but overall, it felt way too safe and generic, and like it couldn't manage to find its own identity. It was a fun movie at times, and it didn't leave us feeling pissed off or frustrated, but something was just missing.

We really liked the premise, the cast, and watching Vin Diesel swing a flaming sword around. We also really loved the beginning of the movie which was set in medieval times far more than we did the modern-day setting that most of the movie took place in. They should have given us more of the medieval stuff, and Vin should have kept the beard throughout more of this one. It looked bad-ass.

THE FAUX-HAWK CAN STAY TOO.

The real problem with the movie was the script. We're not sure why, but It took three different writers to come up with a story which is littered with tropes, cliches, and uninspired familiarity, but it shouldn't have. The dialogue left a lot to be desired as well, especially with the cut-and-paste way in which the movie seemed to be edited. Lines like "Who said that a Witch can't hunt Witches?", "Salem was wrong, those women were innocent!", and "Witch prison!" were just shameful.

And having to watch the great Michael Caine utter a line like "Look at you, you ugly bitch of a morning" was just painful. He deserves way better.

The CGI was overabundant and bad at times, and the movie definitely could have benefited from the less-is-more motto in that department. I guess the PG-13 rating held the violence, action, and blood back, which is a shame; had they leaned more on practical FX, and pushed the envelope a bit more, the end result may have been better.

"ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO CRITICISE, ASSHOLE?"

Why yes, Frobo Bagglins, there is...

They really should have centered the story around Rose Leslie's character, and had Vin Diesel's Witch Hunter play the periphery, much like Max did for Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road. Like she should have been sucked back in time to the Middle Ages via some sort of witchery gone wrong, where Vin Diesel had to protect her against hordes of Witches or something. That would have been cool.

Rose Leslie is a talented actress, and she was probably the most likable character in this one. We like Vin Diesel a lot too, but he just doesn't have the range to carry a movie like this by himself. It was cool to  watch him kick ass though.

THE LOVE SCENE.

Vin Diesel is mad cool, but some of his movies aren't so hot. Also, we really like Rose Leslie. A lot.

BEWITCHING.

If you can sit through movies like Van Helsing, or the later sequels in the Resident Evil and Underworld series, and enjoy them for what they are despite their flaws, then you'll probably be able to do the same thing with The Last Witch Hunter. It ain't great, but there is a lot about it that is pretty enjoyable, in a guilty pleasure sort of way.

I wouldn't but in on Blu-ray, but I'd definitely come over to your house and watch it if you did.

C

The Last Witch Hunter is available now on VOD, and hits Blu-ray & DVD on 2/2.

We've been under Rose Leslie's spell ever since we first saw her on Game of Thrones, and we're fine with that.