Very often, early reviews tend to be extremely effusive - to the point that most people tend to disregard them until they've judged for themselves.
However, for the adaptation of Stephen King's The Dark Tower, it's pretty much the exact opposite. So far, the film is currently sitting on a Rotten Tomatoes score of just 19% and the early reviews from US outlets is reflecting that. The New York Times called it "an unappealing hash of moviemaking clichés that, after much scurrying and blathering, devolves into a generic shoot’em-up," whilst IndieWire claimed that the film "can’t even shoot the most necessary bullets straight."
Meanwhile, Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson said that it's "all too easy to spot where the edges have been sanded," and that the film "is dotted with studio-executive fingerprints, left by concerned hands that cut and condensed and softened the movie into something that’s almost admirably swift and light on exposition."
The AV Club was a little less harsh, saying that The Dark Tower "is the sort of self-defeating project that’s bound to be slammed by fans more than it deserves," whilst Rolling Stone's Pete Travers was pretty merciless, calling it "an unholy mess" and giving it just one star.
Our own review goes live late next week, as the film hits Irish cinemas on August 18th.
