This is apparently a very loose and condensed adaptation of Stephen King's Dark Tower series of novels. The story is set partly in the real world (specifically, modern-day New York City) and partly in a world called Mid-World, an old-west-style parallel universe in which a gunslinger named Roland Deschain (played by Idris Elba) is trying to protect the titular Dark Tower from The Man in Black, Walter Padick (played by Matthew McConaughey). In the real world, a young boy named Jake Chambers (played by Tom Taylor) has visions of Roland and The Man in Black in Mid-World and finds a portal to Mid-World. The Man in Black wants to capture Jake in order to take his psychic power (called Shine) to destroy The Dark Tower. Then, a kind of cliched good versus evil story plays out both in New York and Mid-World.
For those who get the 4k set, as is usually the case, the UHD disc just has the movie and then the rest of the bonus features are on a second, regular, blu-ray disc. The A/V quality of the UHD disc is outstanding. Pretty much what I would describe as reference quality video with visuals that really pop. There are a handful of extras on the regular blu-ray disc including a gag reel, deleted scenes, a couple of featurettes about adapting the books to the movie, character profiles on Roland and The Man in Black, and trailers for other Sony movies. All totaled, the bonus features run about an hour, give or take.
The movie is good, but not great. I think it is probably better if you have not read the books because from what I have read, the movie is a very watered-down version of the story from the books. I have not read the books, but it seems like the main complaints are that the movie removes a lot of violence, which was done to get a PG-13 rating, and that the movie tells a pretty basic, non-nuanced story. Elba does a good job playing the character of Roland as a reluctant hero (not quite an anti-hero) and McConaughey does a good job as the bad guy of the movie. It is what I would classify as a decent action movie, but the story really should have been a series (even just a limited event series with 10, hour-long episodes) so that the entire story could be told and should have been done without being watered down. I think most people who are huge fans of the books will probably not like the movie adaptation. I think most people who are a fan of action movies, but who have not read the books, will probably like it more.
