“It’s a highly competent and watchable paranoid metaphysical video game that doesn’t overstay its welcome, includes some luridly entertaining visual effects, and — it has to be said — summons an emotional impact of close to zero.” –
Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“Heaven knows, the books offer more invention than could fit in one feature film, but in their effort to introduce newcomers to this world, the filmmakers make the saga’s contents look not archetypal but generic and cobbled together.” –
John DeFore, THR
“King’s Dark Tower universe is rich with cultural reference points and is always totally unpredictable, but in cutting it down to consolidate its highlights, The Dark Tower can’t even shoot the most necessary bullets straight.” –
Kate Erbland , IndieWire
“After decades of waiting, after months of keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for the best, it brings me zero pleasure to report that The Dark Tower doesn’t really work.” –
Scott Wampler, Birth.Movies.Death
“The Dark Tower doesn’t even really do us the courtesy of being laughably bad. That would take some level of ambition, which the movie studiously avoids at almost every turn. Instead, it simply exists, eager to be overlooked and forgotten.” –
Matt Goldberg, Collider
“Bringing the action of future Dark Tower novels forward isn’t a sin. The sin is not having nearly enough space for it. The film is breathless in all the worst ways as a result.” –
Justin Gerber, Consequence of Sound
“The thin characterizations might have been mitigated by livelier dialogue… But there’s no poetry or personality in any of these words.” –
Angie Han, Mashable