Dark Tower Reviews

A seasoned cast and the beauty of Barcelona go to waste in this dull, talky, and incoherent haunted-skyscraper suspense thriller. Jenny Agutter plays a chilly architect whose just-completed high-rise project is the site of some strange goings-on. The weird events begin when a peeping window washer is hurled to his death by that familiar ghost-movie gimmick The Powerful Unseen Force. As the mayhem continues, a security official (Michael Moriarty) investigates and begins having strange dreams about Agutter that combine sexual fantasy with ominous fear and loathing. THE DARK TOWER's plot is exceedingly opaque. We're never sure, for example, just who Moriarty is or what Agutter did to deserve all of this special-effects torment in the first place. This boring mishmash is all the more annoying because its potentially intriguing premise and visual elegance seem evidence of a deft directorial hand that may not have been around for the final cut. Agutter contributes a particularly solid performance, but the rest of the cast is spotty, though, under the circumstances, it's a little hard to tell. Except for a few well-orchestrated horror set pieces and a sensational--though utterly bewildering--climax, THE DARK TOWER has little to offer either genre fans or casual observers.