Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Director: Matt Reeves
Writer: Matt Parker
Based on the novel by Stephen King
Cast: Christian Bale, Eric Bana, Noah Schnapp, Caleb Landry Jones, Zoe Saldana, Lin Shaye, Jospeh Sikora, Rupert Grint, Greg Grunberg, Ricky Gervais (voice)
Plot: The Man in Black (Eric Bana) talks to a crow, telling it that Roland and his company will soon arrive at the Great Western Woods but they won't be alone when they get there. Sure enough, Roland Deschain (Christian Bale), Eddie Dean (Caleb Landry Jones) and Susannah (Zoe Saldana) arrive in the dense forest mentioned. Roland has begun to teach his ka-tet the ways of the gunslingers. That night, the trio start a camp fire to keep warm for the night. Eddie goes off to grab more wood for the fire when he thinks he hears something large moving near him. Eddie uses a torch to look around when he sees it... Shardik, a 70-feet-tall cybernetic grizzly bear with a large satellite dish atop its head. Eddie runs from the robo-beast, hiding in a hollowed out tree. Shardik lifts up the tree and starts trying to shake Eddie loose. Roland hears the sound of Eddie screaming for help and instantly knows that their presence must have angered Shardik. Roland and Susannah go to help. Roland tells Susannah that she must use the skills he has taught her so far and use her gun to shoot the "thinking cap" on top of Shardik's head. Susannah manages to hit the cap with one shot. Shardik falls down with a loud crash.
In the morning, Roland takes Eddie and Susannah to Shardik's carcass. He explains to them that the bear was a guardian of a Beam - one of the six mystical forces that hold the Dark Tower and the world itself together. The beam points them in the direction of the Dark Tower and the ka-tet continue their journey. As they are walking, Susannah notices that Eddie has been carving something out of wood and asks what it is. Eddie confesses that he has no clue, but it's helping him keep his mind off drugs.
As they are traveling, Roland becomes disoriented and confused. Eddie and Susannah insist on stopping until Roland is feeling better. He tells them that may not happen as he feels himself slowly losing his sanity. Eddie asks why and Roland says he believes it has to do with interferring with the death of Jake. He remembers meeting Jake at the way-station and letting him fall under the mountain, but he also remembers being at the way-station and never encountering Jake. Roland believes that he may have created a paradox by saving Jake from being killed by Jack Mort, meaning he never would have died and come to Mid-World, even though it already had happened. Eddie and Susannah are confused by the description of the sequence of events, which gives them a taste of what Roland's thought process is like presently.
In 1977 New York, Jake Chambers (Noah Schnapp) is experiencing similar side effects. He has a debilitating headache in the middle of class. His vision gets blurry and he begins to think he is in Mid-World. He asks where Roland the Gunslinger is, yelling that he needs Roland's help. He is taken to the school nurse. His father, Elmer (Greg Grunberg), is called down to the school to pick up Jake. On the drive home, Elmer chastises Jake for making him miss work for something so foolish. Jake puts his head down and quietly apologizes. Jake sneaks out of the house that night and notices a single rose growing in a vacant lot. He goes closer to the rose and finds a key on the ground.
Roland explains that he knows of a gateway that could correct the paradox by bringing Jake back to Mid-World, but that Eddie and Susannah will have to most of the work. He tells Eddie that he must finish the key he has been carving that will open the door to 1977 New York. Roland leads Eddie and Susannah to a "speaking circle" made up of giant stones placed in a circular design. A smokey incubus appears before them. Roland tells Eddie to finish the key and Susannah to distract the demon. Eddie keeps carving away. Susannah is unsure of what else to do, so she opens her shirt, exposing her breasts to the demon. Eddie finishes the key and holds it forward as a lock appears out of thin air. In New York, Jake suddenly finds himself in front of a haunted house. He looks at the key still in his hand and inserts it into the lock. Eddie and Jake turn their keys at the exact same time, finding each other on the other side of the door. Roland tells Eddie to grab Jake. Eddie does as he's told and pulls Jake into Mid-World, returning both Roland and Jake's minds back to normal. The incubus disappears as do all of the stones. Jake gives Roland a hug.
Roland, Eddie, Susannah and Jake follow the path of the beam. Along the way they come across a talking, intelligent billy-bumbler (which looks like a combination of a raccoon and a small dog) who Jake names Oy (Ricky Gervais). The billy-bumbler requests to join them on their quest because it is quite boring around there for a billy-bumbler. Soon they come across a small, seemingly deserted town called River Crossing. At first they think the town is empty, but soon they find it is populated by a group of elderly people led by Talitha Unwin (Lin Shaye). She tells the ka-tet about the existence of Blaine the Mono, a sentient locomotive that can take them across the waste lands - a stretch of heavily poisoned land. Jake asks where they can find this train. She warns him not to call Blaine a train and that they should be able to find it somewhere around the city of Lud, which is on the other side of an old bridge. Before the ka-tet leaves River Crossing, Talitha gives Roland a silver cross that she requests he lay at the base of the Dark Tower when he gets there.
The ka-tet finds the old bridge, which runs across a deep canyon. As they are crossing, Jake is suddenly grabbed by Gasher (Rupert Grint). He threatens to blow up the bridge with a hand-grenade unless the group lets him leave with Jake. They let Gasher go off with Jake as a captive. Gasher takes Jake to Lud, which looks like a post-apocalyptic, run-down New York City. Gasher brings Jake to his master, Andrew Quick (Joseph Sikora). Quick tells Jake that he wants him to help take over the city of Lud for him. Oy informs the ka-tet that with his heightened sense of smell, he should be able to find exactly where Jake has been taken. Roland asks Eddie and Susannah to look for Blaine the Mono while they rescue Jake.
Roland and Oy sneak up to Quick's base. Realizing they are heavily out-manned, Roland decides to create a diversion to distract most of Quick's followers. Roland chooses to set fire to the entrance of the base. While several of Quick's followers, including Gasher, are struggling to put out the fire, Roland and Oy sneak into the building through a side window. They happen to enter the very room where Quick is holding Jake hostage. Quick aims a gun at Roland and Oy but Roland draws his gun so fast that Quick has no chance. The bullet from Roland's gun hits Quick directly in the middle of his forehead. Roland, Jake and Oy sneak back out of the building, leaving Quick for dead. Gasher and the other followers become overwhelmed by the fire and abandon the burning building. The Man in Black appears in the fire and brings Quick back from the dead. He tells Quick that his work is not finished. The Man in Black then leads Quick out of the burning building and away from the city of Lud.
Eddie and Susannah have found a section of Lud where people have been hung to death from lamp posts. Eddie and Susannah are then attacked by a group of feral Lud residents who call themselves the Pubes. Eddie and Susannah use their recently acquired gunslinger skills to kill several Pubes, scaring the rest into agreeing to lead them to where Blaine the Mono can be found. Eddie, Susannah, Roland, Jake and Oy all arrive at the station where Blaine the Mono is waiting. They request to board. Blaine says that he will allow them to board if they can solve a riddle: "You’d have to prime his pump to get him going, on his pump primes backward." The ka-tet all looks at each other, except for Susannah who is in a trance of deep thought. She then grabs a piece of charcoal from the ground and begins writing every prime number between 1 and 100, backwards, on the side of Blaine's hull. Blaine then allows the ka-tet to board. He warns them though, that they will have to participate in a riddling contest along the way to help stave off the boredom of the trip. They agree. Blaine then mentions as he takes off that if any of them fail to answer any of his riddles, he will derail himself and kill all of them as well as himself. Blaine then leaves the station with the ka-tet onboard, headed through the beginning of the toxic waste lands.
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