From The Dark Tower to Batman & Robin, crappy blockbusters share one guilty party

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This past weekend greeted eager popcorn-movie fans with a dispiriting barrage of negative reviews for The Dark Tower, the would-be franchise starter of the messy but popular Stephen King book series of the same name. Everything from the lackluster direction by Nikolaj Arcel to poor choices in cutting and pasting different sections of the early books in the story was called out by critics and moviegoers alike, resulting in yet another generic and uninspired wannabe-blockbuster that will doubtless be looked back upon with the same “not even a nice try” attitude that greeted similar franchise also-rans from 2017 like Rings and Transformers: The Last Knight. A common thread between these three films? They were all either written or had stories by Akiva Goldsman.

Actually, it’s not fair to say Goldsman is responsible for writing The Dark Tower. Even whittling down the presumable army of screenwriters who had a hand behind the scenes to the official names, you’re left with five credited writers, including longtime TV writer Jeff Pinkner (with whom Goldsman teamed up for many of his co-writing credits on the TV series Fringe, a show superior in nearly every way to his big-screen work) and Arcel himself. Similarly, Rings has five writing credits, Transformers seven, and multiple other projects awarding Goldsman a writing byline (The 5th Wave, Insurgent, Angels & Demons, to name a few) also spread the credit—or more accurately, blame—among multiple scribes. Still, look at those titles: The one quality they share, besides Goldsman’s name in the credits, is not being very good. Downright bad, would be more accurate. And at a certain point—much like how if someone complains every day that everyone they meet seems to be an asshole, thereby suggesting they themselves are the real asshole—you have to wonder if Goldsman might be the problem.

Better still, just look to his solo credits, or at least the films that stem largely from his pen. He began in the ’90s with a couple of John Grisham adaptations (The Client and A Time To Kill, the former of which was cowritten by Robert Getchell), which are both serviceable films and among the more respectable projects he’s ever helped write, though no one should consider them great screenplays. But then look at the rest of his output: He penned the execrable big-screen version of Lost In Space single-handedly. The dour and sodden adaptation of The Da Vinci Code? All him. Best of all, the famously franchise-sinking Batman & Robin? Goldsman is the man to thank for all those “freeze” puns and grown adults acting like 7-year-olds.

What makes Goldsman’s work so poor is just how little soul there seems to be in it. The movies in which he’s had a hand all share a lack of concern for character development outside of screenwriting 101, Save The Cat!-style generalities. He takes whatever genre or format he’s working in and applies the most reductive, easily digestible conflicts and themes, a process film executives may see as making a movie “broadly accessible” but which tends in practice to render them more “toothless and inhuman.” Instead, he ladles on plot contrivances and mythos like they were the main course, rather than seasonings meant to spice up a film’s content. He’s like your uncle who lost his taste buds from smoking, and now ladles too much salt onto everything he eats, rendering each dish weirdly interchangeable and unappetizing by negating any subtleties or distinctions.

But his claim to fame lies with his Oscar glory. In 2002, A Beautiful Mind crushed at the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director for Ron Howard, Best Supporting Actress for Jennifer Connelly, and netting Goldsman the Best Adapted Screenplay award. Based on the overwhelmingly poor quality of nearly every project he’s had a hand in writing since, Goldsman has been dining out on that Oscar for the past 15 years. His name was established as someone who can deliver not just good work, but Academy Award-winning work, and those credentials have seemingly placed blinders over the eyes of everyone who has brought him on board since. He’s been involved with loads of big Hollywood projects, from franchises big and small to further adaptations of popular pre-existing narratives, and not a one has ended up anywhere near even the “good enough” bar set by Beautiful Mind. (Goldsman’s one exception: He re-teamed with Howard for 2004’s Cinderella Man, a movie now generally agreed to be superior to A Beautiful Mind—but also one where Goldsman got help from co-writer Cliff Hollingsworth, who also earned the “story by” credit.)