“Atmosphere, the movie.”
Let’s start this off with my appreciation of Denis Villeneuve. Lots of great movies under his belt (Blade Runner 2049, Sicario, Arrival). Unfortunately though, in my opinion, Dune as a concept requires a mini-series to be fully realized.
Over 50 minutes of the screen time are just establishing shots with Hans Zimmer’s soundtrack piping through, or Paul’s premonitions through multiple filters. This all looks AMAZING of course, and bridges sci-fi with fantasy. The scenery combined with the soundtrack evokes plenty of emotion. But this 2 hour 35 minute movie is severely lacking dialogue. Most of the plot is advanced in a scene transition aboard a random ship, by visiting a planet for visual exposition or by having Paul and Jessica traverse the desert.
Compare this to Dune (1984) or Dune (2000) and these complaints are immediately apparent. Most likely this is due to the lack of studio conviction to put money behind a series similar to Game of Thrones. Also consider you don’t really have actors in the 2021 release trained in theater or willing to work with limited budgets.
First screening October 21, 2021 on HBO Max.
