Whenever I think of Dune, I remember the insanely great miniseries done by the Sci-Fi Channel (known since 2009 as Syfy, ew, wtf). If you haven’t seen them, I strongly suggest to look them up: Dune (2000) and Children of Dune (2003), starring Alec Newman, James MacAvoy, Susan Sarandon, Julie Cox, William Hurt, Daniela Amavia and Alice Krige.
So going to the cinema with these in mind, I left the theater thinking:
Don’t get me wrong, Villneuve’s Dune is a well-made movie. Insane budget, great cast, but something didn’t click. It’s a chemistry thing, I guess. The only thing that’s more bland than the sands of Arakkis are most of the performances: Timmy Chandelier was a sub-par Paul Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson barely looked old enough to be his porn step-sister, Jason Momoa’s fight scene was cool, but far from a decent Duncan Idaho. The other A-list performers were meh as well (lol Zendaya). I’ve seen this movie a few months before writing this review, and I swear there’s no performance worth mentioning.
It’s a great looking film, the money thrown at it really seem to work, but it landed a bit sideways. The fact that it’s also one half of the first story also made it bland, because in general it looks like we’ve been watching a two and a half hour trailer. Hope they’ll make it back somehow in the second movie, but this is a movie I’m not eager to re-watch.
Later edit: I’ve seen that this movie has got an Oscar Nomination for best picture. It’s nice to see a sci-fi pop in that list, but I don’t think it has a chance of winning.
Later later edit (2024): I’ve just seen this on 4K with some friends and it’s not actually bad. It still has some big disappointments if you compare it to the other versions, but as a stand-alone version, it’s a very good and entertaining watch. I’m happy this is made and brought more people to the Dune universe, so it gets a bump to four popcorns.
