Dune (2021)

Dune

By Calum Whitfield

Beautiful to look at and spectacular to listen to, Dune builds an intriguing universe and large cast of characters but ultimately fails to do much with them.

• 3/5 Cameras 🎥🎥🎥
• Directed by: Denis Villeneuve
• Written by: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, and Eric Roth
• Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, et al

No Copyright Infringement Intended

Frank Herbert’s Dune is one of the most popular and influential science fiction novels ever written, one I will confess now to having never read. Numerous attempts have been made to adapt it, most famously a 1984 take by David Lynch that gets a mixed reception at best. Denis Villeneuve has now stepped in, fresh from a successful Sci-Fi-spree with Arrival and Blade Runner 2049, to give his own take.

Dune centres around Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), son of Duke Leto Atreides (Oscar Isaac) who has just been placed in charge of the desert planet Arrakis, the only known source of Spice, a hallucinogenic drug that is the most valuable resource in the galaxy as it is required for pilots to be able to navigate interstellar space travel. Until recently the planet had been under the control of a rival family of the Atreides’, House Harkonnen who had run an oppressive regime against the native Fremen on Arrakis while in charge and are unhappy at having lost their stewardship of the planet. Other factions with a stake are the Emperor of the universe itself and the Bene Gesserit, a sisterhood of witch-like women that exert strong political influence of which Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) is a member. The plot is very dense, and there’s a lot more going on than I can fit in here, but this is the basic setting and the major factions at play. While this seems a lot, the film does a good job at differentiating these factions clearly, each having their own distinctive features and looks making it surprisingly easy to keep track of who’s who for the most part. The plot itself is loaded with political intrigue reminiscent of Game of Thrones while also featuring a classic “is he The One” trope around Chalamet's Paul, through I’ll give it a pass as its source material pre-dates this being a cliché and I found it reasonably interesting to follow regardless.

The performances throughout the film are solid. I’m not sure anyone has done anything award-worthy here, but each actor is eminently watchable, and it’s nice seeing a huge Sci-Fi movie where everyone is taking it seriously. What Dune really excels at however is spectacle. Everything you see on screen is epic, from gorgeous locales to meticulously designed sets and costumes, to, well, those damn sandworms which, while not resulting in the big screen Tremors reboot I long for, do manage to be some of the coolest and most imposing movie monsters I’ve seen. I’d also like to give a shoutout to the Dragonfly-inspired helicopters used throughout this film which may well be my favourite looking flying machine ever. Action scenes in this film go for quality over quantity which allows each to have a high impact. The score only adds to the spectacle, being some of Hans Zimmer’s best ever work that begs to be played loud. This is the kind of film that cinema screens are made for, and you’re doing yourself and the film a disservice to see it anywhere else.

Unfortunately, despite its many merits, as the credits rolled I couldn’t help but feel rather unsatisfied with Dune. Its pacing was a little slow at times, and I felt some of the side characters were perhaps a little wasted, but Dune’s real problem is that rather than actually giving its audience an ending it just meanders to a halt, going out with a whimper rather than a bang before Paul’s story can get really interesting. The star of the film feels like an observer, for the most part, never really being involved in the action in a meaningful way. This leaves the whole film feeling like an extended prologue (it’s over 2 and a half hours long), filling in the backstory ready for the main event to start soon. While it may seem harsh to mark a film down that openly admits it is only part one of a story simply for part two not yet existing, it means that for me, Dune didn’t really click as the standalone piece of cinema I wanted it to be. Those who have read the book might not take this issue, for me however I enjoyed it for its spectacle and would recommend viewing it for its visuals and score alone, but until part two has been made and the whole thing can be viewed as one film, Dune is sadly rather unfulfilling as a piece of cinema.