Spoilers in paragraphs 2 & 3...
Dune: Part One (2021)
I didn't like
'Arrival' and I more or less hated
'Blade Runner 2049' but with 2021's
'Dune: Part One' Denis Villeneuve has finally made a science fiction film I like (kinda). It's got the awe inspiring grandeur that was lacking from 'Arrival' and the absurdly slow pace of editing from BR2049 is thankfully not repeated here. It's not burdened by the utter failure to live up to the dazzling vision of another Director (
Ridley Scott), instead giving us the jaw-dropping scale of Villeneuve's own unique, cold, brutalist vision. I've always loved
David Lynch's beautiful looking film and I didn't think this would come close from the trailers but there is so much brilliant design and costuming to soak up. I could do with much more colour and contrast to actually be able to see those production details though. It really feels and looks like how I imagined the book, even after several other interpretations. I was grinning from ear-to-ear every time I saw the Ornithopters, Lynch's film and other mediums have screwed them up badly (partly due to insufficient FX technology). However, they were a bit too close to looking, acting and sounding just like real world helicopters for my complete satisfaction. Villeneuve goes for an easily recognisable blur of dragon fly style "rotorblades" instead of a more daring and graceful flapping bird's wing type design. I loved the sheer massiveness of everything (which must be seen on a big cinema screen), like the portal shaped Heighliners and that big imperial egg shaped ship landing on huge groaning mechanical feet. The casting is near perfect for the characters. I had my reservations about
Jason Momoa but he's so good as Duncan Idaho, like a cross between Han Solo and a Samurai.
Hans Zimmer's score is powerful and the VisFX are almost faultless, there's just that very weird "uncanny valley" shot of Paul with the Starlord visor from the trailer, which hasn't been improved for the movie.
Unfortunately there are problems and it's mostly structural. There is a real sense of deflation at the end, with some audible grumbling and sighing from other cinema patrons. It just stops at a random point, a knife fight (in a movie filled with knife fights) and characters walking through the desert (in a movie filled with walking through the desert) with Zimmer's score and a
"It's only the beginning!" line both trying desperately to make it feel like an epic conclusion. If Villeneuve's promised sequels are never made (and that's not 100% certain, despite today's announcement. A spin-off series was announced and abandoned already) then this movie is such a waste of time and effort, plus squanders the rare opportunity that Villeneuve had to do this story with seemingly total creative freedom (unlike poor Lynch). This isn't like
Ralph Bakshi's sadly unfinished
'The Lord of the Rings' duology which ended with a big glorious battle that changes everything, 'Dune' has a nothing conclusion. The point to break the story into two in a satisfying way was surely Paul winning a first battle against the Harkonnens, and leading the Fremen, a point where the boy becomes the equal in stature to his father, when he becomes Muad'Dib and Jessica becomes a Reverend Mother. Or maybe ending on an epic sequence of Paul riding/conquering Shai-Hulud.
It's shocking how little of the book is covered in 2.5 hours. I've only read the book once but IIRC this only covers roughly a third of the narrative (not the page count) and chops out many sections and characters from that. I reckon the 1984 film squeezed and condensed about 75% of the book into the same runtime (in one of it's extended forms), this new version is more like only 25%. There is no Feyd, no Emperor, no Irulan, no Navigators, all of who were fitted into the 1984 film. With the added runtime I thought they'd show, or even expand upon the parts of the book missing from the Lynch adaptation but there is none of the galactic political intrigue, no Fenrings, no exploration of Kynes' backstory, no scenes exploring life on Geidi Prime (other than a brief exposition dump scene in one room), no scenes really showing what life is like in Arakeen and there is less time spent with Thufir, Piter, Shadout Mapes, Rabban and Mohiam than in the shorter movie. I think Doctor Yueh only appears in one pointless scene (prior to the attack), which seems to be there purely so we actually know he exists before he betrays the Atreides. I loved seeing more of Kynes (and Sharon Duncan-Brewster is terrific) but there could till have been more of her. I grew tired of the film's exposition dialogue repeatedly following a three stage formula: 1. the book version, 2. the movie version, 3. the dumb version e.g.
"It's a Crysknife. The tooth of Shai-Hulud. A big sandworm", or
"It's a Gom Jabbar. A poisoned needle. It instantly causes death" etc. In all cases the first two (and often just the first) would've sufficed. I don't think the movie drags (far from it) but I think what we have could've been trimmed down to closer to 2-hours, with less exposition and repetition and then the other 30-minutes could've shown us more story at the end.
I do want to watch this again while playing in theatres and I want to see the sequels but if they don't happen, I can't see myself revisiting this on home video very often. There isn't enough to make a stand-alone experience.