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Movie Review: Dune
I got dragged to see the new adaptation of Dune, and it sucked. The movie takes place a million years in the future when everyone is a brooding bore who can’t speak above a whisper. It has less color than if it were shot in black and white.
I get it. Twenty minutes in, I wanted to scream, “I get it!” This is capital-S Serious cinema. Director Denis Villeneuve worked with a $165 million budget to make a blockbuster action movie based on a popular IP, but he wants you to know at heart he’s an impoverished artist who will bring his vision to the screen no matter what. He’s part of the 1% (you could place him in an even more impressive fraction of that percent if you want to do the math) and the payout from Dune will afford him another mansion, but fear not he’s as much an artist as the director who lives off ramen and sells his belongings to fund his weird arthouse project. Hence the entire cast speaks in hushed tones with the solemnity of a child’s funeral. I wanted every character to die, but even had they, how would that change their performances?
The story is about the desert planet Arrakis and blah, blah, blah. Villeneuve is the hot thing among Reddit cinephiles probably because of his French surname. Our only hope is they come to their senses when they realize he’s French Canadian. Quebecois chauvinism is as strong as its European counterpart, which is hilarious because without the countryside, Degas, rustic wineries, and pretty girls with “liberated” views of sex, it’s completely unwarranted. Canada isn’t a bucolic postcard landscape, where you’re always a walk away from a cobblestone road and the smell of baking bread, where you can visit the Eiffel Tower, where there’s a rich history of literature and philosophy. It’s a frigid wasteland; Hell if Satan half-assed it.
In fairness, French filmmakers are nigh intolerable, but we put up with their pretensions because of nudity. Sure their films feature listless smokers and their ennui, but they also feature young breasts being fondled. Dune does not feature nudity, though there’s nothing enticing about the thought of Timothée Chalamet staring gravely at Zendaya’s desaturated, dimly lit rack so maybe that’s for the best. Instead, we get endless shots of sand, a necessity given the source material, but was it a necessity to color grade the film like they were using a brew of piss and ash for reference?
Dune is ugly and not in a repulsive or otherwise interesting way. No-modifier-needed ugly. There are some visuals to appreciate. A line of palm trees stand against a monolithic edifice in a shot stark and powerful. What appears to be a bubble emerges in a vat of oil until we realize it’s the bald head of Baron Vlad Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). The ornithopters have wings that flutter like a dragonfly’s and that’s neat. The movie is also loud. Spells of mumbling are broken by gunfire, explosions, and the clang of machinery so loud it shakes the theater seats. Underneath every ASMR video someone makes a joke about how we’re at the mercy of the uploader who could throw in some ear-shattering sound at any moment. Villeneuve seems to have taken that as inspiration. Maybe he’s a visionary after all.
Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), futuristic dweeb.
Thankfully exposition is minimal. Unlike most sci-fi epics, we’re spared the indignity of names like Galex Varpann and BH-380. Instead, it’s Paul and Jessica and Duncan, though this is thanks to the original author Frank Herbert. I have not read the Dune novels, and every time someone commends this film for its faithfulness, it’s evermore damning evidence I shouldn’t.
My main thought while watching was why wasn’t this greenlit for the big screen during the Bush administration? Its story of desert people in conflict with an invading force over a valuable resource is an allegory so blunt and unmissable it’d make Hollywood producers harder than when they hear the sobs of an aspiring actress undressing in their office. Villeneuve is lucky it wasn’t. The time is ripe for megabudget, self-important slop aimed at nerds who mistake being boring with being profound. This same year people were overjoyed to subtract four hours from their life to watch Superman. Dune is already doing big numbers and is the talk of Twitter. Look forward to hours-long video essays analyzing every frame in autistic detail. They’ll make the movie look entertaining in comparison to their droning. Maybe that’s intentional.
Now I want to see David Lynch’s Dune from ‘84. It might be bad, and is probably not a success on its own terms, but like Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien Resurrection, will be interesting from the mere fact of being a giant studio investment handed to a person totally unsuited to the material. It’s also a glimpse into the Lynch-directed Return of the Jedi that never was. Dune (2021) was terrible. I’m glad I’m no longer watching it, and won’t get roped into seeing the sequel.
Published in Entertainment
He also gave us “The jig is up!” which was pretty funny at the time.
I loved it. But I will not try to talk you into loving it too, any more than I would try to convince you to like Key Lime Pie if you didn’t, or Pusser’s Rum. (More for me!)
But I also loved your review, and would read your review of anything. Thanks!
Its sequel is already planned for 2023.
Oh it’s fun and I still own a copy of it. But I probably like it for unintentional things.
I know the sequels get mixed reviews, but I think the first three books tell the full story. At least what Herbert wanted to say about following a messiah-like leader and achieving the Golden Path. Book 4 is when it gets really really weird and one should just stop. Paul’s character arc isn’t even half done by the end of the first book. There are great space opera materials in books 2 and 3.
I read this to my wife, who generally pronounces Ricochet “stupid.”
She asked “who does he write for?”
High praise from her.
I’m guessing Sting in his underpants?
His flying underpants.
For my money (none paid) the 2000 (01?) SciFi miniseries is the only adaptation of Dune to watch. I have now read several different reviews of Villeneuve’s Dune and remain unconvinced on the for /against question. Of these reviews, yours is so far the funniest. Thanks.
Thanks to everyone for the kind comments. This was a spur of the moment thing so wasn’t expecting anyone to care. I should have a couple more reviews up by the end of the week, which will be more Halloween themed.
A Gormenghast series has been attached to Neil Gaiman with Showtime producing. I’m conflicted on wanting to see what a proper budget could do (the BBC miniseries is terribly dated and wasn’t even good to begin with), and hoping it never goes into production.
I can imagine a million ways they’d ruin it, but even if with a faithful adaptation and the best sets, costumes, cast, effects, script, etc., it’s really neutered without Mervyn Peake’s prose. It would be interesting in a sea of wannabe GOTs and LOTRs, to have a show that’s basically weird Downton Abbey.
Semi-informed rants are the best.
You could roll the clock back and watch Incendies, to maybe get another view of Villeneuve, who seems incapable of making a bad film. A few of the bigger ones:
Blade Runner 2049
Arrival
Sicario
Enemy (a small but fantastic flick)
And as a counterpoint:
I read Dune in high school and was impressed enough to reread it a number of times. I tried the sequels but they became progressively slower and self referential. I never finished them all.
I enjoyed David Lynch’s Dune. It is quirky and weird but it worked for me. I watch it occasionally.
After 9/11 the story line was just too distasteful with jihad and all the middle eastern characteristics that underlay the conflict. It is unfortunate the story acquired such negative connotations long after Herbert wrote it. At least it affects me that way. The last time I tried to read it I didn’t get very far but maybe younger audiences are far enough removed to judge it on it’s own merits.
The Sub-Beacon Podcast episode on Dune was entertaining, I think it’s available for free to non-members sometime next week.
They’re releasing them to non-members? I’ll have to check that out since JVL banned me from their Patreon channel.
I don’t think it’s the same site, but there’s some podcast service where they show up a few days after member release, for free.
Looks like Apple Podcasts is where you want to go.
JVL is an ass, at best, but there’s other stuff worth hearing.
Found it in my podcast player. Vic and Sonny were always enough for me to put up with JVL. He’s not bright enough to take money from someone who doesn’t like him.
That’s why I pay $2/month: $1 for Vic, and $1 for Sonny.
But if I told them that, they’d probably ban me too.
That’s what I paid too. I got banned when I said the show would be better off without JVL. He must not have seen Howard Stern’s Private Parts. The average Stern fan listens like 32 minutes a day. The average Stern hater listens 36 minutes a day. I don’t remember the exact quote but I don’t think they’re at a level of Patreon subscribers to kick off paying customers.
I think it’s around 1500, but I can check…
Currently it says 1605. $2 might be the minimum, but I’m not sure. At some point I might increase, but it will always be multiples of 2, not 3.
Good review, but I disagree. I barely remember the ’84 Dune, and I’ve never read the books. So I thought this was a pretty cool sci fi action movie. I liked the look of it–especially the washed-out desert look. Some of the scenes, particularly when the various spacecraft are doing their thing, were really well-rendered.
This is the internet; that’s not allowed.
Did you watch it in ’84? It might play different watching it decades later with knowledge of Lynch’s career. What I’ve seen of it (the trailer and maybe a clip here and there) wouldn’t interest me enough to watch it, but since I’ve enjoyed every Lynch film I’ve seen, it’s worth seeking out even it ends up only interesting on a meta level.
JVL seems to have leaped across the political spectrum, directly from libertarian to progressive.
Last I heard about him, he was defending Fauci and justifying the lying about masks early in the epidemic.
He is one of those who have doubled down, and doubled down again, to maintain their Never-Trumpism in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence.
It’s Lawrence of Arabia in space.
Here’s another, more obscure source:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-secret-history-of-dune/