Released: October 2021
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Rated PG-13
Run Time: 155 Minutes
Distributor: Warner Bros.
Genre: Science Fiction
Cast:
Timothee Chalamet: Paul Atreides
Rebecca Ferguson: Lady Jessica
Oscar Isaac: Duke Leto Atreides
Josh Brolin: Gurney Halleck
Jason Momoa: Duncan Idaho
Stellan Skarsgaard: Baron Vladimir Harkonnen
Javier Bardem: Stilgar
Zendaya: Chani
Dave Bautista: Beast Rabban Harkonnen
I WAS going to do a quick reaction to Denis Villeneuve’s Dune when I got home from the theater, but I decided against it, because there’s a lot here to unpack. Movie adaptations of beloved science fiction and fantasy books are nothing new. They’ve been attempting those for decades. For most people, myself included, the best adaptation of the source material thus has been Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings. It was a huge risk for New Line Cinema when they greenlit Jackson’s trilogy, especially since they had no idea if the first movie was successful. What resulted was an Academy Award-winning series of movies that have gone on to become one of most beloved movie trilogies of all time, taking it’s place alongside the original Star Wars trilogy. The most important thing to understand about adapting books into movies is knowing what to cut out and what to keep. The reason is that there are things that might work in books that won’t work in a movie like certain characters or plot points. It’s the nature of the beast. If you were to try and adapt an entire book, the movie would be 5-7 hours long, and most people won’t sit through that, and most movies studios won’t those into theaters, because that would mean less showings and less butts in seats. It’s not very profitable, so it’s a risk releasing movies that are upwards of three hours or more. That brings me to Frank Herbert’s Dune and Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation.
The year is 10,191 and the most important substance in the known universe is the spice, melange. This particular substance is responsible for all interstellar travel as well as enhancing abilities and extending life. The only place where the spice is found is the planet Arrakis. Duke Leto Atreides of planet Calladan is ordered by the Emperor to occupy Arrakis and mine the spice. Arrakis was once occupied by the Atreides’ mortal enemies, the Harkonnens. Along with his son Paul and concubine Lady Jessica, Leto takes possession of Arrakis, not realizing that the Emperor made a deal with Baron Harkonnen to destroy House Atreides. That synopsis is an oversimplification of what happens in the story. The book is notoriously dense and difficult to adapt. Just ask Alejandro Jodorowsky and David Lynch. There’s a lot of information that’s thrown at the audience, and not everybody is going to understand it. I tried reading the book and I just couldn’t get into it, no matter how much I tried, and this is coming from somebody who has read J.R.R Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. Dune is an incredible story, but thanks to the efforts of Denis Villeneuve, this film’s story is far more accessible than any other adaptation thus far. Yeah, there’s a lot of stuff thrown at you, with different factions including the Bene Gesserit, an order of women who have been manipulating bloodlines to produce a super being called the Kwisatz Haderach. While the story here isn’t holding your hands, it’s surprisingly easy to follow and understand what’s going on. That is the mark of great film-making and great screenwriting: Taking a dense storyline and making it approachable by the general audience.
David Lynch’s adaptation of Dune came with an outstanding cast including Kyle McLachlan, Patrick Stewart, and Max Von Sydow. Denis Villeneuve’s version is no less impressive. We have Zendaya as Chani, Josh Brolin as Gurney, Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, and Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto. These folks are all outstanding in their own ways, and even the actors that don’t get a lot of screen time are pretty memorable like Stellan Skarsgaard as Baron Harkonnen. He’s not over the top as Kenneth McMillan from the 1984 film, but he’s pretty intimidating. Jason Momoa has always been a favorite of mine, and his version of Duncan Idaho is far more substantial than what we got in the original movie. The real star of this movie has to be Timothee Chalamet as Paul Atreides. Some YouTubers and various sources think that this kid could be the next Daniel Day-Lewis. I’m finding it difficult to disagree with that assessment. Timothee’s performance here is phenomenal. He doesn’t look like much physically, but he’s got some serious acting chops. His version of Paul isn’t quite as aloof as McLachlan’s, but there’s definitely a different kind of demeanor on display here. The character seems to…KNOW things, as a result of his training under his mother’s guidance and that leads to some surprising events throughout the story. There’s not a single bad actor on display here.
If there’s one thing that Dune knocks out of the park is its sense of scale. This movie is epic in every single way, but the cinematography alone is worth the price of admission. Looking at how and where the camera is set, you get a real sense of how large this story is. The ships are massive, the explosions are even bigger when they happen, and the sandworms…oh, my. Yeah, the 1984 had a decent understanding of scale, but Villeneuve’s film takes it to a whole different level. I can’t even begin to describe how visually spectacular this movie is. Dune is one of the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot. From the set and costume designs to the locations, the grand scale of this project can’t be understated. It really can’t. Every planet has its own unique look and feel, and you can tell just by the color where these folks are. I should warn people though: This is not an action movie. It’s a science fiction epic that has action in it, but it’s more interested in its characters and the story. That’s not to say that the action is bad. Far from it. The action in this film is crazy awesome. The fight choreography with the hand-to-hand combat is fast and brutal, and obviously you have large-scale battles, but for this first part of the story, the action isn’t as pronounced. No, they’re saving the heavy action for part 2.
The issues that I have with Dune actually have nothing to do with the film itself. The movie is fine and absolutely worth watching. No. The problem here is that when the pandemic hit last year, movies got pushed back quite a bit including Dune. But towards the end of the year, some studios took a calculated risk on releasing some of their newer movies on VOD instead of in theaters. Some studios like Universal and Warner Bros. decided that they would release a number of 2021 movies on streaming services at the same time as theaters. Warner Bros. got some serious pushback from film-makers like Christopher Nolan AND Denis Villeneuve about that, saying that doing so would undercut the movies that they were trying to make. Well, it did. While Mortal Kombat did alright in terms of box office numbers, James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad bombed at the box office, all because Warner Bros. wanted to release that movie on HBO Max the same day it hit theaters. To be fair, The Suicide Squad had an uphill battle with people not liking the first movie and with the new one being rated R. Dune was always going to be a risk because of the nature of the source material. It’s been notoriously difficult to properly adapt into movie form, but I think that Denis Villeneuve did a great job. The problem…is HBO Max. The movie got released in Europe and around the world first before it was released here, so it managed to do alright overseas so far, but the real test comes from US audiences. Are US audiences willing to go see this movie in theaters rather than at home on HBO Max? Now, I’ve been hearing that Denis Villeneuve and the head honcho of Warner Bros. are going to greenlight Dune Part 2, but ultimately, that’s going to depend on how well this movie does in the box office. I seriously doubt that it’s going to hit 100 million dollars in its opening weekend, despite the fact that the theater I was in was packed. It’s clear that people want to see this movie, but the question of whether or not there enough people is up in the air right now.
Dune was a movie that should’ve been shot back-to-back with Part 2 following up in 2022, but if Part 2 DOES get the go-ahead, the soonest we could see it is 2023-2024. Because of that, I can’t forgive Warner Bros. for what they’ve done to this movie, all for the sake of getting more subscribers. It’s bad business. But aside from that, I absolutely recommend people to go see this movie on the biggest screen possible, because the scale of the film makes it that more impressive. Outstanding acting, visuals, and epic storytelling make Denis Villeneuve’s Dune a truly special experience. He’s done it again, and I’m hoping he can really hammer it home with Part 2, if and when it happens.